1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
35 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
38 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
39 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
40 are preserved on all copies.
44 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
45 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
46 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
47 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
49 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
50 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
51 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
52 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
53 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
54 Documentation License''.
59 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
60 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
61 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
62 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
66 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
67 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
70 This is @strong{not} the complete manual for GNU Wget.
71 For more complete information, including more detailed explanations of
72 some of the options, and a number of commands available
73 for use with @file{.wgetrc} files and the @samp{-e} option, see the GNU
74 Info entry for @file{wget}.
79 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
87 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
93 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
94 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
95 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
96 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
97 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
98 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
99 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
100 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
101 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
102 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
103 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
111 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
112 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
113 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
114 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
117 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
121 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
122 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
123 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
124 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
125 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
126 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
131 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
135 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
136 Wget can follow links in @sc{html}, @sc{xhtml}, and @sc{css} pages, to
137 create local versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the
138 directory structure of the original site. This is sometimes referred to
139 as ``recursive downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot
140 Exclusion Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to
141 convert the links in downloaded files to point at the local files, for
146 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
147 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
148 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
149 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
150 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
151 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
156 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
160 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
161 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
162 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
163 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
164 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
165 download from where it left off.
169 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
170 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. Wget uses the passive
171 @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp} being an option.
174 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
175 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
176 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
177 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
180 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
181 (@pxref{Following Links}).
184 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
185 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
186 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
187 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
188 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
191 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
192 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
193 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
194 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
199 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
200 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
209 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
210 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
211 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
212 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
222 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
225 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
226 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
230 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
231 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
233 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
234 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
235 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
241 * Basic Startup Options::
242 * Logging and Input File Options::
244 * Directory Options::
246 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
248 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
249 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
257 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
258 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
259 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
260 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
264 http://host[:port]/directory/file
265 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
268 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
271 ftp://user:password@@host/path
272 http://user:password@@host/path
275 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
276 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
277 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
278 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
279 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
280 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
283 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
284 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
285 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
286 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
287 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
288 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
290 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
291 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
292 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
293 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
294 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
297 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
298 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
299 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
300 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
301 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
302 for text files. Here is an example:
305 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
308 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
309 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
311 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
316 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
321 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
322 supported in the future.
324 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
325 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
326 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
331 @section Option Syntax
332 @cindex option syntax
333 @cindex syntax of options
335 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
336 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
337 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
338 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
339 arguments. Thus you may write:
342 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
345 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
346 be omitted. Instead of @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
348 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
355 This is a complete equivalent of:
358 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
361 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
362 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
363 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
369 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
370 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
371 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
372 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
373 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
374 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
375 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
378 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
381 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
382 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
383 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
384 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
385 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
386 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
387 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
390 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
391 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
392 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
393 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
395 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
396 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
397 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
398 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
399 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
400 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
401 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
402 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
403 default from the command line.
405 @node Basic Startup Options
406 @section Basic Startup Options
411 Display the version of Wget.
415 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
419 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
420 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
422 @cindex execute wgetrc command
423 @item -e @var{command}
424 @itemx --execute @var{command}
425 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
426 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
427 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
428 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
429 instances of @samp{-e}.
433 @node Logging and Input File Options
434 @section Logging and Input File Options
439 @item -o @var{logfile}
440 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
441 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
444 @cindex append to log
445 @item -a @var{logfile}
446 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
447 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
448 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
449 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
454 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
455 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
456 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
457 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
458 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
459 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
460 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
466 Turn off Wget's output.
471 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
476 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
477 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
482 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
483 Read @sc{url}s from a local or external @var{file}. If @samp{-} is
484 specified as @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input.
485 (Use @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
487 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
488 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
489 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
490 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
491 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
494 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
495 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
496 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
497 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
498 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
500 If the @var{file} is an external one, the document will be automatically
501 treated as @samp{html} if the Content-Type matches @samp{text/html}.
502 Furthermore, the @var{file}'s location will be implicitly used as base
503 href if none was specified.
508 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
509 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
510 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
511 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
514 @cindex base for relative links in input file
516 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
517 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
518 the @samp{-i} option.
521 @node Download Options
522 @section Download Options
526 @cindex client IP address
527 @cindex IP address, client
528 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
529 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
530 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
531 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
536 @cindex number of retries
537 @item -t @var{number}
538 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
539 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
540 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
541 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
542 which are not retried.
545 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
546 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
547 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
548 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
549 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
550 literally named @samp{-}.)
552 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
553 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
554 analogous to shell redirection:
555 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
556 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
557 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
559 For this reason, @samp{-N} (for timestamp-checking) is not supported
560 in combination with @samp{-O}: since @var{file} is always newly
561 created, it will always have a very new timestamp. A warning will be
562 issued if this combination is used.
564 Similarly, using @samp{-r} or @samp{-p} with @samp{-O} may not work as
565 you expect: Wget won't just download the first file to @var{file} and
566 then download the rest to their normal names: @emph{all} downloaded
567 content will be placed in @var{file}. This was disabled in version
568 1.11, but has been reinstated (with a warning) in 1.11.2, as there are
569 some cases where this behavior can actually have some use.
571 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
572 downloading a single document, as in that case it will just convert
573 all relative URIs to external ones; @samp{-k} makes no sense for
574 multiple URIs when they're all being downloaded to a single file.
576 @cindex clobbering, file
577 @cindex downloading multiple times
581 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
582 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
583 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
584 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
586 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or @samp{p},
587 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
588 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
589 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
590 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
591 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
592 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
593 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
594 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
595 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
598 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N}
599 or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the new copy
600 simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this
601 behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved and any
602 newer copies on the server to be ignored.
604 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
605 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
606 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
607 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
608 same time as @samp{-N}.
610 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
611 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
612 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
614 @cindex continue retrieval
615 @cindex incomplete downloads
616 @cindex resume download
619 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
620 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
621 by another program. For instance:
624 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
627 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
628 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
629 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
630 length of the local file.
632 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
633 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
634 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
635 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
636 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
638 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
639 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
642 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
643 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
644 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
645 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
646 start from scratch, remove the file.
648 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
649 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
650 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
651 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
652 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
653 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
655 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
656 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
657 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
658 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
659 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
660 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
661 collection or log file.
663 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
664 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
665 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
666 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
667 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
668 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
670 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
671 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
672 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
673 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
675 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
676 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
678 @cindex progress indicator
680 @item --progress=@var{type}
681 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
682 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
684 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
685 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
686 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
689 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
690 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
691 fixed amount of downloaded data.
693 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
694 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
695 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
696 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
697 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
698 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
699 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
700 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
701 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
703 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
704 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
705 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
706 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
707 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
710 @itemx --timestamping
711 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
713 @cindex server response, print
715 @itemx --server-response
716 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
719 @cindex Wget as spider
722 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
723 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
724 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
727 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
730 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
731 functionality of real web spiders.
735 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
736 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
737 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
738 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
740 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
741 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
742 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
743 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
744 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
745 change the default timeout settings.
747 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
748 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
749 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
750 server response times or for testing network latency.
754 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
755 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
756 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
757 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
760 @cindex connect timeout
761 @cindex timeout, connect
762 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
763 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
764 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
765 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
768 @cindex timeout, read
769 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
770 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
771 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
772 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
773 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
774 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
776 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
777 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
780 @cindex bandwidth, limit
782 @cindex limit bandwidth
783 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
784 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
785 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
786 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
787 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
788 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
790 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
791 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
794 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
795 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
796 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
797 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
798 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
799 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
803 @item -w @var{seconds}
804 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
805 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
806 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
807 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
808 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
809 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
811 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
812 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
813 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
814 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
815 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
817 @cindex retries, waiting between
818 @cindex waiting between retries
819 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
820 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
821 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
822 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
823 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
824 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
825 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
828 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
834 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
835 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
836 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
837 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
838 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
839 presence from such analysis.
841 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
842 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
843 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
844 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
847 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
848 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
853 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
857 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
862 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
863 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
864 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
865 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
867 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
868 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
869 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
870 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
871 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
872 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
873 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
875 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
878 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
880 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
881 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
882 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
883 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
886 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
887 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
888 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
889 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
890 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
891 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
892 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
895 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
898 @cindex file names, restrict
899 @cindex Windows file names
900 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
901 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
902 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
903 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
904 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
907 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
908 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
909 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
910 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
911 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
913 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
914 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
915 default on Unix-like OS'es.
917 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
918 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
919 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
920 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
921 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
922 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
923 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
924 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
925 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
926 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
928 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
929 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
930 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
931 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
932 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
939 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
940 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
941 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
942 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
943 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
945 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
946 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
947 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
948 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
949 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
951 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
952 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
953 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
954 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
955 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
958 @item --prefer-family=none/IPv4/IPv6
959 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
960 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
961 DNS is used without change by default.
963 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
964 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
965 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
966 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
967 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
968 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
969 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
970 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
972 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
973 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
974 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
975 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
976 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
977 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
979 @item --retry-connrefused
980 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
981 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
982 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
983 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
984 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
985 short periods of time.
989 @cindex authentication
990 @item --user=@var{user}
991 @itemx --password=@var{password}
992 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
993 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
994 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
995 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
996 options for @sc{http} connections.
999 Prompt for a password for each connection established. Cannot be specified
1000 when @samp{--password} is being used, because they are mutually exclusive.
1003 @node Directory Options
1004 @section Directory Options
1008 @itemx --no-directories
1009 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
1010 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
1011 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
1012 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
1015 @itemx --force-directories
1016 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
1017 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
1018 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1019 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1022 @itemx --no-host-directories
1023 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1024 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1025 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1028 @item --protocol-directories
1029 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1030 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1031 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1033 @cindex cut directories
1034 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1035 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1036 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1039 Take, for example, the directory at
1040 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1041 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1042 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1043 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1044 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1045 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1046 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1050 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1052 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1053 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1055 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1060 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1061 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1062 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1063 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1064 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1066 @cindex directory prefix
1067 @item -P @var{prefix}
1068 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1069 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1070 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1071 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1076 @section HTTP Options
1079 @cindex .html extension
1081 @itemx --html-extension
1082 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1083 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1084 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1085 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1086 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1087 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1088 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1089 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1090 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1092 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1093 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1094 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1095 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1096 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1097 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1098 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1099 Retrieval Options}).
1101 As of version 1.12, Wget will also ensure that any downloaded files of
1102 type @samp{text/css} end in the suffix @samp{.css}. Obviously, this
1103 makes the name @samp{--html-extension} misleading; a better name is
1104 expected to be offered as an alternative in the near future.
1107 @cindex http password
1108 @cindex authentication
1109 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1110 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1111 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1112 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1113 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1114 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1116 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1117 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1118 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1119 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1120 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1121 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1122 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1125 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1132 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1133 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1134 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1135 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1136 documents on proxy servers.
1138 Caching is allowed by default.
1142 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1143 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1144 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1145 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1146 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1147 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1148 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1150 @cindex loading cookies
1151 @cindex cookies, loading
1152 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1153 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1154 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1155 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1157 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1158 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1159 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1160 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1161 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1162 proves your identity.
1164 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1165 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1166 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1167 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1168 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1169 cookie files in different locations:
1173 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1175 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1176 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1177 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1178 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1179 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1181 @item Internet Explorer.
1182 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1183 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1184 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1186 @item Other browsers.
1187 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1188 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1189 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1192 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1193 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1194 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1195 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1196 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1199 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1202 @cindex saving cookies
1203 @cindex cookies, saving
1204 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1205 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1206 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1207 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1209 @cindex cookies, session
1210 @cindex session cookies
1211 @item --keep-session-cookies
1212 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1213 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1214 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1215 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1216 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1217 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1218 the site is concerned.
1220 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1221 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1222 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1223 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1224 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1225 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1226 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1228 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1229 @cindex ignore length
1230 @item --ignore-length
1231 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1232 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1233 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1234 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1235 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1238 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1239 if it never existed.
1242 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1243 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1244 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1245 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1248 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1249 @samp{--header} more than once.
1253 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1254 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1255 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1259 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1260 previous user-defined headers.
1262 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1263 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1264 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1267 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1270 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1271 sending of duplicate headers.
1274 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1275 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1276 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1277 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1281 @cindex proxy password
1282 @cindex proxy authentication
1283 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1284 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1285 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1286 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1287 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1289 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1290 pertain here as well.
1292 @cindex http referer
1293 @cindex referer, http
1294 @item --referer=@var{url}
1295 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1296 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1297 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1298 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1300 @cindex server response, save
1301 @item --save-headers
1302 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1303 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1306 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1307 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1308 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1310 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1311 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1312 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1313 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1314 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1317 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1318 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1319 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1320 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1321 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1322 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1323 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1326 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1327 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1330 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1331 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1332 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1333 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1334 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1335 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1337 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1338 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1339 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1340 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1341 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1342 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1343 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1344 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1345 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1347 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1348 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1349 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1350 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1351 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1352 be changed in the future.
1354 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1355 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1360 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1361 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1362 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1363 http://server.com/auth.php
1365 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1366 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1367 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1371 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1372 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1373 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1374 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1375 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1377 @cindex Content-Disposition
1378 @item --content-disposition
1380 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
1381 @code{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
1382 extra round-trips to the server for a @code{HEAD} request, and is known
1383 to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by default.
1385 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
1386 @code{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
1387 downloaded file should be.
1389 @cindex authentication
1390 @item --auth-no-challenge
1392 If this option is given, Wget will send Basic HTTP authentication
1393 information (plaintext username and password) for all requests, just
1394 like Wget 1.10.2 and prior did by default.
1396 Use of this option is not recommended, and is intended only to support
1397 some few obscure servers, which never send HTTP authentication
1398 challenges, but accept unsolicited auth info, say, in addition to
1399 form-based authentication.
1403 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1404 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1407 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1408 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1409 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1412 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1413 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1414 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1415 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1416 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1417 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1418 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1420 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1421 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1422 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1423 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1426 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1427 @item --no-check-certificate
1428 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1429 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1430 name presented by the certificate.
1432 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1433 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1434 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1435 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1436 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1437 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1438 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1439 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1440 and allows you to proceed.
1442 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1443 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1444 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1445 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1446 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1447 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1448 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1450 @cindex SSL certificate
1451 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1452 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1453 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1454 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1457 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1458 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1459 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1460 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1463 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1464 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1465 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1467 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1468 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1469 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1471 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1472 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1473 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1475 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1476 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1478 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1479 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1480 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1481 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1482 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1483 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1484 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1485 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1486 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1488 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1489 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1491 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1492 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1493 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1494 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1495 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1497 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1498 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1499 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1500 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1501 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1502 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1505 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1506 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1510 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1511 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1512 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1513 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1514 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1515 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1516 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1518 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1519 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1520 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1521 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1523 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1524 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1525 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1529 @section FTP Options
1533 @cindex ftp password
1534 @cindex ftp authentication
1535 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1536 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1537 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1538 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1539 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1542 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1543 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1544 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1545 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1546 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1547 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1548 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1551 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1555 @cindex .listing files, removing
1556 @item --no-remove-listing
1557 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1558 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1559 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1560 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1561 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1562 you're running is complete).
1564 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1565 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1566 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1567 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1568 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1569 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1570 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1571 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1572 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1574 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1575 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1576 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1577 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1578 will be overwritten.
1580 @cindex globbing, toggle
1582 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1583 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1584 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1588 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1591 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1592 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1595 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1596 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1597 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1598 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1601 @item --no-passive-ftp
1602 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1603 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1604 connection rather than the other way around.
1606 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1607 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1608 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1609 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1610 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1611 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1613 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1614 @item --retr-symlinks
1615 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1616 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1617 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1618 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1619 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1621 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1622 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1623 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1624 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1627 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1628 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1629 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1632 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1633 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1634 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1635 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1636 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1637 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1638 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1639 the load on the server.
1641 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1642 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1643 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1646 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1647 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1652 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1655 @item -l @var{depth}
1656 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1657 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1658 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1660 @cindex proxy filling
1661 @cindex delete after retrieval
1662 @cindex filling proxy cache
1663 @item --delete-after
1664 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1665 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1666 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1669 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1672 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1675 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1676 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1677 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1678 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1679 created in the first place.
1681 @cindex conversion of links
1682 @cindex link conversion
1684 @itemx --convert-links
1685 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1686 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1687 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1688 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1691 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1695 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1696 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1698 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1699 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1700 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1701 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1704 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1705 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1707 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1708 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1709 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1710 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1713 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1714 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1715 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1716 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1717 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1720 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1721 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1722 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1724 @cindex backing up converted files
1726 @itemx --backup-converted
1727 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1728 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1733 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1734 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1735 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1736 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1738 @cindex page requisites
1739 @cindex required images, downloading
1741 @itemx --page-requisites
1742 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1743 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1744 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1746 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1747 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1748 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1749 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1750 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1753 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1754 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1755 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1756 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1757 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1759 If one executes the command:
1762 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1765 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1766 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1767 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1768 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1769 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1772 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1775 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1776 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1779 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1782 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1783 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1786 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1789 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1790 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1791 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1792 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1793 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1794 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1797 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1800 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1801 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1802 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1803 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1804 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1805 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1808 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1811 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1812 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1813 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1816 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1817 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1818 @item --strict-comments
1819 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1820 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1822 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1823 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1824 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1825 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1826 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1827 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1828 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1830 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1831 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1832 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1833 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1834 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1835 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1836 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1837 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1838 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1840 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1841 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1842 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1843 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1844 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1847 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1848 option to turn it on.
1851 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1852 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1855 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1856 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1857 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1858 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
1859 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1860 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1861 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1863 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1864 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1865 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1866 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1868 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1869 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1870 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1872 @cindex follow FTP links
1874 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1875 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1877 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1878 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1879 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1880 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1881 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1882 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1883 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1885 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1886 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1887 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1888 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1890 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1891 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1894 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1897 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1898 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1899 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1900 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1901 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1902 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1907 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1908 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1909 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1910 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1911 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1915 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1916 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1920 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1921 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1922 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1925 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1926 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1927 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
1928 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1931 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1932 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1933 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
1934 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1938 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1939 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1940 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1941 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1946 @node Recursive Download
1947 @chapter Recursive Download
1950 @cindex recursive download
1952 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1953 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1954 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1956 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} or
1957 @sc{css} from the given @sc{url}, retrieving the files the document
1958 refers to, through markup like @code{href} or @code{src}, or @sc{css}
1959 @sc{uri} values specified using the @samp{url()} functional notation.
1960 If the freshly downloaded file is also of type @code{text/html},
1961 @code{application/xhtml+xml}, or @code{text/css}, it will be parsed
1962 and followed further.
1964 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html}/@sc{css} content is
1965 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1966 document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1967 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1968 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1969 until the specified maximum depth.
1971 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1972 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1974 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1975 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1976 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1977 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1978 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1981 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1982 the one found on the remote server.
1984 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1985 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1986 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1987 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1989 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1990 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1991 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1992 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1993 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1994 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1995 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1997 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1998 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1999 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
2000 consume memory and CPU.
2002 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
2003 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
2004 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
2005 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
2006 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
2007 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
2008 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
2011 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
2014 @node Following Links
2015 @chapter Following Links
2017 @cindex following links
2019 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
2020 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
2021 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
2023 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
2024 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
2025 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
2027 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
2028 links it will follow.
2031 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
2032 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
2033 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
2034 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
2035 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
2038 @node Spanning Hosts
2039 @section Spanning Hosts
2040 @cindex spanning hosts
2041 @cindex hosts, spanning
2043 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
2044 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2045 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2046 your Wget into a small version of google.
2048 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2049 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2050 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2051 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2052 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2055 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2057 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2058 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2059 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2060 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2061 up much more data than you have intended.
2063 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2065 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2066 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2067 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2068 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2069 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2070 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2073 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2076 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2077 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2079 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2081 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2082 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2083 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2084 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2085 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2089 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2095 @node Types of Files
2096 @section Types of Files
2097 @cindex types of files
2099 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2100 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2101 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2102 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2104 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2105 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2108 @cindex accept wildcards
2109 @cindex accept suffixes
2110 @cindex wildcards, accept
2111 @cindex suffixes, accept
2113 @item -A @var{acclist}
2114 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2115 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2116 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2117 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2118 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2119 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2120 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2122 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2123 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2124 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2125 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2126 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2127 a description of how pattern matching works.
2129 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2130 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2132 @cindex reject wildcards
2133 @cindex reject suffixes
2134 @cindex wildcards, reject
2135 @cindex suffixes, reject
2136 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2137 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2138 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2139 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2140 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2141 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2143 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2144 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2145 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2146 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2147 expansion by the shell.
2151 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2152 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2153 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2154 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2156 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2157 files (as determined by a @samp{.htm} or @samp{.html} filename
2158 prefix). This behavior may not be desirable for all users, and may be
2159 changed for future versions of Wget.
2161 Note, too, that query strings (strings at the end of a URL beginning
2162 with a question mark (@samp{?}) are not included as part of the
2163 filename for accept/reject rules, even though these will actually
2164 contribute to the name chosen for the local file. It is expected that
2165 a future version of Wget will provide an option to allow matching
2166 against query strings.
2168 Finally, it's worth noting that the accept/reject lists are matched
2169 @emph{twice} against downloaded files: once against the URL's filename
2170 portion, to determine if the file should be downloaded in the first
2171 place; then, after it has been accepted and successfully downloaded,
2172 the local file's name is also checked against the accept/reject lists
2173 to see if it should be removed. The rationale was that, since
2174 @samp{.htm} and @samp{.html} files are always downloaded regardless of
2175 accept/reject rules, they should be removed @emph{after} being
2176 downloaded and scanned for links, if they did match the accept/reject
2177 lists. However, this can lead to unexpected results, since the local
2178 filenames can differ from the original URL filenames in the following
2179 ways, all of which can change whether an accept/reject rule matches:
2183 If the local file already exists and @samp{--no-directories} was
2184 specified, a numeric suffix will be appended to the original name.
2186 If @samp{--html-extension} was specified, the local filename will have
2187 @samp{.html} appended to it. If Wget is invoked with @samp{-E -A.php},
2188 a filename such as @samp{index.php} will match be accepted, but upon
2189 download will be named @samp{index.php.html}, which no longer matches,
2190 and so the file will be deleted.
2192 Query strings do not contribute to URL matching, but are included in
2193 local filenames, and so @emph{do} contribute to filename matching.
2197 This behavior, too, is considered less-than-desirable, and may change
2198 in a future version of Wget.
2200 @node Directory-Based Limits
2201 @section Directory-Based Limits
2203 @cindex directory limits
2205 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2206 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2207 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2208 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2209 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2210 @file{/dev} directories.
2212 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2213 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2214 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2216 @cindex directories, include
2217 @cindex include directories
2218 @cindex accept directories
2221 @itemx --include @var{list}
2222 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2223 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2224 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2225 directories are absolute paths.
2227 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2228 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2229 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2232 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2235 @cindex directories, exclude
2236 @cindex exclude directories
2237 @cindex reject directories
2239 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2240 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2241 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2242 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2243 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2244 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2246 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2247 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2248 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2249 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2254 @itemx no_parent = on
2255 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2256 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2257 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2258 parent directory/directories.
2260 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2261 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2262 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2265 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2268 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2269 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2270 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2271 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2272 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2273 intelligent fashion.
2275 @strong{Note} that, for HTTP (and HTTPS), the trailing slash is very
2276 important to @samp{--no-parent}. HTTP has no concept of a ``directory''---Wget
2277 relies on you to indicate what's a directory and what isn't. In
2278 @samp{http://foo/bar/}, Wget will consider @samp{bar} to be a
2279 directory, while in @samp{http://foo/bar} (no trailing slash),
2280 @samp{bar} will be considered a filename (so @samp{--no-parent} would be
2281 meaningless, as its parent is @samp{/}).
2284 @node Relative Links
2285 @section Relative Links
2286 @cindex relative links
2288 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2289 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2290 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2294 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2295 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2298 These links are not relative:
2302 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2303 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2306 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2307 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2308 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2310 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2314 @section Following FTP Links
2315 @cindex following ftp links
2317 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2318 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2319 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2322 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2323 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2324 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2325 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2326 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2327 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2328 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2330 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2331 retrieved recursively further.
2334 @chapter Time-Stamping
2335 @cindex time-stamping
2336 @cindex timestamping
2337 @cindex updating the archives
2338 @cindex incremental updating
2340 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2341 Internet is updating your archives.
2343 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2344 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2345 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2346 offer the option of incremental updating.
2348 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2349 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2350 the place of the old ones.
2352 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2356 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2359 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2360 recently than the local file.
2363 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2364 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2365 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2367 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2368 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2369 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2370 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2371 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2373 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2374 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2378 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2379 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2380 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2383 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2384 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2385 @cindex time-stamping usage
2386 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2388 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2389 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2392 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2395 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2396 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2397 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2398 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2400 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2401 changed, and download it if it has.
2404 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2407 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2408 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2409 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2410 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2412 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2415 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2418 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2419 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2421 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2422 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2423 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2424 since the last download.
2426 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2427 command like the following, weekly:
2430 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2433 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2434 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2435 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2436 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2437 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2439 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2440 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2441 @cindex http time-stamping
2443 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2444 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2445 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2446 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2447 retrieved unconditionally.
2449 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2450 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2451 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2454 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2455 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2456 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2457 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2458 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2459 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2462 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2463 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2464 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2465 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2466 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2468 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2469 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2471 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2472 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2473 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2475 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2476 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2479 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2480 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2481 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2482 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2483 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2484 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2485 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2486 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2488 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2489 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2490 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2491 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2492 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2493 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2495 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2496 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2497 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2498 Wget may support this command in the future.
2501 @chapter Startup File
2502 @cindex startup file
2508 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2509 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2510 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2511 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2513 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2514 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2515 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2516 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2518 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2522 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2523 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2524 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2525 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2528 @node Wgetrc Location
2529 @section Wgetrc Location
2530 @cindex wgetrc location
2531 @cindex location of wgetrc
2533 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2534 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2535 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2536 from there, if it exists.
2538 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2539 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2540 further attempts will be made.
2542 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2544 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2545 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2546 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2547 Fascist admins, away!
2550 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2551 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2552 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2554 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2560 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2561 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2563 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2564 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2565 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2568 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2569 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2570 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2576 @node Wgetrc Commands
2577 @section Wgetrc Commands
2578 @cindex wgetrc commands
2580 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2581 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2582 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2584 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2585 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2586 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2587 values can be any non-empty string.
2589 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2590 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2591 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2594 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2595 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2597 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2598 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2600 @item background = on/off
2601 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2604 @item backup_converted = on/off
2605 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2606 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2608 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2609 @c #### Document me!
2611 @item base = @var{string}
2612 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2613 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2614 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2616 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2617 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2619 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2620 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2621 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2623 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2624 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2625 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2627 @item cache = on/off
2628 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2631 @item certificate = @var{file}
2632 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2633 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2635 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2636 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2637 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2638 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2640 @item check_certificate = on/off
2641 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2642 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2643 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2645 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2646 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2648 @item content_disposition = on/off
2649 Turn on recognition of the (non-standard) @samp{Content-Disposition}
2650 HTTP header---if set to @samp{on}, the same as @samp{--content-disposition}.
2652 @item continue = on/off
2653 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2654 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2656 @item convert_links = on/off
2657 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2659 @item cookies = on/off
2660 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2662 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2663 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2664 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2666 @item debug = on/off
2667 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2669 @item delete_after = on/off
2670 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2672 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2673 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2675 @item dirstruct = on/off
2676 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2679 @item dns_cache = on/off
2680 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2681 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2682 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2684 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2685 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2687 @item domains = @var{string}
2688 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2690 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2691 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2692 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2693 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2694 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2695 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2696 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2698 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2699 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2701 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2702 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2703 the retrieval (50 by default).
2705 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2706 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2707 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2709 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2710 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2711 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2714 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2715 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2718 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2719 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2720 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2722 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2723 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2724 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2726 @item force_html = on/off
2727 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2728 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2730 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2731 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2732 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2733 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2735 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2737 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2738 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2741 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2742 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2744 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2747 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2749 @item header = @var{string}
2750 Define a header for HTTP downloads, like using
2751 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2753 @item html_extension = on/off
2754 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2755 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, or a @samp{.css}
2756 extension to @samp{text/css} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2758 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2759 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2760 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2762 @item http_password = @var{string}
2763 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2764 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2766 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2767 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2770 @item http_user = @var{string}
2771 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2772 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2774 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2775 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2778 @item ignore_case = on/off
2779 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2780 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2782 @item ignore_length = on/off
2783 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2784 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2786 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2787 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2788 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2790 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2791 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2792 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2794 @item inet4_only = on/off
2795 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2796 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2797 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2798 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2800 @item inet6_only = on/off
2801 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2802 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2805 @item input = @var{file}
2806 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2808 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2809 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2810 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2812 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2813 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2815 @item logfile = @var{file}
2816 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2818 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
2819 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
2820 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
2822 @item mirror = on/off
2823 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2825 @item netrc = on/off
2826 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2828 @item no_clobber = on/off
2831 @item no_parent = on/off
2832 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2833 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2835 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2836 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2837 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2839 @item output_document = @var{file}
2840 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2842 @item page_requisites = on/off
2843 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2844 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2846 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2847 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2848 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2850 @itemx password = @var{string}
2851 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2852 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2853 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2855 @item post_data = @var{string}
2856 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2857 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2859 @item post_file = @var{file}
2860 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2861 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2862 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2864 @item prefer_family = none/IPv4/IPv6
2865 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2866 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
2867 DNS is used without change by default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family},
2868 which see for a detailed discussion of why this is useful.
2870 @item private_key = @var{file}
2871 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2872 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2874 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2875 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2876 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2877 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2879 @item progress = @var{string}
2880 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2881 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2883 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2884 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2885 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2887 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2888 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2889 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2891 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2892 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2893 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2895 @item quiet = on/off
2896 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2898 @item quota = @var{quota}
2899 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2900 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2901 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2902 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2903 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2904 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2907 @item random_file = @var{file}
2908 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2911 @item random_wait = on/off
2912 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2913 @samp{--random-wait}.
2915 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2916 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2917 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2919 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2920 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2922 @item recursive = on/off
2923 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2925 @item referer = @var{string}
2926 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2927 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
2928 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2930 @item relative_only = on/off
2931 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2934 @item remove_listing = on/off
2935 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2936 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2938 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2939 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2940 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2942 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2943 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2944 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2946 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2947 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2948 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2950 @item robots = on/off
2951 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2952 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2953 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2954 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2957 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2958 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2961 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2962 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2963 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2964 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2966 @item server_response = on/off
2967 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2968 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2970 @item span_hosts = on/off
2973 @item strict_comments = on/off
2974 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2976 @item timeout = @var{n}
2977 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2980 @item timestamping = on/off
2981 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2983 @item tries = @var{n}
2984 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2986 @item use_proxy = on/off
2987 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2988 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2991 @item user = @var{string}
2992 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2993 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2994 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2996 @item verbose = on/off
2997 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2999 @item wait = @var{n}
3000 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
3003 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
3004 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
3005 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
3006 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
3010 @section Sample Wgetrc
3011 @cindex sample wgetrc
3013 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
3014 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
3015 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
3016 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
3018 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
3019 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
3023 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
3030 @c man begin EXAMPLES
3031 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
3035 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
3036 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
3037 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
3041 @section Simple Usage
3045 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
3048 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
3052 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
3053 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
3054 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
3055 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
3056 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
3057 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
3060 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
3064 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
3065 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
3066 shall use @samp{-t}.
3069 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
3072 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
3073 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
3076 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
3080 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
3084 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
3085 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
3088 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3093 @node Advanced Usage
3094 @section Advanced Usage
3098 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3105 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3109 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3110 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3111 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3114 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3118 The same as the above, but convert the links in the downloaded files to
3119 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3122 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3126 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3127 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3128 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3129 references the downloaded links.
3132 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3135 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3136 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3137 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3140 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3141 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3142 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3143 subdirectory of the current directory.
3146 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3147 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3151 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3155 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3159 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3162 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3167 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3171 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3175 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3176 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3177 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3181 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3184 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3185 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3186 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3187 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3188 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3192 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3193 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3197 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3201 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3202 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3205 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3208 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3209 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3212 @cindex redirecting output
3214 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3218 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3221 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3222 documents from remote hotlists:
3225 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3229 @node Very Advanced Usage
3230 @section Very Advanced Usage
3235 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3236 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3237 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3238 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3242 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3246 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3247 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3248 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3249 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3250 would look like this:
3253 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3254 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3258 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3259 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3260 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3261 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3262 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3265 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3266 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3270 Or, with less typing:
3273 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3282 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3285 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3286 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3287 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3288 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3289 * Internet Relay Chat:: Wget's presence on IRC.
3290 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3291 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3292 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3299 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3300 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3301 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3302 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3303 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3304 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3305 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3306 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3307 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3308 using an authorized proxy.
3310 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3311 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3312 the following environment variables:
3317 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3318 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3319 connections respectively.
3322 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3323 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3324 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3327 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3328 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3329 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3333 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3334 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3338 @itemx proxy = on/off
3339 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3340 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3342 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3343 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3344 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3345 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3346 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3347 specified by the environment.
3350 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3351 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3352 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3353 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3354 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3356 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3357 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3358 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3359 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3363 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3366 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3367 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3368 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3369 username and password.
3372 @section Distribution
3373 @cindex latest version
3375 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3376 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3377 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3378 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3384 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3385 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3386 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3387 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3390 @section Mailing List
3391 @cindex mailing list
3394 There are several Wget-related mailing lists. The general discussion
3395 list is at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for
3396 support requests and suggestions, as well as for discussion of
3397 development. You are invited to subscribe.
3399 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3400 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3401 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3402 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3403 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3405 Another mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3406 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3407 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3408 humans and programs. The
3409 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/PatchGuidelines} page
3410 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3411 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3412 only for patch submissions.
3414 Subscription is the same as above for @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, except
3415 that you send to @email{wget-patches-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}, instead.
3416 The mailing list is archived at
3417 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3419 Finally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3420 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives bug report-change
3421 notifications from the bug-tracker. Unlike for the other mailing lists,
3422 subscription is through the @code{mailman} interface at
3423 @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3425 @node Internet Relay Chat
3426 @section Internet Relay Chat
3427 @cindex Internet Relay Chat
3431 In addition to the mailinglists, we also have a support channel set up
3432 via IRC at @code{irc.freenode.org}, @code{#wget}. Come check it out!
3434 @node Reporting Bugs
3435 @section Reporting Bugs
3437 @cindex reporting bugs
3441 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3442 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3444 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3449 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3450 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3451 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3452 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3453 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3457 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3458 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 --no-proxy
3459 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3460 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3461 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3462 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3464 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3465 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3466 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3467 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3468 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3472 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3473 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3474 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3475 with debug support on.
3477 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3478 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3479 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3480 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3481 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3482 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3483 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3486 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3487 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3488 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3494 @section Portability
3496 @cindex operating systems
3498 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3499 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3500 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3501 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3503 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3504 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3505 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3506 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3507 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3508 system, we would like to know about it.
3510 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3511 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3512 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3513 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3514 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3515 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3516 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3517 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3518 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3519 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3520 Windows-related features might look at them.
3522 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3523 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3524 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3528 @cindex signal handling
3531 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3532 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3533 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3534 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3535 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3538 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3541 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3544 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3545 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3550 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3553 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3554 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3555 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3558 @node Robot Exclusion
3559 @section Robot Exclusion
3560 @cindex robot exclusion
3562 @cindex server maintenance
3564 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3565 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3566 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3568 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3569 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3570 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3571 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3572 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3573 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3574 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3575 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3576 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3577 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3578 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3579 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3581 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3582 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3583 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3584 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3585 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3586 they will permit access.
3588 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3589 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3590 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3591 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3592 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3593 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3596 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3597 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3598 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3599 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3602 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3605 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3606 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3607 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3608 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3611 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3612 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3613 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3614 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3615 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3616 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3617 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3618 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3620 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3622 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3623 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3624 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3628 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3631 This is explained in some detail at
3632 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3633 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3636 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3637 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3638 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3639 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3641 @node Security Considerations
3642 @section Security Considerations
3645 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3646 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3647 main issues, and some solutions.
3651 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3652 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3653 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3654 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3655 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3658 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3659 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3662 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3663 solution for this at the moment.
3666 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3667 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3668 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3673 @section Contributors
3674 @cindex contributors
3677 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3680 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3682 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3684 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3685 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3686 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3688 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3691 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3692 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3693 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3696 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3697 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3698 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3701 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3702 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3703 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3704 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3708 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3709 bug and build reports for many years.
3712 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3715 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3719 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3723 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3724 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3727 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3728 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3732 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3735 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3740 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3744 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3749 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3752 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3756 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3757 layout and many other things.
3760 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3764 Mauro Tortonesi---improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
3765 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
3766 Wget from 2004--2007.
3769 Christopher G.@: Lewis---maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
3772 Gisle Vanem---many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
3773 Windows and MS-DOS support.
3776 Ralf Wildenhues---contributed patches to convert Wget to use Automake as
3777 part of its build process, and various bugfixes.
3780 Steven Schubiger---Many helpful patches, bugfixes and improvements.
3781 Notably, conversion of Wget to use the Gnulib quotes and quoteargs
3782 modules, and the addition of password prompts at the console, via the
3783 Gnulib getpasswd-gnu module.
3786 Ted Mielczarek---donated support for CSS.
3789 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3792 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3793 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3794 that make maintenance so much fun:
3814 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3823 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3824 Alexander Dergachev,
3837 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3840 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3864 Madhusudan Hosaagrahara,
3868 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3887 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3900 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3901 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3902 (Simos KSenitellis),
3911 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3917 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
3926 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
3961 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3963 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3966 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3968 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
3975 Steven M.@: Schweda,
3986 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
4001 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
4003 Joshua David Williams,
4014 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
4015 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
4017 @node Copying this manual
4018 @appendix Copying this manual
4021 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
4028 @unnumbered Concept Index