1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
6 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
7 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
9 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
14 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
18 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
19 @c the preceding @set.
21 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
23 @dircategory Network Applications
25 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
29 This file documents the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
32 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
33 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
34 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
37 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
38 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
39 are preserved on all copies.
43 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
44 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
45 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
46 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
48 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
49 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
50 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
51 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
52 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
53 Documentation License''.
58 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
59 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
60 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
61 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
65 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
66 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
69 This is @strong{not} the complete manual for GNU Wget.
70 For more complete information, including more detailed explanations of
71 some of the options, and a number of commands available
72 for use with @file{.wgetrc} files and the @samp{-e} option, see the GNU
73 Info entry for @file{wget}.
78 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
86 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
92 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
93 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
94 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
95 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
96 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
97 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
98 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
99 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
100 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
101 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
102 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
110 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
111 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
112 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
113 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
116 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
120 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
121 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
122 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
123 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
124 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
125 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
130 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
134 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
135 Wget can follow links in @sc{html}, @sc{xhtml}, and @sc{css} pages, to
136 create local versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the
137 directory structure of the original site. This is sometimes referred to
138 as ``recursive downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot
139 Exclusion Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to
140 convert the links in downloaded files to point at the local files, for
145 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
146 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
147 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
148 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
149 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
150 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
155 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
159 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
160 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
161 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
162 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
163 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
164 download from where it left off.
168 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
169 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. Wget uses the passive
170 @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp} being an option.
173 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
174 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
175 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
176 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
179 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
180 (@pxref{Following Links}).
183 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
184 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
185 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
186 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
187 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
190 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
191 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
192 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
193 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
198 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
199 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
208 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
209 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
210 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
211 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
221 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
224 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
225 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
229 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
230 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
232 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
233 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
234 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
240 * Basic Startup Options::
241 * Logging and Input File Options::
243 * Directory Options::
245 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
247 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
248 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
256 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
257 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
258 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
259 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
263 http://host[:port]/directory/file
264 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
267 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
270 ftp://user:password@@host/path
271 http://user:password@@host/path
274 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
275 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
276 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
277 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
278 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
279 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
282 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
283 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
284 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
285 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
286 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
287 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
289 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
290 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
291 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
292 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
293 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
296 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
297 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
298 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
299 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
300 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
301 for text files. Here is an example:
304 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
307 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
308 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
310 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
315 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
320 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
321 supported in the future.
323 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
324 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
325 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
330 @section Option Syntax
331 @cindex option syntax
332 @cindex syntax of options
334 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
335 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
336 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
337 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
338 arguments. Thus you may write:
341 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
344 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
345 be omitted. Instead of @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
347 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
354 This is a complete equivalent of:
357 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
360 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
361 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
362 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
368 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
369 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
370 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
371 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
372 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
373 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
374 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
377 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
380 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
381 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
382 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
383 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
384 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
385 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
386 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
389 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
390 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
391 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
392 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
394 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
395 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
396 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
397 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
398 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
399 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
400 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
401 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
402 default from the command line.
404 @node Basic Startup Options
405 @section Basic Startup Options
410 Display the version of Wget.
414 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
418 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
419 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
421 @cindex execute wgetrc command
422 @item -e @var{command}
423 @itemx --execute @var{command}
424 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
425 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
426 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
427 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
428 instances of @samp{-e}.
432 @node Logging and Input File Options
433 @section Logging and Input File Options
438 @item -o @var{logfile}
439 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
440 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
443 @cindex append to log
444 @item -a @var{logfile}
445 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
446 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
447 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
448 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
453 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
454 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
455 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
456 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
457 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
458 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
459 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
465 Turn off Wget's output.
470 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
475 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
476 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
481 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
482 Read @sc{url}s from a local or external @var{file}. If @samp{-} is
483 specified as @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input.
484 (Use @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
486 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
487 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
488 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
489 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
490 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
493 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
494 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
495 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
496 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
497 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
499 If the @var{file} is an external one, the document will be automatically
500 treated as @samp{html} if the Content-Type matches @samp{text/html}.
501 Furthermore, the @var{file}'s location will be implicitly used as base
502 href if none was specified.
507 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
508 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
509 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
510 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
513 @cindex base for relative links in input file
515 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
516 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
517 the @samp{-i} option.
520 @node Download Options
521 @section Download Options
525 @cindex client IP address
526 @cindex IP address, client
527 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
528 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
529 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
530 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
535 @cindex number of retries
536 @item -t @var{number}
537 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
538 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
539 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
540 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
541 which are not retried.
544 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
545 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
546 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
547 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
548 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
549 literally named @samp{-}.)
551 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
552 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
553 analogous to shell redirection:
554 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
555 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
556 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
558 For this reason, @samp{-N} (for timestamp-checking) is not supported
559 in combination with @samp{-O}: since @var{file} is always newly
560 created, it will always have a very new timestamp. A warning will be
561 issued if this combination is used.
563 Similarly, using @samp{-r} or @samp{-p} with @samp{-O} may not work as
564 you expect: Wget won't just download the first file to @var{file} and
565 then download the rest to their normal names: @emph{all} downloaded
566 content will be placed in @var{file}. This was disabled in version
567 1.11, but has been reinstated (with a warning) in 1.11.2, as there are
568 some cases where this behavior can actually have some use.
570 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
571 downloading a single document, as in that case it will just convert
572 all relative URIs to external ones; @samp{-k} makes no sense for
573 multiple URIs when they're all being downloaded to a single file.
575 @cindex clobbering, file
576 @cindex downloading multiple times
580 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
581 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
582 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
583 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
585 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or @samp{p},
586 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
587 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
588 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
589 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
590 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
591 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
592 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
593 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
594 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
597 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N}
598 or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the new copy
599 simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this
600 behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved and any
601 newer copies on the server to be ignored.
603 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
604 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
605 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
606 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
607 same time as @samp{-N}.
609 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
610 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
611 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
613 @cindex continue retrieval
614 @cindex incomplete downloads
615 @cindex resume download
618 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
619 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
620 by another program. For instance:
623 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
626 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
627 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
628 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
629 length of the local file.
631 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
632 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
633 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
634 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
635 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
637 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
638 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
641 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
642 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
643 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
644 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
645 start from scratch, remove the file.
647 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
648 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
649 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
650 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
651 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
652 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
654 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
655 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
656 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
657 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
658 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
659 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
660 collection or log file.
662 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
663 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
664 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
665 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
666 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
667 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
669 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
670 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
671 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
672 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
674 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
675 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
681 Turn on internationalized URI (IRI) support. Use @samp{--iri=no} to
682 turn it off. IRI support is activated by default.
684 You can set the default state of IRI support using @code{iri} command in
685 @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the command line.
687 @cindex local encoding
689 @item --locale=@var{encoding}
691 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default system encoding. That affects
692 how Wget converts URLs specified as arguments from locale to @sc{utf-8} for
695 Wget use the function @code{nl_langinfo()} and then the @code{CHARSET}
696 environment variable to get the locale. If it fails, @sc{ascii} is used.
698 You can set the default locale using the @code{locale} command in
699 @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the command line.
701 @cindex progress indicator
703 @item --progress=@var{type}
704 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
705 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
707 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
708 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
709 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
712 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
713 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
714 fixed amount of downloaded data.
716 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
717 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
718 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
719 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
720 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
721 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
722 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
723 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
724 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
726 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
727 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
728 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
729 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
730 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
732 @cindex remote encoding
733 @item --remote-encoding=@var{encoding}
735 Force Wget to use encoding as the default remote server encoding. That
736 affects how Wget converts URIs found in files from remote encoding to
737 @sc{utf-8} during a recursive fetch. This options is only useful for
738 IRI support, for the interpretation of non-@sc{ascii} characters.
740 For HTTP, remote encoding can be found in HTTP @code{Content-Type}
741 header and in HTML @code{Content-Type http-equiv} meta tag.
743 You can set the default encoding using the @code{remoteencoding}
744 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
748 @itemx --timestamping
749 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
751 @cindex server response, print
753 @itemx --server-response
754 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
757 @cindex Wget as spider
760 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
761 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
762 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
765 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
768 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
769 functionality of real web spiders.
773 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
774 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
775 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
776 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
778 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
779 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
780 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
781 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
782 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
783 change the default timeout settings.
785 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
786 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
787 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
788 server response times or for testing network latency.
792 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
793 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
794 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
795 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
798 @cindex connect timeout
799 @cindex timeout, connect
800 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
801 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
802 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
803 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
806 @cindex timeout, read
807 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
808 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
809 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
810 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
811 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
812 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
814 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
815 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
818 @cindex bandwidth, limit
820 @cindex limit bandwidth
821 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
822 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
823 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
824 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
825 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
826 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
828 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
829 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
832 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
833 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
834 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
835 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
836 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
837 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
841 @item -w @var{seconds}
842 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
843 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
844 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
845 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
846 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
847 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
849 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
850 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
851 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
852 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
853 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
855 @cindex retries, waiting between
856 @cindex waiting between retries
857 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
858 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
859 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
860 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
861 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
862 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
863 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
866 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
872 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
873 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
874 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
875 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
876 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
877 presence from such analysis.
879 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
880 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
881 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
882 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
885 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
886 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
891 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
895 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
900 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
901 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
902 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
903 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
905 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
906 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
907 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
908 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
909 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
910 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
911 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
913 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
916 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
918 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
919 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
920 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
921 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
924 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
925 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
926 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
927 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
928 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
929 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
930 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
933 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
936 @cindex file names, restrict
937 @cindex Windows file names
938 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
939 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
940 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
941 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
942 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
945 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
946 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
947 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
948 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
949 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
951 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
952 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
953 default on Unix-like OS'es.
955 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
956 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
957 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
958 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
959 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
960 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
961 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
962 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
963 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
964 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
966 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
967 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
968 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
969 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
970 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
977 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
978 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
979 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
980 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
981 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
983 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
984 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
985 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
986 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
987 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
989 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
990 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
991 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
992 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
993 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
996 @item --prefer-family=none/IPv4/IPv6
997 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
998 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
999 DNS is used without change by default.
1001 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
1002 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
1003 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
1004 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
1005 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
1006 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
1007 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
1008 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
1010 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
1011 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
1012 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
1013 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
1014 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
1015 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
1017 @item --retry-connrefused
1018 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
1019 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
1020 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
1021 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
1022 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
1023 short periods of time.
1027 @cindex authentication
1028 @item --user=@var{user}
1029 @itemx --password=@var{password}
1030 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
1031 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
1032 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
1033 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
1034 options for @sc{http} connections.
1036 @item --ask-password
1037 Prompt for a password for each connection established. Cannot be specified
1038 when @samp{--password} is being used, because they are mutually exclusive.
1041 @node Directory Options
1042 @section Directory Options
1046 @itemx --no-directories
1047 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
1048 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
1049 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
1050 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
1053 @itemx --force-directories
1054 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
1055 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
1056 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1057 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1060 @itemx --no-host-directories
1061 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1062 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1063 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1066 @item --protocol-directories
1067 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1068 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1069 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1071 @cindex cut directories
1072 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1073 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1074 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1077 Take, for example, the directory at
1078 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1079 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1080 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1081 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1082 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1083 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1084 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1088 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1090 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1091 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1093 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1098 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1099 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1100 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1101 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1102 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1104 @cindex directory prefix
1105 @item -P @var{prefix}
1106 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1107 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1108 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1109 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1114 @section HTTP Options
1117 @cindex default page name
1119 @item --default-page=@var{name}
1120 Use @var{name} as the default file name when it isn't known (i.e., for
1121 URLs that end in a slash), instead of @file{index.html}.
1123 @cindex .html extension
1125 @itemx --html-extension
1126 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1127 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1128 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1129 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1130 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1131 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1132 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1133 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1134 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1136 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1137 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1138 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1139 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1140 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1141 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1142 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1143 Retrieval Options}).
1145 As of version 1.12, Wget will also ensure that any downloaded files of
1146 type @samp{text/css} end in the suffix @samp{.css}. Obviously, this
1147 makes the name @samp{--html-extension} misleading; a better name is
1148 expected to be offered as an alternative in the near future.
1151 @cindex http password
1152 @cindex authentication
1153 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1154 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1155 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1156 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1157 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1158 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1160 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1161 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1162 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1163 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1164 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1165 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1166 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1169 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1176 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1177 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1178 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1179 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1180 documents on proxy servers.
1182 Caching is allowed by default.
1186 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1187 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1188 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1189 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1190 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1191 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1192 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1194 @cindex loading cookies
1195 @cindex cookies, loading
1196 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1197 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1198 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1199 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1201 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1202 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1203 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1204 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1205 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1206 proves your identity.
1208 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1209 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1210 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1211 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1212 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1213 cookie files in different locations:
1217 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1219 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1220 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1221 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1222 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1223 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1225 @item Internet Explorer.
1226 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1227 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1228 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1230 @item Other browsers.
1231 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1232 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1233 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1236 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1237 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1238 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1239 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1240 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1243 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1246 @cindex saving cookies
1247 @cindex cookies, saving
1248 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1249 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1250 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1251 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1253 @cindex cookies, session
1254 @cindex session cookies
1255 @item --keep-session-cookies
1256 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1257 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1258 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1259 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1260 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1261 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1262 the site is concerned.
1264 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1265 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1266 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1267 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1268 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1269 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1270 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1272 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1273 @cindex ignore length
1274 @item --ignore-length
1275 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1276 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1277 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1278 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1279 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1282 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1283 if it never existed.
1286 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1287 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1288 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1289 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1292 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1293 @samp{--header} more than once.
1297 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1298 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1299 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1303 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1304 previous user-defined headers.
1306 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1307 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1308 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1311 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1314 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1315 sending of duplicate headers.
1318 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1319 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1320 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1321 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1325 @cindex proxy password
1326 @cindex proxy authentication
1327 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1328 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1329 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1330 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1331 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1333 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1334 pertain here as well.
1336 @cindex http referer
1337 @cindex referer, http
1338 @item --referer=@var{url}
1339 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1340 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1341 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1342 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1344 @cindex server response, save
1345 @item --save-headers
1346 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1347 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1350 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1351 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1352 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1354 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1355 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1356 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1357 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1358 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1361 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1362 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1363 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1364 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1365 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1366 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1367 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1370 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1371 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1374 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1375 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1376 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1377 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1378 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1379 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1381 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1382 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1383 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1384 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1385 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1386 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1387 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1388 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1389 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1391 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1392 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1393 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1394 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1395 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1396 be changed in the future.
1398 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1399 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1404 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1405 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1406 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1407 http://server.com/auth.php
1409 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1410 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1411 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1415 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1416 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1417 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1418 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1419 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1421 @cindex Content-Disposition
1422 @item --content-disposition
1424 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
1425 @code{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
1426 extra round-trips to the server for a @code{HEAD} request, and is known
1427 to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by default.
1429 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
1430 @code{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
1431 downloaded file should be.
1433 @cindex authentication
1434 @item --auth-no-challenge
1436 If this option is given, Wget will send Basic HTTP authentication
1437 information (plaintext username and password) for all requests, just
1438 like Wget 1.10.2 and prior did by default.
1440 Use of this option is not recommended, and is intended only to support
1441 some few obscure servers, which never send HTTP authentication
1442 challenges, but accept unsolicited auth info, say, in addition to
1443 form-based authentication.
1447 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1448 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1451 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1452 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1453 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1456 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1457 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1458 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1459 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1460 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1461 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1462 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1464 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1465 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1466 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1467 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1470 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1471 @item --no-check-certificate
1472 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1473 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1474 name presented by the certificate.
1476 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1477 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1478 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1479 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1480 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1481 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1482 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1483 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1484 and allows you to proceed.
1486 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1487 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1488 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1489 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1490 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1491 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1492 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1494 @cindex SSL certificate
1495 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1496 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1497 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1498 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1501 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1502 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1503 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1504 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1507 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1508 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1509 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1511 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1512 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1513 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1515 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1516 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1517 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1519 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1520 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1522 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1523 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1524 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1525 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1526 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1527 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1528 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1529 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1530 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1532 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1533 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1535 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1536 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1537 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1538 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1539 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1541 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1542 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1543 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1544 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1545 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1546 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1549 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1550 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1554 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1555 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1556 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1557 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1558 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1559 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1560 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1562 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1563 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1564 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1565 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1567 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1568 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1569 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1573 @section FTP Options
1577 @cindex ftp password
1578 @cindex ftp authentication
1579 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1580 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1581 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1582 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1583 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1586 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1587 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1588 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1589 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1590 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1591 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1592 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1595 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1599 @cindex .listing files, removing
1600 @item --no-remove-listing
1601 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1602 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1603 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1604 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1605 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1606 you're running is complete).
1608 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1609 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1610 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1611 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1612 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1613 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1614 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1615 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1616 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1618 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1619 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1620 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1621 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1622 will be overwritten.
1624 @cindex globbing, toggle
1626 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1627 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1628 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1632 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1635 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1636 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1639 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1640 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1641 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1642 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1645 @item --no-passive-ftp
1646 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1647 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1648 connection rather than the other way around.
1650 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1651 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1652 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1653 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1654 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1655 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1657 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1658 @item --retr-symlinks
1659 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1660 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1661 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1662 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1663 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1665 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1666 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1667 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1668 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1671 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1672 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1673 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1676 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1677 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1678 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1679 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1680 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1681 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1682 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1683 the load on the server.
1685 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1686 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1687 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1690 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1691 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1696 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1699 @item -l @var{depth}
1700 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1701 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1702 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1704 @cindex proxy filling
1705 @cindex delete after retrieval
1706 @cindex filling proxy cache
1707 @item --delete-after
1708 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1709 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1710 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1713 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1716 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1719 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1720 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1721 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1722 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1723 created in the first place.
1725 @cindex conversion of links
1726 @cindex link conversion
1728 @itemx --convert-links
1729 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1730 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1731 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1732 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1735 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1739 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1740 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1742 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1743 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1744 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1745 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1748 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1749 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1751 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1752 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1753 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1754 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1757 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1758 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1759 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1760 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1761 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1764 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1765 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1766 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1768 @cindex backing up converted files
1770 @itemx --backup-converted
1771 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1772 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1777 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1778 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1779 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1780 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1782 @cindex page requisites
1783 @cindex required images, downloading
1785 @itemx --page-requisites
1786 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1787 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1788 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1790 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1791 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1792 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1793 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1794 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1797 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1798 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1799 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1800 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1801 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1803 If one executes the command:
1806 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1809 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1810 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1811 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1812 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1813 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1816 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1819 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1820 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1823 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1826 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1827 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1830 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1833 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1834 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1835 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1836 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1837 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1838 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1841 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1844 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1845 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1846 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1847 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1848 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1849 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1852 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1855 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1856 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1857 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1860 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1861 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1862 @item --strict-comments
1863 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1864 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1866 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1867 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1868 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1869 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1870 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1871 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1872 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1874 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1875 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1876 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1877 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1878 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1879 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1880 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1881 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1882 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1884 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1885 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1886 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1887 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1888 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1891 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1892 option to turn it on.
1895 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1896 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1899 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1900 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1901 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1902 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
1903 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1904 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1905 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1907 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1908 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1909 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1910 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1912 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1913 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1914 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1916 @cindex follow FTP links
1918 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1919 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1921 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1922 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1923 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1924 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1925 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1926 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1927 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1929 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1930 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1931 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1932 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1934 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1935 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1938 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1941 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1942 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1943 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1944 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1945 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1946 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1951 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1952 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1953 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1954 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1955 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1959 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1960 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1964 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1965 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1966 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1969 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1970 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1971 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
1972 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1975 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1976 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1977 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
1978 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1982 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1983 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1984 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1985 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1990 @node Recursive Download
1991 @chapter Recursive Download
1994 @cindex recursive download
1996 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1997 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1998 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
2000 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} or
2001 @sc{css} from the given @sc{url}, retrieving the files the document
2002 refers to, through markup like @code{href} or @code{src}, or @sc{css}
2003 @sc{uri} values specified using the @samp{url()} functional notation.
2004 If the freshly downloaded file is also of type @code{text/html},
2005 @code{application/xhtml+xml}, or @code{text/css}, it will be parsed
2006 and followed further.
2008 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html}/@sc{css} content is
2009 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
2010 document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
2011 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
2012 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
2013 until the specified maximum depth.
2015 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
2016 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
2018 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
2019 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
2020 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
2021 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
2022 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
2025 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
2026 the one found on the remote server.
2028 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
2029 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
2030 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
2031 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
2033 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
2034 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
2035 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
2036 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
2037 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
2038 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
2039 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
2041 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
2042 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
2043 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
2044 consume memory and CPU.
2046 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
2047 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
2048 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
2049 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
2050 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
2051 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
2052 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
2055 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
2058 @node Following Links
2059 @chapter Following Links
2061 @cindex following links
2063 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
2064 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
2065 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
2067 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
2068 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
2069 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
2071 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
2072 links it will follow.
2075 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
2076 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
2077 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
2078 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
2079 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
2082 @node Spanning Hosts
2083 @section Spanning Hosts
2084 @cindex spanning hosts
2085 @cindex hosts, spanning
2087 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
2088 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2089 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2090 your Wget into a small version of google.
2092 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2093 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2094 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2095 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2096 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2099 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2101 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2102 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2103 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2104 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2105 up much more data than you have intended.
2107 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2109 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2110 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2111 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2112 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2113 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2114 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2117 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2120 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2121 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2123 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2125 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2126 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2127 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2128 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2129 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2133 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2139 @node Types of Files
2140 @section Types of Files
2141 @cindex types of files
2143 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2144 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2145 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2146 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2148 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2149 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2152 @cindex accept wildcards
2153 @cindex accept suffixes
2154 @cindex wildcards, accept
2155 @cindex suffixes, accept
2157 @item -A @var{acclist}
2158 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2159 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2160 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2161 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2162 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2163 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2164 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2166 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2167 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2168 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2169 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2170 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2171 a description of how pattern matching works.
2173 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2174 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2176 @cindex reject wildcards
2177 @cindex reject suffixes
2178 @cindex wildcards, reject
2179 @cindex suffixes, reject
2180 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2181 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2182 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2183 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2184 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2185 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2187 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2188 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2189 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2190 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2191 expansion by the shell.
2195 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2196 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2197 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2198 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2200 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2201 files (as determined by a @samp{.htm} or @samp{.html} filename
2202 prefix). This behavior may not be desirable for all users, and may be
2203 changed for future versions of Wget.
2205 Note, too, that query strings (strings at the end of a URL beginning
2206 with a question mark (@samp{?}) are not included as part of the
2207 filename for accept/reject rules, even though these will actually
2208 contribute to the name chosen for the local file. It is expected that
2209 a future version of Wget will provide an option to allow matching
2210 against query strings.
2212 Finally, it's worth noting that the accept/reject lists are matched
2213 @emph{twice} against downloaded files: once against the URL's filename
2214 portion, to determine if the file should be downloaded in the first
2215 place; then, after it has been accepted and successfully downloaded,
2216 the local file's name is also checked against the accept/reject lists
2217 to see if it should be removed. The rationale was that, since
2218 @samp{.htm} and @samp{.html} files are always downloaded regardless of
2219 accept/reject rules, they should be removed @emph{after} being
2220 downloaded and scanned for links, if they did match the accept/reject
2221 lists. However, this can lead to unexpected results, since the local
2222 filenames can differ from the original URL filenames in the following
2223 ways, all of which can change whether an accept/reject rule matches:
2227 If the local file already exists and @samp{--no-directories} was
2228 specified, a numeric suffix will be appended to the original name.
2230 If @samp{--html-extension} was specified, the local filename will have
2231 @samp{.html} appended to it. If Wget is invoked with @samp{-E -A.php},
2232 a filename such as @samp{index.php} will match be accepted, but upon
2233 download will be named @samp{index.php.html}, which no longer matches,
2234 and so the file will be deleted.
2236 Query strings do not contribute to URL matching, but are included in
2237 local filenames, and so @emph{do} contribute to filename matching.
2241 This behavior, too, is considered less-than-desirable, and may change
2242 in a future version of Wget.
2244 @node Directory-Based Limits
2245 @section Directory-Based Limits
2247 @cindex directory limits
2249 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2250 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2251 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2252 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2253 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2254 @file{/dev} directories.
2256 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2257 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2258 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2260 @cindex directories, include
2261 @cindex include directories
2262 @cindex accept directories
2265 @itemx --include @var{list}
2266 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2267 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2268 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2269 directories are absolute paths.
2271 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2272 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2273 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2276 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2279 @cindex directories, exclude
2280 @cindex exclude directories
2281 @cindex reject directories
2283 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2284 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2285 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2286 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2287 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2288 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2290 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2291 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2292 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2293 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2298 @itemx no_parent = on
2299 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2300 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2301 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2302 parent directory/directories.
2304 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2305 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2306 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2309 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2312 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2313 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2314 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2315 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2316 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2317 intelligent fashion.
2319 @strong{Note} that, for HTTP (and HTTPS), the trailing slash is very
2320 important to @samp{--no-parent}. HTTP has no concept of a ``directory''---Wget
2321 relies on you to indicate what's a directory and what isn't. In
2322 @samp{http://foo/bar/}, Wget will consider @samp{bar} to be a
2323 directory, while in @samp{http://foo/bar} (no trailing slash),
2324 @samp{bar} will be considered a filename (so @samp{--no-parent} would be
2325 meaningless, as its parent is @samp{/}).
2328 @node Relative Links
2329 @section Relative Links
2330 @cindex relative links
2332 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2333 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2334 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2338 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2339 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2342 These links are not relative:
2346 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2347 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2350 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2351 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2352 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2354 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2358 @section Following FTP Links
2359 @cindex following ftp links
2361 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2362 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2363 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2366 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2367 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2368 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2369 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2370 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2371 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2372 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2374 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2375 retrieved recursively further.
2378 @chapter Time-Stamping
2379 @cindex time-stamping
2380 @cindex timestamping
2381 @cindex updating the archives
2382 @cindex incremental updating
2384 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2385 Internet is updating your archives.
2387 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2388 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2389 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2390 offer the option of incremental updating.
2392 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2393 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2394 the place of the old ones.
2396 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2400 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2403 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2404 recently than the local file.
2407 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2408 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2409 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2411 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2412 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2413 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2414 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2415 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2417 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2418 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2422 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2423 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2424 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2427 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2428 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2429 @cindex time-stamping usage
2430 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2432 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2433 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2436 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2439 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2440 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2441 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2442 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2444 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2445 changed, and download it if it has.
2448 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2451 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2452 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2453 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2454 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2456 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2459 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2462 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2463 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2465 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2466 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2467 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2468 since the last download.
2470 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2471 command like the following, weekly:
2474 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2477 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2478 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2479 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2480 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2481 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2483 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2484 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2485 @cindex http time-stamping
2487 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2488 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2489 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2490 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2491 retrieved unconditionally.
2493 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2494 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2495 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2498 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2499 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2500 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2501 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2502 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2503 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2506 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2507 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2508 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2509 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2510 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2512 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2513 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2515 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2516 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2517 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2519 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2520 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2523 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2524 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2525 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2526 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2527 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2528 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2529 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2530 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2532 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2533 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2534 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2535 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2536 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2537 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2539 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2540 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2541 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2542 Wget may support this command in the future.
2545 @chapter Startup File
2546 @cindex startup file
2552 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2553 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2554 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2555 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2557 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2558 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2559 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2560 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2562 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2566 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2567 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2568 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2569 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2572 @node Wgetrc Location
2573 @section Wgetrc Location
2574 @cindex wgetrc location
2575 @cindex location of wgetrc
2577 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2578 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2579 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2580 from there, if it exists.
2582 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2583 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2584 further attempts will be made.
2586 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2588 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2589 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2590 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2591 Fascist admins, away!
2594 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2595 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2596 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2598 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2604 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2605 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2607 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2608 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2609 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2612 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2613 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2614 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2620 @node Wgetrc Commands
2621 @section Wgetrc Commands
2622 @cindex wgetrc commands
2624 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2625 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2626 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2628 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2629 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2630 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2631 values can be any non-empty string.
2633 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2634 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2635 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2638 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2639 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2641 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2642 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2644 @item background = on/off
2645 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2648 @item backup_converted = on/off
2649 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2650 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2652 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2653 @c #### Document me!
2655 @item base = @var{string}
2656 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2657 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2658 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2660 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2661 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2663 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2664 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2665 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2667 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2668 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2669 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2671 @item cache = on/off
2672 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2675 @item certificate = @var{file}
2676 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2677 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2679 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2680 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2681 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2682 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2684 @item check_certificate = on/off
2685 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2686 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2687 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2689 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2690 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2692 @item content_disposition = on/off
2693 Turn on recognition of the (non-standard) @samp{Content-Disposition}
2694 HTTP header---if set to @samp{on}, the same as @samp{--content-disposition}.
2696 @item continue = on/off
2697 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2698 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2700 @item convert_links = on/off
2701 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2703 @item cookies = on/off
2704 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2706 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2707 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2708 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2710 @item debug = on/off
2711 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2713 @item delete_after = on/off
2714 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2716 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2717 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2719 @item dirstruct = on/off
2720 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2723 @item dns_cache = on/off
2724 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2725 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2726 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2728 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2729 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2731 @item domains = @var{string}
2732 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2734 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2735 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2736 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2737 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2738 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2739 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2740 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2742 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2743 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2745 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2746 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2747 the retrieval (50 by default).
2749 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2750 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2751 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2753 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2754 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2755 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2758 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2759 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2762 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2763 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2764 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2766 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2767 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2768 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2770 @item force_html = on/off
2771 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2772 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2774 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2775 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2776 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2777 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2779 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2781 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2782 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2785 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2786 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2788 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2791 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2793 @item header = @var{string}
2794 Define a header for HTTP downloads, like using
2795 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2797 @item html_extension = on/off
2798 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2799 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, or a @samp{.css}
2800 extension to @samp{text/css} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2802 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2803 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2804 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2806 @item http_password = @var{string}
2807 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2808 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2810 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2811 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2814 @item http_user = @var{string}
2815 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2816 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2818 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2819 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2822 @item ignore_case = on/off
2823 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2824 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2826 @item ignore_length = on/off
2827 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2828 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2830 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2831 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2832 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2834 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2835 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2836 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2838 @item inet4_only = on/off
2839 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2840 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2841 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2842 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2844 @item inet6_only = on/off
2845 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2846 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2849 @item input = @var{file}
2850 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2852 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2853 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2854 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2856 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2857 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2859 @item logfile = @var{file}
2860 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2862 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
2863 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
2864 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
2866 @item mirror = on/off
2867 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2869 @item netrc = on/off
2870 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2872 @item no_clobber = on/off
2875 @item no_parent = on/off
2876 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2877 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2879 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2880 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2881 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2883 @item output_document = @var{file}
2884 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2886 @item page_requisites = on/off
2887 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2888 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2890 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2891 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2892 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2894 @itemx password = @var{string}
2895 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2896 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2897 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2899 @item post_data = @var{string}
2900 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2901 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2903 @item post_file = @var{file}
2904 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2905 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2906 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2908 @item prefer_family = none/IPv4/IPv6
2909 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2910 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
2911 DNS is used without change by default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family},
2912 which see for a detailed discussion of why this is useful.
2914 @item private_key = @var{file}
2915 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2916 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2918 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2919 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2920 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2921 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2923 @item progress = @var{string}
2924 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2925 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2927 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2928 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2929 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2931 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2932 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2933 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2935 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2936 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2937 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2939 @item quiet = on/off
2940 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2942 @item quota = @var{quota}
2943 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2944 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2945 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2946 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2947 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2948 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2951 @item random_file = @var{file}
2952 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2955 @item random_wait = on/off
2956 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2957 @samp{--random-wait}.
2959 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2960 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2961 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2963 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2964 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2966 @item recursive = on/off
2967 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2969 @item referer = @var{string}
2970 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2971 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
2972 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2974 @item relative_only = on/off
2975 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2978 @item remove_listing = on/off
2979 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2980 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2982 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2983 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2984 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2986 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2987 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2988 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2990 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2991 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2992 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2994 @item robots = on/off
2995 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2996 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2997 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2998 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
3001 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
3002 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
3005 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
3006 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
3007 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
3008 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
3010 @item server_response = on/off
3011 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
3012 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
3014 @item span_hosts = on/off
3017 @item strict_comments = on/off
3018 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
3020 @item timeout = @var{n}
3021 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
3024 @item timestamping = on/off
3025 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
3027 @item tries = @var{n}
3028 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
3030 @item use_proxy = on/off
3031 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
3032 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
3035 @item user = @var{string}
3036 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
3037 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
3038 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
3040 @item verbose = on/off
3041 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
3043 @item wait = @var{n}
3044 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
3047 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
3048 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
3049 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
3050 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
3054 @section Sample Wgetrc
3055 @cindex sample wgetrc
3057 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
3058 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
3059 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
3060 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
3062 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
3063 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
3067 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
3074 @c man begin EXAMPLES
3075 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
3079 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
3080 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
3081 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
3085 @section Simple Usage
3089 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
3092 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
3096 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
3097 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
3098 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
3099 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
3100 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
3101 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
3104 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
3108 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
3109 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
3110 shall use @samp{-t}.
3113 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
3116 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
3117 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
3120 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
3124 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
3128 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
3129 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
3132 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3137 @node Advanced Usage
3138 @section Advanced Usage
3142 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3149 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3153 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3154 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3155 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3158 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3162 The same as the above, but convert the links in the downloaded files to
3163 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3166 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3170 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3171 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3172 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3173 references the downloaded links.
3176 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3179 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3180 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3181 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3184 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3185 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3186 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3187 subdirectory of the current directory.
3190 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3191 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3195 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3199 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3203 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3206 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3211 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3215 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3219 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3220 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3221 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3225 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3228 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3229 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3230 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3231 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3232 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3236 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3237 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3241 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3245 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3246 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3249 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3252 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3253 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3256 @cindex redirecting output
3258 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3262 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3265 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3266 documents from remote hotlists:
3269 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3273 @node Very Advanced Usage
3274 @section Very Advanced Usage
3279 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3280 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3281 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3282 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3286 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3290 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3291 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3292 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3293 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3294 would look like this:
3297 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3298 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3302 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3303 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3304 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3305 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3306 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3309 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3310 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3314 Or, with less typing:
3317 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3326 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3329 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3330 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3331 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3332 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3333 * Internet Relay Chat:: Wget's presence on IRC.
3334 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3335 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3336 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3343 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3344 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3345 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3346 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3347 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3348 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3349 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3350 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3351 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3352 using an authorized proxy.
3354 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3355 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3356 the following environment variables:
3361 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3362 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3363 connections respectively.
3366 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3367 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3368 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3371 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3372 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3373 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3377 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3378 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3382 @itemx proxy = on/off
3383 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3384 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3386 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3387 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3388 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3389 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3390 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3391 specified by the environment.
3394 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3395 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3396 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3397 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3398 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3400 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3401 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3402 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3403 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3407 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3410 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3411 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3412 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3413 username and password.
3416 @section Distribution
3417 @cindex latest version
3419 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3420 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3421 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3422 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3428 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3429 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3430 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3431 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3434 @section Mailing List
3435 @cindex mailing list
3438 There are several Wget-related mailing lists. The general discussion
3439 list is at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for
3440 support requests and suggestions, as well as for discussion of
3441 development. You are invited to subscribe.
3443 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3444 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3445 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3446 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3447 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3449 Another mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3450 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3451 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3452 humans and programs. The
3453 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/PatchGuidelines} page
3454 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3455 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3456 only for patch submissions.
3458 Subscription is the same as above for @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, except
3459 that you send to @email{wget-patches-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}, instead.
3460 The mailing list is archived at
3461 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3463 Finally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3464 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives bug report-change
3465 notifications from the bug-tracker. Unlike for the other mailing lists,
3466 subscription is through the @code{mailman} interface at
3467 @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3469 @node Internet Relay Chat
3470 @section Internet Relay Chat
3471 @cindex Internet Relay Chat
3475 In addition to the mailinglists, we also have a support channel set up
3476 via IRC at @code{irc.freenode.org}, @code{#wget}. Come check it out!
3478 @node Reporting Bugs
3479 @section Reporting Bugs
3481 @cindex reporting bugs
3485 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3486 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3488 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3493 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3494 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3495 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3496 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3497 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3501 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3502 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 --no-proxy
3503 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3504 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3505 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3506 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3508 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3509 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3510 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3511 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3512 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3516 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3517 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3518 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3519 with debug support on.
3521 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3522 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3523 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3524 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3525 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3526 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3527 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3530 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3531 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3532 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3538 @section Portability
3540 @cindex operating systems
3542 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3543 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3544 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3545 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3547 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3548 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3549 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3550 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3551 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3552 system, we would like to know about it.
3554 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3555 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3556 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3557 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3558 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3559 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3560 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3561 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3562 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3563 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3564 Windows-related features might look at them.
3566 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3567 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3568 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3572 @cindex signal handling
3575 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3576 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3577 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3578 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3579 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3582 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3585 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3588 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3589 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3594 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3597 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3598 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3599 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3602 @node Robot Exclusion
3603 @section Robot Exclusion
3604 @cindex robot exclusion
3606 @cindex server maintenance
3608 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3609 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3610 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3612 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3613 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3614 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3615 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3616 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3617 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3618 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3619 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3620 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3621 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3622 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3623 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3625 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3626 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3627 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3628 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3629 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3630 they will permit access.
3632 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3633 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3634 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3635 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3636 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3637 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3640 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3641 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3642 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3643 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3646 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3649 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3650 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3651 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3652 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3655 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3656 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3657 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3658 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3659 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3660 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3661 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3662 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3664 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3666 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3667 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3668 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3672 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3675 This is explained in some detail at
3676 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3677 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3680 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3681 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3682 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3683 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3685 @node Security Considerations
3686 @section Security Considerations
3689 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3690 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3691 main issues, and some solutions.
3695 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3696 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3697 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3698 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3699 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3702 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3703 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3706 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3707 solution for this at the moment.
3710 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3711 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3712 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3717 @section Contributors
3718 @cindex contributors
3721 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3724 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3726 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3728 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3729 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3730 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3732 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3735 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3736 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3737 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3740 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3741 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3742 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3745 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3746 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3747 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3748 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3752 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3753 bug and build reports for many years.
3756 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3759 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3763 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3767 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3768 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3771 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3772 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3776 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3779 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3784 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3788 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3793 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3796 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3800 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3801 layout and many other things.
3804 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3808 Mauro Tortonesi---improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
3809 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
3810 Wget from 2004--2007.
3813 Christopher G.@: Lewis---maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
3816 Gisle Vanem---many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
3817 Windows and MS-DOS support.
3820 Ralf Wildenhues---contributed patches to convert Wget to use Automake as
3821 part of its build process, and various bugfixes.
3824 Steven Schubiger---Many helpful patches, bugfixes and improvements.
3825 Notably, conversion of Wget to use the Gnulib quotes and quoteargs
3826 modules, and the addition of password prompts at the console, via the
3827 Gnulib getpasswd-gnu module.
3830 Ted Mielczarek---donated support for CSS.
3833 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3836 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3837 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3838 that make maintenance so much fun:
3858 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3867 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3868 Alexander Dergachev,
3881 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3884 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3908 Madhusudan Hosaagrahara,
3912 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3931 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3944 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3945 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3946 (Simos KSenitellis),
3955 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3961 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
3970 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
4005 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
4007 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
4010 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
4012 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
4019 Steven M.@: Schweda,
4030 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
4045 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
4047 Joshua David Williams,
4058 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
4059 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
4061 @node Copying this manual
4062 @appendix Copying this manual
4065 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
4072 @unnumbered Concept Index