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} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
137 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
138 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
139 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
140 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
141 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
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 @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
484 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
485 @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.
503 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
504 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
505 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
506 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
509 @cindex base for relative links in input file
511 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
512 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
513 the @samp{-i} option.
516 @node Download Options
517 @section Download Options
521 @cindex client IP address
522 @cindex IP address, client
523 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
524 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
525 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
526 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
531 @cindex number of retries
532 @item -t @var{number}
533 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
534 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
535 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
536 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
537 which are not retried.
540 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
541 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
542 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
543 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
544 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
545 literally named @samp{-}.)
547 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
548 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
549 analogous to shell redirection:
550 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
551 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
552 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
554 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
555 downloading a single document, and combination with any of @samp{-r},
556 @samp{-p}, or @samp{-N} is not allowed.
558 @cindex clobbering, file
559 @cindex downloading multiple times
563 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
564 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
565 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
566 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
568 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or @samp{p},
569 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
570 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
571 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
572 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
573 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
574 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
575 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
576 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
577 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
580 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N}
581 or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the new copy
582 simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this
583 behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved and any
584 newer copies on the server to be ignored.
586 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
587 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
588 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
589 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
590 same time as @samp{-N}.
592 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
593 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
594 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
596 @cindex continue retrieval
597 @cindex incomplete downloads
598 @cindex resume download
601 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
602 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
603 by another program. For instance:
606 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
609 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
610 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
611 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
612 length of the local file.
614 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
615 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
616 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
617 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
618 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
620 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
621 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
624 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
625 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
626 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
627 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
628 start from scratch, remove the file.
630 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
631 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
632 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
633 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
634 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
635 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
637 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
638 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
639 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
640 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
641 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
642 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
643 collection or log file.
645 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
646 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
647 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
648 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
649 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
650 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
652 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
653 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
654 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
655 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
657 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
658 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
660 @cindex progress indicator
662 @item --progress=@var{type}
663 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
664 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
666 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
667 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
668 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
671 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
672 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
673 fixed amount of downloaded data.
675 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
676 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
677 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
678 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
679 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
680 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
681 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
682 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
683 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
685 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
686 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
687 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
688 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
689 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
692 @itemx --timestamping
693 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
695 @cindex server response, print
697 @itemx --server-response
698 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
701 @cindex Wget as spider
704 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
705 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
706 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
709 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
712 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
713 functionality of real web spiders.
717 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
718 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
719 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
720 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
722 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
723 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
724 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
725 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
726 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
727 change the default timeout settings.
729 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
730 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
731 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
732 server response times or for testing network latency.
736 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
737 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
738 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
739 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
742 @cindex connect timeout
743 @cindex timeout, connect
744 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
745 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
746 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
747 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
750 @cindex timeout, read
751 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
752 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
753 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
754 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
755 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
756 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
758 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
759 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
762 @cindex bandwidth, limit
764 @cindex limit bandwidth
765 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
766 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
767 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
768 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
769 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
770 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
772 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
773 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
776 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
777 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
778 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
779 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
780 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
781 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
785 @item -w @var{seconds}
786 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
787 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
788 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
789 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
790 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
791 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
793 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
794 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
795 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
796 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
797 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
799 @cindex retries, waiting between
800 @cindex waiting between retries
801 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
802 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
803 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
804 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
805 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
806 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
807 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
810 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
816 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
817 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
818 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
819 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
820 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
821 presence from such analysis.
823 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
824 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
825 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
826 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
829 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
830 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
835 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
839 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
844 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
845 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
846 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
847 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
849 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
850 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
851 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
852 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
853 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
854 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
855 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
857 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
860 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
862 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
863 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
864 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
865 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
868 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
869 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
870 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
871 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
872 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
873 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
874 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
877 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
880 @cindex file names, restrict
881 @cindex Windows file names
882 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
883 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
884 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
885 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
886 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
889 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
890 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
891 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
892 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
893 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
895 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
896 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
897 default on Unix-like OS'es.
899 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
900 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
901 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
902 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
903 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
904 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
905 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
906 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
907 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
908 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
910 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
911 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
912 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
913 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
914 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
921 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
922 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
923 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
924 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
925 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
927 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
928 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
929 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
930 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
931 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
933 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
934 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
935 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
936 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
937 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
940 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
941 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
942 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
945 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
946 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
947 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
948 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
949 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
950 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
951 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
952 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
954 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
955 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
956 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
957 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
958 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
959 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
961 @item --retry-connrefused
962 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
963 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
964 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
965 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
966 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
967 short periods of time.
971 @cindex authentication
972 @item --user=@var{user}
973 @itemx --password=@var{password}
974 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
975 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
976 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
977 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
978 options for @sc{http} connections.
981 @node Directory Options
982 @section Directory Options
986 @itemx --no-directories
987 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
988 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
989 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
990 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
993 @itemx --force-directories
994 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
995 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
996 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
997 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1000 @itemx --no-host-directories
1001 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1002 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1003 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1006 @item --protocol-directories
1007 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1008 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1009 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1011 @cindex cut directories
1012 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1013 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1014 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1017 Take, for example, the directory at
1018 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1019 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1020 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1021 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1022 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1023 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1024 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1028 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1030 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1031 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1033 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1038 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1039 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1040 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1041 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1042 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1044 @cindex directory prefix
1045 @item -P @var{prefix}
1046 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1047 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1048 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1049 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1054 @section HTTP Options
1057 @cindex .html extension
1059 @itemx --html-extension
1060 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1061 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1062 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1063 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1064 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1065 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1066 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1067 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1068 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1070 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1071 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1072 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1073 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1074 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1075 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1076 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1077 Retrieval Options}).
1080 @cindex http password
1081 @cindex authentication
1082 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1083 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1084 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1085 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1086 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1087 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1089 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1090 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1091 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1092 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1093 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1094 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1095 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1098 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1105 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1106 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1107 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1108 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1109 documents on proxy servers.
1111 Caching is allowed by default.
1115 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1116 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1117 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1118 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1119 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1120 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1121 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1123 @cindex loading cookies
1124 @cindex cookies, loading
1125 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1126 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1127 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1128 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1130 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1131 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1132 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1133 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1134 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1135 proves your identity.
1137 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1138 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1139 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1140 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1141 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1142 cookie files in different locations:
1146 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1148 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1149 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1150 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1151 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1152 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1154 @item Internet Explorer.
1155 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1156 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1157 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1159 @item Other browsers.
1160 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1161 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1162 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1165 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1166 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1167 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1168 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1169 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1172 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1175 @cindex saving cookies
1176 @cindex cookies, saving
1177 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1178 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1179 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1180 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1182 @cindex cookies, session
1183 @cindex session cookies
1184 @item --keep-session-cookies
1185 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1186 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1187 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1188 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1189 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1190 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1191 the site is concerned.
1193 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1194 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1195 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1196 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1197 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1198 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1199 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1201 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1202 @cindex ignore length
1203 @item --ignore-length
1204 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1205 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1206 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1207 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1208 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1211 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1212 if it never existed.
1215 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1216 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1217 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1218 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1221 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1222 @samp{--header} more than once.
1226 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1227 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1228 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1232 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1233 previous user-defined headers.
1235 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1236 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1237 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1240 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1243 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1244 sending of duplicate headers.
1247 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1248 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1249 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1250 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1254 @cindex proxy password
1255 @cindex proxy authentication
1256 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1257 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1258 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1259 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1260 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1262 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1263 pertain here as well.
1265 @cindex http referer
1266 @cindex referer, http
1267 @item --referer=@var{url}
1268 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1269 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1270 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1271 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1273 @cindex server response, save
1274 @item --save-headers
1275 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1276 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1279 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1280 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1281 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1283 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1284 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1285 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1286 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1287 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1290 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1291 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1292 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1293 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1294 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1295 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1296 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1299 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1300 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1303 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1304 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1305 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1306 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1307 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1308 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1310 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1311 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1312 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1313 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1314 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1315 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1316 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1317 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1318 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1320 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1321 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1322 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1323 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1324 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1325 be changed in the future.
1327 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1328 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1333 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1334 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1335 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1336 http://server.com/auth.php
1338 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1339 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1340 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1344 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1345 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1346 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1347 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1348 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1350 @cindex Content-Disposition
1351 @item --content-disposition
1353 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
1354 @code{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
1355 extra round-trips to the server for a @code{HEAD} request, and is known
1356 to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by default.
1358 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
1359 @code{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
1360 downloaded file should be.
1364 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1365 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1368 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1369 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1370 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1373 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1374 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1375 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1376 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1377 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1378 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1379 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1381 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1382 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1383 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1384 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1387 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1388 @item --no-check-certificate
1389 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1390 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1391 name presented by the certificate.
1393 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1394 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1395 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1396 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1397 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1398 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1399 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1400 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1401 and allows you to proceed.
1403 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1404 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1405 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1406 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1407 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1408 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1409 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1411 @cindex SSL certificate
1412 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1413 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1414 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1415 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1418 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1419 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1420 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1421 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1424 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1425 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1426 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1428 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1429 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1430 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1432 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1433 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1434 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1436 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1437 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1439 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1440 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1441 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1442 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1443 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1444 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1445 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1446 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1447 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1449 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1450 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1452 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1453 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1454 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1455 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1456 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1458 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1459 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1460 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1461 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1462 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1463 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1466 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1467 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1471 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1472 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1473 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1474 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1475 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1476 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1477 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1479 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1480 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1481 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1482 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1484 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1485 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1486 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1490 @section FTP Options
1494 @cindex ftp password
1495 @cindex ftp authentication
1496 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1497 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1498 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1499 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1500 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1503 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1504 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1505 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1506 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1507 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1508 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1509 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1512 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1516 @cindex .listing files, removing
1517 @item --no-remove-listing
1518 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1519 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1520 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1521 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1522 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1523 you're running is complete).
1525 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1526 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1527 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1528 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1529 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1530 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1531 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1532 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1533 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1535 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1536 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1537 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1538 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1539 will be overwritten.
1541 @cindex globbing, toggle
1543 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1544 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1545 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1549 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1552 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1553 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1556 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1557 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1558 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1559 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1562 @item --no-passive-ftp
1563 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1564 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1565 connection rather than the other way around.
1567 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1568 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1569 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1570 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1571 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1572 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1574 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1575 @item --retr-symlinks
1576 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1577 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1578 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1579 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1580 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1582 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1583 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1584 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1585 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1588 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1589 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1590 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1593 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1594 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1595 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1596 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1597 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1598 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1599 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1600 the load on the server.
1602 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1603 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1604 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1607 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1608 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1613 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1616 @item -l @var{depth}
1617 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1618 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1619 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1621 @cindex proxy filling
1622 @cindex delete after retrieval
1623 @cindex filling proxy cache
1624 @item --delete-after
1625 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1626 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1627 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1630 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1633 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1636 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1637 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1638 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1639 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1640 created in the first place.
1642 @cindex conversion of links
1643 @cindex link conversion
1645 @itemx --convert-links
1646 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1647 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1648 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1649 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1652 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1656 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1657 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1659 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1660 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1661 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1662 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1665 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1666 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1668 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1669 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1670 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1671 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1674 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1675 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1676 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1677 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1678 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1681 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1682 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1683 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1685 @cindex backing up converted files
1687 @itemx --backup-converted
1688 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1689 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1694 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1695 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1696 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1697 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1699 @cindex page requisites
1700 @cindex required images, downloading
1702 @itemx --page-requisites
1703 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1704 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1705 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1707 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1708 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1709 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1710 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1711 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1714 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1715 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1716 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1717 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1718 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1720 If one executes the command:
1723 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1726 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1727 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1728 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1729 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1730 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1733 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1736 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1737 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1740 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1743 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1744 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1747 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1750 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1751 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1752 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1753 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1754 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1755 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1758 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1761 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1762 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1763 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1764 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1765 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1766 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1769 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1772 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1773 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1774 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1777 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1778 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1779 @item --strict-comments
1780 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1781 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1783 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1784 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1785 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1786 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1787 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1788 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1789 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1791 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1792 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1793 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1794 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1795 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1796 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1797 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1798 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1799 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1801 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1802 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1803 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1804 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1805 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1808 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1809 option to turn it on.
1812 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1813 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1816 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1817 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1818 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1819 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
1820 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1821 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1822 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1824 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1825 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1826 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1827 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1829 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1830 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1831 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1833 @cindex follow FTP links
1835 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1836 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1838 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1839 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1840 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1841 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1842 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1843 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1844 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1846 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1847 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1848 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1849 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1851 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1852 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1855 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1858 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1859 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1860 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1861 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1862 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1863 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1868 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1869 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1870 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1871 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1872 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1876 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1877 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1881 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1882 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1883 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1886 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1887 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1888 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
1889 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1892 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1893 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1894 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
1895 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1899 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1900 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1901 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1902 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1907 @node Recursive Download
1908 @chapter Recursive Download
1911 @cindex recursive download
1913 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1914 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1915 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1917 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1918 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1919 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1920 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1921 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1924 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1925 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1926 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1927 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1928 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1929 until the specified maximum depth.
1931 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1932 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1934 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1935 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1936 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1937 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1938 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1941 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1942 the one found on the remote server.
1944 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1945 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1946 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1947 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1949 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1950 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1951 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1952 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1953 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1954 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1955 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1957 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1958 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1959 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1960 consume memory and CPU.
1962 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1963 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1964 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1965 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1966 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1967 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1968 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1971 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1974 @node Following Links
1975 @chapter Following Links
1977 @cindex following links
1979 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1980 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1981 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1983 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1984 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1985 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1987 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1988 links it will follow.
1991 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1992 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1993 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1994 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1995 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1998 @node Spanning Hosts
1999 @section Spanning Hosts
2000 @cindex spanning hosts
2001 @cindex hosts, spanning
2003 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
2004 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2005 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2006 your Wget into a small version of google.
2008 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2009 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2010 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2011 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2012 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2015 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2017 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2018 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2019 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2020 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2021 up much more data than you have intended.
2023 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2025 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2026 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2027 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2028 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2029 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2030 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2033 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2036 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2037 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2039 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2041 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2042 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2043 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2044 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2045 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2049 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2055 @node Types of Files
2056 @section Types of Files
2057 @cindex types of files
2059 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2060 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2061 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2062 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2064 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2065 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2068 @cindex accept wildcards
2069 @cindex accept suffixes
2070 @cindex wildcards, accept
2071 @cindex suffixes, accept
2073 @item -A @var{acclist}
2074 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2075 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2076 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2077 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2078 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2079 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2080 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2082 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2083 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2084 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2085 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2086 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2087 a description of how pattern matching works.
2089 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2090 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2092 @cindex reject wildcards
2093 @cindex reject suffixes
2094 @cindex wildcards, reject
2095 @cindex suffixes, reject
2096 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2097 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2098 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2099 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2100 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2101 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2103 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2104 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2105 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2106 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2107 expansion by the shell.
2110 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2111 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2112 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2113 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2115 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2116 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2117 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2119 @node Directory-Based Limits
2120 @section Directory-Based Limits
2122 @cindex directory limits
2124 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2125 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2126 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2127 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2128 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2129 @file{/dev} directories.
2131 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2132 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2133 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2135 @cindex directories, include
2136 @cindex include directories
2137 @cindex accept directories
2140 @itemx --include @var{list}
2141 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2142 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2143 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2144 directories are absolute paths.
2146 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2147 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2148 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2151 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2154 @cindex directories, exclude
2155 @cindex exclude directories
2156 @cindex reject directories
2158 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2159 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2160 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2161 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2162 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2163 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2165 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2166 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2167 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2168 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2173 @itemx no_parent = on
2174 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2175 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2176 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2177 parent directory/directories.
2179 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2180 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2181 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2184 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2187 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2188 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2189 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2190 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2191 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2192 intelligent fashion.
2195 @node Relative Links
2196 @section Relative Links
2197 @cindex relative links
2199 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2200 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2201 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2205 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2206 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2209 These links are not relative:
2213 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2214 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2217 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2218 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2219 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2221 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2225 @section Following FTP Links
2226 @cindex following ftp links
2228 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2229 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2230 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2233 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2234 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2235 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2236 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2237 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2238 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2239 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2241 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2242 retrieved recursively further.
2245 @chapter Time-Stamping
2246 @cindex time-stamping
2247 @cindex timestamping
2248 @cindex updating the archives
2249 @cindex incremental updating
2251 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2252 Internet is updating your archives.
2254 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2255 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2256 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2257 offer the option of incremental updating.
2259 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2260 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2261 the place of the old ones.
2263 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2267 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2270 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2271 recently than the local file.
2274 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2275 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2276 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2278 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2279 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2280 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2281 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2282 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2284 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2285 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2289 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2290 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2291 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2294 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2295 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2296 @cindex time-stamping usage
2297 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2299 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2300 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2303 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2306 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2307 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2308 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2309 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2311 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2312 changed, and download it if it has.
2315 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2318 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2319 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2320 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2321 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2323 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2326 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2329 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2330 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2332 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2333 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2334 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2335 since the last download.
2337 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2338 command like the following, weekly:
2341 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2344 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2345 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2346 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2347 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2348 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2350 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2351 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2352 @cindex http time-stamping
2354 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2355 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2356 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2357 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2358 retrieved unconditionally.
2360 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2361 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2362 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2365 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2366 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2367 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2368 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2369 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2370 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2373 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2374 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2375 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2376 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2377 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2379 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2380 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2382 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2383 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2384 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2386 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2387 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2390 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2391 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2392 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2393 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2394 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2395 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2396 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2397 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2399 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2400 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2401 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2402 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2403 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2404 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2406 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2407 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2408 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2409 Wget may support this command in the future.
2412 @chapter Startup File
2413 @cindex startup file
2419 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2420 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2421 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2422 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2424 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2425 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2426 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2427 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2429 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2433 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2434 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2435 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2436 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2439 @node Wgetrc Location
2440 @section Wgetrc Location
2441 @cindex wgetrc location
2442 @cindex location of wgetrc
2444 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2445 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2446 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2447 from there, if it exists.
2449 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2450 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2451 further attempts will be made.
2453 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2455 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2456 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2457 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2458 Fascist admins, away!
2461 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2462 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2463 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2465 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2471 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2472 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2474 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2475 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2476 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2479 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2480 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2481 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2487 @node Wgetrc Commands
2488 @section Wgetrc Commands
2489 @cindex wgetrc commands
2491 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2492 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2493 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2495 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2496 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2497 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2498 values can be any non-empty string.
2500 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2501 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2502 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2505 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2506 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2508 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2509 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2511 @item background = on/off
2512 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2515 @item backup_converted = on/off
2516 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2517 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2519 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2520 @c #### Document me!
2522 @item base = @var{string}
2523 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2524 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2525 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2527 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2528 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2530 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2531 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2532 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2534 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2535 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2536 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2538 @item cache = on/off
2539 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2542 @item certificate = @var{file}
2543 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2544 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2546 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2547 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2548 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2549 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2551 @item check_certificate = on/off
2552 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2553 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2554 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2556 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2557 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2559 @item content_disposition = on/off
2560 Turn on recognition of the (non-standard) @samp{Content-Disposition}
2561 HTTP header---if set to @samp{on}, the same as @samp{--content-disposition}.
2563 @item continue = on/off
2564 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2565 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2567 @item convert_links = on/off
2568 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2570 @item cookies = on/off
2571 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2573 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2574 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2575 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2577 @item debug = on/off
2578 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2580 @item delete_after = on/off
2581 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2583 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2584 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2586 @item dirstruct = on/off
2587 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2590 @item dns_cache = on/off
2591 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2592 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2593 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2595 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2596 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2598 @item domains = @var{string}
2599 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2601 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2602 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2603 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2604 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2605 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2606 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2607 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2609 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2610 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2612 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2613 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2614 the retrieval (50 by default).
2616 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2617 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2618 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2620 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2621 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2622 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2625 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2626 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2629 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2630 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2631 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2633 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2634 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2635 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2637 @item force_html = on/off
2638 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2639 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2641 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2642 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2643 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2644 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2646 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2648 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2649 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2652 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2653 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2655 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2658 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2660 @item header = @var{string}
2661 Define a header for HTTP downloads, like using
2662 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2664 @item html_extension = on/off
2665 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2666 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2668 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2669 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2670 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2672 @item http_password = @var{string}
2673 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2674 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2676 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2677 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2680 @item http_user = @var{string}
2681 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2682 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2684 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2685 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2688 @item ignore_case = on/off
2689 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2690 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2692 @item ignore_length = on/off
2693 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2694 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2696 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2697 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2698 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2700 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2701 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2702 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2704 @item inet4_only = on/off
2705 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2706 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2707 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2708 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2710 @item inet6_only = on/off
2711 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2712 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2715 @item input = @var{file}
2716 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2718 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2719 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2720 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2722 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2723 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2725 @item logfile = @var{file}
2726 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2728 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
2729 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
2730 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
2732 @item mirror = on/off
2733 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2735 @item netrc = on/off
2736 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2738 @item no_clobber = on/off
2741 @item no_parent = on/off
2742 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2743 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2745 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2746 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2747 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2749 @item output_document = @var{file}
2750 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2752 @item page_requisites = on/off
2753 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2754 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2756 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2757 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2758 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2760 @itemx password = @var{string}
2761 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2762 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2763 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2765 @item post_data = @var{string}
2766 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2767 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2769 @item post_file = @var{file}
2770 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2771 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2772 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2774 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2775 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2776 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2777 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2778 discussion of why this is useful.
2780 @item private_key = @var{file}
2781 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2782 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2784 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2785 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2786 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2787 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2789 @item progress = @var{string}
2790 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2791 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2793 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2794 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2795 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2797 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2798 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2799 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2801 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2802 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2803 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2805 @item quiet = on/off
2806 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2808 @item quota = @var{quota}
2809 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2810 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2811 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2812 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2813 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2814 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2817 @item random_file = @var{file}
2818 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2821 @item random_wait = on/off
2822 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2823 @samp{--random-wait}.
2825 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2826 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2827 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2829 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2830 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2832 @item recursive = on/off
2833 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2835 @item referer = @var{string}
2836 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2837 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
2838 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2840 @item relative_only = on/off
2841 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2844 @item remove_listing = on/off
2845 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2846 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2848 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2849 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2850 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2852 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2853 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2854 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2856 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2857 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2858 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2860 @item robots = on/off
2861 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2862 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2863 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2864 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2867 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2868 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2871 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2872 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2873 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2874 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2876 @item server_response = on/off
2877 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2878 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2880 @item span_hosts = on/off
2883 @item strict_comments = on/off
2884 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2886 @item timeout = @var{n}
2887 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2890 @item timestamping = on/off
2891 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2893 @item tries = @var{n}
2894 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2896 @item use_proxy = on/off
2897 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2898 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2901 @item user = @var{string}
2902 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2903 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2904 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2906 @item verbose = on/off
2907 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2909 @item wait = @var{n}
2910 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2913 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
2914 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2915 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2916 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2920 @section Sample Wgetrc
2921 @cindex sample wgetrc
2923 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2924 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2925 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2926 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2928 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2929 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2933 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2940 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2941 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2945 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2946 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2947 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2951 @section Simple Usage
2955 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2958 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2962 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2963 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2964 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2965 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2966 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2967 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2970 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2974 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2975 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2976 shall use @samp{-t}.
2979 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2982 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2983 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2986 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2990 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2994 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2995 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2998 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3003 @node Advanced Usage
3004 @section Advanced Usage
3008 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3015 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3019 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3020 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3021 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3024 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3028 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
3029 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3032 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3036 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3037 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3038 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3039 references the downloaded links.
3042 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3045 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3046 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3047 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3050 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3051 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3052 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3053 subdirectory of the current directory.
3056 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3057 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3061 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3065 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3069 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3072 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3077 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3081 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3085 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3086 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3087 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3091 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3094 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3095 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3096 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3097 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3098 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3102 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3103 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3107 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3111 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3112 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3115 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3118 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3119 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3122 @cindex redirecting output
3124 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3128 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3131 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3132 documents from remote hotlists:
3135 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3139 @node Very Advanced Usage
3140 @section Very Advanced Usage
3145 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3146 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3147 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3148 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3152 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3156 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3157 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3158 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3159 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3160 would look like this:
3163 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3164 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3168 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3169 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3170 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3171 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3172 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3175 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3176 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3180 Or, with less typing:
3183 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3192 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3195 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3196 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3197 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3198 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3199 * Internet Relay Chat:: Wget's presence on IRC.
3200 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3201 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3202 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3209 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3210 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3211 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3212 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3213 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3214 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3215 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3216 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3217 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3218 using an authorized proxy.
3220 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3221 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3222 the following environment variables:
3227 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3228 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3229 connections respectively.
3232 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3233 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3234 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3237 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3238 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3239 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3243 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3244 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3248 @itemx proxy = on/off
3249 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3250 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3252 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3253 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3254 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3255 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3256 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3257 specified by the environment.
3260 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3261 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3262 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3263 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3264 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3266 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3267 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3268 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3269 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3273 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3276 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3277 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3278 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3279 username and password.
3282 @section Distribution
3283 @cindex latest version
3285 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3286 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3287 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3288 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3294 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3295 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3296 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3297 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3300 @section Mailing List
3301 @cindex mailing list
3304 There are several Wget-related mailing lists. The general discussion
3305 list is at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for
3306 support requests and suggestions, as well as for discussion of
3307 development. You are invited to subscribe.
3309 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3310 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3311 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3312 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3313 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3315 Another mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3316 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3317 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3318 humans and programs. The
3319 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/PatchGuidelines} page
3320 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3321 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3322 only for patch submissions.
3324 Subscription is the same as above for @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, except
3325 that you send to @email{wget-patches-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}, instead.
3326 The mailing list is archived at
3327 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3329 Finally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3330 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives commit notifications
3331 from the source repository, and also bug report-change notifications.
3332 This is the highest-traffic list for Wget, and is recommended only for
3333 people who are seriously interested in ongoing Wget development.
3334 Subscription is through the @code{mailman} interface at
3335 @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3337 @node Internet Relay Chat
3338 @section Internet Relay Chat
3339 @cindex Internet Relay Chat
3343 While, at the time of this writing, there is very low activity, we do
3344 have a support channel set up via IRC at @code{irc.freenode.org},
3345 @code{#wget}. Come check it out!
3347 @node Reporting Bugs
3348 @section Reporting Bugs
3350 @cindex reporting bugs
3354 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3355 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3357 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3362 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3363 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3364 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3365 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3366 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3370 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3371 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 --no-proxy
3372 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3373 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3374 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3375 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3377 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3378 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3379 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3380 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3381 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3385 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3386 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3387 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3388 with debug support on.
3390 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3391 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3392 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3393 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3394 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3395 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3396 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3399 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3400 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3401 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3407 @section Portability
3409 @cindex operating systems
3411 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3412 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3413 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3414 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3416 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3417 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3418 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3419 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3420 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3421 system, we would like to know about it.
3423 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3424 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3425 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3426 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3427 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3428 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3429 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3430 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3431 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3432 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3433 Windows-related features might look at them.
3435 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3436 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3437 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3441 @cindex signal handling
3444 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3445 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3446 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3447 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3448 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3451 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3454 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3457 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3458 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3463 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3466 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3467 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3468 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3471 @node Robot Exclusion
3472 @section Robot Exclusion
3473 @cindex robot exclusion
3475 @cindex server maintenance
3477 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3478 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3479 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3481 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3482 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3483 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3484 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3485 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3486 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3487 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3488 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3489 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3490 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3491 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3492 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3494 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3495 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3496 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3497 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3498 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3499 they will permit access.
3501 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3502 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3503 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3504 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3505 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3506 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3509 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3510 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3511 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3512 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3515 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3518 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3519 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3520 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3521 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3524 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3525 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3526 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3527 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3528 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3529 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3530 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3531 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3533 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3535 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3536 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3537 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3541 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3544 This is explained in some detail at
3545 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3546 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3549 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3550 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3551 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3552 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3554 @node Security Considerations
3555 @section Security Considerations
3558 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3559 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3560 main issues, and some solutions.
3564 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3565 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3566 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3567 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3568 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3571 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3572 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3575 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3576 solution for this at the moment.
3579 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3580 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3581 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3586 @section Contributors
3587 @cindex contributors
3590 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3593 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3595 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3597 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3598 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3599 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3601 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3604 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3605 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3606 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3609 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3610 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3611 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3614 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3615 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3616 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3617 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3621 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3622 bug and build reports for many years.
3625 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3628 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3632 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3636 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3637 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3640 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3641 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3645 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3648 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3653 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3657 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3662 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3665 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3669 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3670 layout and many other things.
3673 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3677 Mauro Tortonesi---Improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
3678 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
3679 Wget from 2004--2007.
3682 Christopher G.@: Lewis---Maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
3685 Gisle Vanem---Many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
3686 Windows and MS-DOS support.
3689 Ralf Wildenhues---Contributed patches to convert Wget to use Automake as
3690 part of its build process, and various bugfixes.
3693 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3696 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3697 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3698 that make maintenance so much fun:
3717 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3726 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3739 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3742 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3761 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3780 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3793 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3794 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3795 (Simos KSenitellis),
3804 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3810 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
3819 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
3851 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3853 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3856 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3858 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
3864 Steven M.@: Schweda,
3874 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3888 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
3890 Joshua David Williams,
3901 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3902 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3904 @node Copying this manual
3905 @appendix Copying this manual
3908 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
3915 @unnumbered Concept Index