1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
5 @settitle GNU Wget Manual
6 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
8 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
13 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
17 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
18 @c the preceding @set.
20 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
22 @c This should really be generated automatically, possibly by including
23 @c an auto-generated file.
25 @set UPDATED September 2003
27 @dircategory Net Utilities
28 @dircategory World Wide Web
30 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
34 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
37 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
38 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free
39 Software Foundation, Inc.
41 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
42 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
43 are preserved on all copies.
46 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
47 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
48 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
49 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
51 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
52 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
53 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
54 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
55 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
56 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
57 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
63 @subtitle The noninteractive downloading utility
64 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
65 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and the developers
69 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@arsdigita.com>.
72 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
77 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
78 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 Free Software
81 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
82 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
83 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
84 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
85 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
86 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
87 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
91 @node Top, Overview, (dir), (dir)
92 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
94 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
95 available utility for network download.
97 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 Free Software
101 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
102 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
103 * Recursive Retrieval:: Description of recursive retrieval.
104 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
105 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
106 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
107 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
108 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
109 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
110 * Copying:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
111 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
115 @node Overview, Invoking, Top, Top
120 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
121 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
122 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
123 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
126 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
130 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
131 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
132 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
133 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
134 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
135 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
141 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
145 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
146 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
147 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
148 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
149 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
150 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
151 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
157 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
158 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
159 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
160 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
161 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
162 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
168 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
172 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
173 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
174 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
175 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
176 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
177 download from where it left off.
182 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
183 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
184 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway, you
185 can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks. Wget
186 also supports the passive @sc{ftp} downloading as an option.
190 Builtin features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
191 (@pxref{Following Links}).
195 The retrieval is conveniently traced with printing dots, each dot
196 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). These
197 representations can be customized to your preferences.
201 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
202 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
203 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
204 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
209 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
210 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
220 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
221 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
222 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
226 @node Invoking, Recursive Retrieval, Overview, Top
233 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
236 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
237 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
241 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
242 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
244 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
245 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
246 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
252 * Basic Startup Options::
253 * Logging and Input File Options::
255 * Directory Options::
258 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
259 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
262 @node URL Format, Option Syntax, Invoking, Invoking
267 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
268 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
269 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
270 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
274 http://host[:port]/directory/file
275 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
278 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
281 ftp://user:password@@host/path
282 http://user:password@@host/path
285 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
286 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
287 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
288 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
289 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
290 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
293 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
294 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
295 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
296 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
297 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
298 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
300 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
301 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
302 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
303 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
304 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
307 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
308 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
309 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
310 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
311 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
312 for text files. Here is an example:
315 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
318 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
319 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
321 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
326 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
331 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
332 supported in the future.
334 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
335 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
336 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
338 @node Option Syntax, Basic Startup Options, URL Format, Invoking
339 @section Option Syntax
340 @cindex option syntax
341 @cindex syntax of options
343 Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option has a
344 short form and a long form. Long options are more convenient to
345 remember, but take time to type. You may freely mix different option
346 styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you
350 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
353 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
354 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
356 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
363 This is a complete equivalent of:
366 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
369 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
370 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
371 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
377 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
378 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
379 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
380 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
381 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
382 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
383 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
386 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
391 @node Basic Startup Options, Logging and Input File Options, Option Syntax, Invoking
392 @section Basic Startup Options
397 Display the version of Wget.
401 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
405 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
406 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
408 @cindex execute wgetrc command
409 @item -e @var{command}
410 @itemx --execute @var{command}
411 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
412 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
413 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
417 @node Logging and Input File Options, Download Options, Basic Startup Options, Invoking
418 @section Logging and Input File Options
423 @item -o @var{logfile}
424 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
425 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
428 @cindex append to log
429 @item -a @var{logfile}
430 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
431 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
432 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
433 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
438 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
439 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
440 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
441 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
442 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
443 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
444 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
450 Turn off Wget's output.
455 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
460 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
461 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
462 information still get printed.
466 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
467 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}, in which case no @sc{url}s need to be on
468 the command line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and
469 in an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
470 be retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
471 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
474 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
475 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
476 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
477 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
478 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
483 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
484 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
485 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
486 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
489 @cindex base for relative links in input file
491 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
492 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
493 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
496 @node Download Options, Directory Options, Logging and Input File Options, Invoking
497 @section Download Options
500 @cindex bind() address
501 @cindex client IP address
502 @cindex IP address, client
503 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
504 When making client TCP/IP connections, @code{bind()} to @var{ADDRESS} on
505 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
506 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
511 @cindex number of retries
512 @item -t @var{number}
513 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
514 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
515 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
516 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
517 which are not retried.
520 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
521 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all will
522 be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @var{file}
523 already exists, it will be overwritten. If the @var{file} is @samp{-},
524 the documents will be written to standard output. Including this option
525 automatically sets the number of tries to 1.
527 @cindex clobbering, file
528 @cindex downloading multiple times
532 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
533 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
534 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
535 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
537 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
538 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
539 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
540 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
541 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
542 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
543 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
544 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
545 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
546 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
549 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
550 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
551 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
552 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
555 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
556 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
557 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
558 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
561 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
562 @samp{.html} or (yuck) @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk
563 and parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
565 @cindex continue retrieval
566 @cindex incomplete downloads
567 @cindex resume download
570 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
571 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
572 by another program. For instance:
575 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
578 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
579 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
580 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
581 length of the local file.
583 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
584 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
585 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
586 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
587 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
589 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
590 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
593 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
594 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
595 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
596 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
597 start from scratch, remove the file.
599 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
600 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
601 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
602 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
603 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
604 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
606 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
607 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
608 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
609 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
610 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
611 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
612 collection or log file.
614 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
615 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
616 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
617 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
618 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
619 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
621 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
622 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
623 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
624 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
626 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
627 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
629 @cindex progress indicator
631 @item --progress=@var{type}
632 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
633 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
635 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an ASCII progress
636 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
637 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
640 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
641 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
642 fixed amount of downloaded data.
644 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
645 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
646 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
647 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
648 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
649 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
650 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
651 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
652 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
654 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
655 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
656 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
657 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
658 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
661 @itemx --timestamping
662 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
664 @cindex server response, print
666 @itemx --server-response
667 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
670 @cindex Wget as spider
673 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
674 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
675 are there. You can use it to check your bookmarks, e.g. with:
678 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
681 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
682 functionality of real @sc{www} spiders.
686 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
687 Set the network timeouts to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
688 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
689 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
691 Whenever Wget connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks for a
692 timeout and aborts the operation if the time expires. This prevents
693 anomalous occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite connects. The
694 only timeout enabled by default is a 900-second timeout for reading.
695 Setting timeout to 0 disables checking for timeouts.
697 Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to set any of the
698 timeout-related options.
702 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
703 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
704 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
705 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
708 @cindex connect timeout
709 @cindex timeout, connect
710 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
711 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
712 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
713 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
716 @cindex timeout, read
717 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
718 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Reads that
719 take longer will fail. The default value for read timeout is 900
722 @cindex bandwidth, limit
724 @cindex limit bandwidth
725 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
726 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
727 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
728 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
729 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This kind of thing is useful when,
730 for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available
733 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
734 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
735 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
736 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
737 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
738 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
742 @item -w @var{seconds}
743 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
744 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
745 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
746 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
747 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
748 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
750 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
751 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
752 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
754 @cindex retries, waiting between
755 @cindex waiting between retries
756 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
757 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
758 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
759 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
760 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
761 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
762 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
765 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
771 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
772 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
773 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
774 to vary between 0 and 2 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
775 specified using the @samp{-w} or @samp{--wait} options, in order to mask
776 Wget's presence from such analysis.
778 A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
779 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
780 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
781 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
784 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
785 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
790 @itemx --proxy=on/off
791 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
792 appropriate environment variable is defined.
794 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
798 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
799 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
800 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
801 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
803 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
804 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
805 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
806 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
807 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
808 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
809 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
811 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
814 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
815 @item --dns-cache=off
816 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the addresses
817 it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly contact the DNS
818 server for the same (typically small) set of addresses it retrieves
819 from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will contact DNS
822 However, in some cases it is not desirable to cache host names, even for
823 the duration of a short-running application like Wget. For example,
824 some HTTP servers are hosted on machines with dynamically allocated IP
825 addresses that change from time to time. Their DNS entries are updated
826 along with each change. When Wget's download from such a host gets
827 interrupted by IP address change, Wget retries the download, but (due to
828 DNS caching) it contacts the old address. With the DNS cache turned
829 off, Wget will repeat the DNS lookup for every connect and will thus get
830 the correct dynamic address every time---at the cost of additional DNS
831 lookups where they're probably not needed.
833 If you don't understand the above description, you probably won't need
836 @cindex file names, restrict
837 @cindex Windows file names
838 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
839 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
840 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
841 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
842 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
845 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
846 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
847 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
848 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
849 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
851 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
852 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
853 default on Unix-like OS'es.
855 When mode is seto to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
856 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
857 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
858 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
859 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
860 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
861 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
862 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
863 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
864 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
866 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
867 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
868 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
869 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
870 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
873 @node Directory Options, HTTP Options, Download Options, Invoking
874 @section Directory Options
878 @itemx --no-directories
879 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
880 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
881 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
882 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
885 @itemx --force-directories
886 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
887 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
888 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
889 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
892 @itemx --no-host-directories
893 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
894 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
895 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
898 @cindex cut directories
899 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
900 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
901 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
904 Take, for example, the directory at
905 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
906 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
907 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
908 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
909 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
910 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
911 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
915 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
917 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
918 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
920 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
925 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
926 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
927 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
928 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
929 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
931 @cindex directory prefix
932 @item -P @var{prefix}
933 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
934 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
935 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
936 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
940 @node HTTP Options, FTP Options, Directory Options, Invoking
941 @section HTTP Options
944 @cindex .html extension
946 @itemx --html-extension
947 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
948 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
949 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
950 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
951 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
952 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
953 good use for this is when you're downloading the output of CGIs. A URL
954 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
955 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
957 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
958 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
959 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
960 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
961 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
962 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
963 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
967 @cindex http password
968 @cindex authentication
969 @item --http-user=@var{user}
970 @itemx --http-passwd=@var{password}
971 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
972 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
973 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
974 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
976 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
977 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
978 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
979 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
980 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
981 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
982 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
984 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
990 @itemx --cache=on/off
991 When set to off, disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will
992 send the remote server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma:
993 no-cache}) to get the file from the remote service, rather than
994 returning the cached version. This is especially useful for retrieving
995 and flushing out-of-date documents on proxy servers.
997 Caching is allowed by default.
1000 @item --cookies=on/off
1001 When set to off, disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism
1002 for maintaining server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie
1003 using the @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the
1004 same cookie upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server
1005 owners to keep track of visitors and for sites to exchange this
1006 information, some consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to
1007 use cookies; however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1009 @cindex loading cookies
1010 @cindex cookies, loading
1011 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1012 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1013 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1014 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1016 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1017 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1018 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1019 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1020 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1021 proves your identity.
1023 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1024 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1025 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1026 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1027 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1028 cookie files in different locations:
1032 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1034 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1035 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1036 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1037 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1038 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1040 @item Internet Explorer.
1041 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1042 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1043 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1045 @item Other browsers.
1046 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1047 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1048 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1051 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1052 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1053 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1054 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1055 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1058 wget --cookies=off --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1061 @cindex saving cookies
1062 @cindex cookies, saving
1063 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1064 Save cookies from @var{file} at the end of session. Cookies whose
1065 expiry time is not specified, or those that have already expired, are
1068 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1069 @cindex ignore length
1070 @item --ignore-length
1071 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1072 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1073 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1074 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1075 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1078 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1079 if it never existed.
1082 @item --header=@var{additional-header}
1083 Define an @var{additional-header} to be passed to the @sc{http} servers.
1084 Headers must contain a @samp{:} preceded by one or more non-blank
1085 characters, and must not contain newlines.
1087 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1088 @samp{--header} more than once.
1092 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1093 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1094 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1098 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1099 previous user-defined headers.
1102 @cindex proxy password
1103 @cindex proxy authentication
1104 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1105 @itemx --proxy-passwd=@var{password}
1106 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1107 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1108 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1110 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-passwd}
1111 pertain here as well.
1113 @cindex http referer
1114 @cindex referer, http
1115 @item --referer=@var{url}
1116 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1117 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1118 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1119 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1121 @cindex server response, save
1123 @itemx --save-headers
1124 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1125 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1128 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1129 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1130 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1132 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1133 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1134 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1135 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1136 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1139 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1140 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1141 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
1142 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
1143 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
1144 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
1145 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
1148 @node FTP Options, Recursive Retrieval Options, HTTP Options, Invoking
1149 @section FTP Options
1152 @cindex .listing files, removing
1154 @itemx --dont-remove-listing
1155 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1156 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1157 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1158 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1159 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1160 you're running is complete).
1162 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1163 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1164 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1165 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1166 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1167 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1168 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1169 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1170 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1172 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1173 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1174 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1175 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1176 will be overwritten.
1178 @cindex globbing, toggle
1180 @itemx --glob=on/off
1181 Turn @sc{ftp} globbing on or off. Globbing means you may use the
1182 shell-like special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*},
1183 @samp{?}, @samp{[} and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the
1184 same directory at once, like:
1187 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1190 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1191 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1194 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1195 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1196 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1197 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1201 Use the @dfn{passive} @sc{ftp} retrieval scheme, in which the client
1202 initiates the data connection. This is sometimes required for @sc{ftp}
1203 to work behind firewalls.
1205 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1206 @item --retr-symlinks
1207 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1208 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1209 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1210 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1211 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1213 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1214 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1215 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1216 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1219 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1220 specified on the commandline, rather than because it was recursed to,
1221 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1225 @node Recursive Retrieval Options, Recursive Accept/Reject Options, FTP Options, Invoking
1226 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1231 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Retrieval}, for more
1234 @item -l @var{depth}
1235 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1236 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1237 Retrieval}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1239 @cindex proxy filling
1240 @cindex delete after retrieval
1241 @cindex filling proxy cache
1242 @item --delete-after
1243 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1244 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1245 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1248 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1251 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1254 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1255 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1256 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1257 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1258 created in the first place.
1260 @cindex conversion of links
1261 @cindex link conversion
1263 @itemx --convert-links
1264 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1265 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1266 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1267 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-HTML
1270 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1274 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1275 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1277 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1278 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1279 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1280 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1283 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1284 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1286 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1287 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1288 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1289 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1292 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1293 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1294 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1295 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1296 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1299 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1300 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1301 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1303 @cindex backing up converted files
1305 @itemx --backup-converted
1306 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1307 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1312 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1313 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1314 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1315 @samp{-r -N -l inf -nr}.
1317 @cindex page requisites
1318 @cindex required images, downloading
1320 @itemx --page-requisites
1321 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1322 properly display a given HTML page. This includes such things as
1323 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1325 Ordinarily, when downloading a single HTML page, any requisite documents
1326 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1327 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1328 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1329 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1332 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1333 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1334 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1335 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1336 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1338 If one executes the command:
1341 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1344 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1345 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1346 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1347 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1348 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1351 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1354 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1355 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1358 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1361 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1362 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1365 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1368 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1369 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1370 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single HTML
1371 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the commandline or in a
1372 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1373 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1376 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1379 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1380 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1381 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1382 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1383 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1384 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1387 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1390 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1391 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1392 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1395 @cindex HTML comments
1396 @cindex comments, HTML
1397 @item --strict-comments
1398 Turn on strict parsing of HTML comments. The default is to terminate
1399 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1401 According to specifications, HTML comments are expressed as SGML
1402 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1403 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1404 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. HTML
1405 comments are ``empty declarations'', SGML declarations without any
1406 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1407 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1409 On the other hand, most HTML writers don't perceive comments as anything
1410 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1411 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1412 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1413 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1414 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1415 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1416 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1417 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1419 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1420 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1421 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1422 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1423 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1426 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1427 option to turn it on.
1430 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options, , Recursive Retrieval Options, Invoking
1431 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1434 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1435 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1436 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1437 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1439 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1440 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1441 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1442 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1444 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1445 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1446 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1448 @cindex follow FTP links
1450 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1451 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1453 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1454 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1455 Wget has an internal table of HTML tag / attribute pairs that it
1456 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1457 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1458 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1459 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1462 @itemx --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1463 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1464 certain HTML tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1465 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1467 In the past, the @samp{-G} option was the best bet for downloading a
1468 single page and its requisites, using a commandline like:
1471 wget -Ga,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1474 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1475 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1476 @samp{-G} was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to ignore
1477 @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded. Now the
1478 best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1479 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1483 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1484 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1488 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1489 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1490 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1493 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1494 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1495 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1496 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1499 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1500 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1501 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1502 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1506 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1507 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1508 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1509 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1514 @node Recursive Retrieval, Following Links, Invoking, Top
1515 @chapter Recursive Retrieval
1518 @cindex recursive retrieval
1520 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1521 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1522 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieving}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1524 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1525 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1526 document was referring to, through markups like @code{href}, or
1527 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1528 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1531 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1532 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1533 HTML document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1534 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1535 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1536 until the specified maximum depth.
1538 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1539 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1541 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1542 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1543 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1544 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1545 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1548 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1549 the one found on the remote server.
1551 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1552 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1553 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1554 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1556 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1557 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1558 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1559 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1560 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1561 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1562 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1564 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1565 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1566 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1567 consume memory and CPU.
1569 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1570 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1571 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1572 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1573 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1574 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1575 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1578 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1581 @node Following Links, Time-Stamping, Recursive Retrieval, Top
1582 @chapter Following Links
1584 @cindex following links
1586 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1587 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1588 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1590 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1591 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1592 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1594 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1595 links it will follow.
1598 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1599 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1600 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1601 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1602 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1605 @node Spanning Hosts, Types of Files, Following Links, Following Links
1606 @section Spanning Hosts
1607 @cindex spanning hosts
1608 @cindex hosts, spanning
1610 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1611 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1612 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1613 your Wget into a small version of google.
1615 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1616 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1617 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1618 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the HTML
1619 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1622 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1624 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1625 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1626 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1627 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1628 up much more data than you have intended.
1630 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1632 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1633 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1634 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1635 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1636 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
1637 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
1640 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
1643 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
1644 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
1646 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
1648 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1649 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1650 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1651 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1652 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1656 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
1662 @node Types of Files, Directory-Based Limits, Spanning Hosts, Following Links
1663 @section Types of Files
1664 @cindex types of files
1666 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1667 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1668 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1669 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
1671 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
1672 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
1675 @cindex accept wildcards
1676 @cindex accept suffixes
1677 @cindex wildcards, accept
1678 @cindex suffixes, accept
1680 @item -A @var{acclist}
1681 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
1682 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
1683 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
1684 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
1685 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
1686 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
1687 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
1689 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
1690 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
1691 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
1692 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
1693 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
1694 a description of how pattern matching works.
1696 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
1697 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
1699 @cindex reject wildcards
1700 @cindex reject suffixes
1701 @cindex wildcards, reject
1702 @cindex suffixes, reject
1703 @item -R @var{rejlist}
1704 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
1705 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
1706 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
1707 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
1708 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
1710 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
1711 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
1712 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
1713 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
1714 expansion by the shell.
1717 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
1718 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
1719 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
1720 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
1722 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
1723 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
1724 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
1726 @node Directory-Based Limits, Relative Links, Types of Files, Following Links
1727 @section Directory-Based Limits
1729 @cindex directory limits
1731 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
1732 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
1733 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
1734 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
1735 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
1736 @file{/dev} directories.
1738 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
1739 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
1740 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
1742 @cindex directories, include
1743 @cindex include directories
1744 @cindex accept directories
1747 @itemx --include @var{list}
1748 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
1749 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
1750 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
1751 directories are absolute paths.
1753 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
1754 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
1755 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
1758 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
1761 @cindex directories, exclude
1762 @cindex exclude directories
1763 @cindex reject directories
1765 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
1766 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
1767 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
1768 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
1769 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
1770 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
1772 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
1773 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
1774 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
1775 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
1780 @itemx no_parent = on
1781 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
1782 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
1783 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
1784 parent directory/directories.
1786 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
1787 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
1788 Supposing you issue Wget with:
1791 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
1794 You may rest assured that none of the references to
1795 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
1796 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
1797 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
1798 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
1799 intelligent fashion.
1802 @node Relative Links, FTP Links, Directory-Based Limits, Following Links
1803 @section Relative Links
1804 @cindex relative links
1806 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
1807 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
1808 server root. For example, these links are relative:
1812 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
1813 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
1816 These links are not relative:
1820 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
1821 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
1824 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
1825 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
1826 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
1828 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
1831 @node FTP Links, , Relative Links, Following Links
1832 @section Following FTP Links
1833 @cindex following ftp links
1835 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
1836 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
1837 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
1840 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
1841 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
1842 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
1843 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
1844 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
1845 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
1846 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
1848 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
1849 retrieved recursively further.
1851 @node Time-Stamping, Startup File, Following Links, Top
1852 @chapter Time-Stamping
1853 @cindex time-stamping
1854 @cindex timestamping
1855 @cindex updating the archives
1856 @cindex incremental updating
1858 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
1859 Internet is updating your archives.
1861 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
1862 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
1863 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
1864 offer the option of incremental updating.
1866 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
1867 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
1868 the place of the old ones.
1870 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
1874 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
1877 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
1878 recently than the local file.
1881 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
1882 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
1883 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
1885 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
1886 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
1887 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
1888 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
1889 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
1891 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
1892 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
1896 * Time-Stamping Usage::
1897 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1898 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1901 @node Time-Stamping Usage, HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping, Time-Stamping
1902 @section Time-Stamping Usage
1903 @cindex time-stamping usage
1904 @cindex usage, time-stamping
1906 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
1907 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
1910 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1913 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
1914 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
1915 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
1916 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
1918 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
1919 changed, and download it if it has.
1922 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1925 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
1926 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
1927 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
1928 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
1930 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
1933 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
1936 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
1937 interpret the @samp{*}.)
1939 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
1940 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
1941 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
1942 since the last download.
1944 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
1945 command like the following, weekly:
1948 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
1951 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
1952 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
1953 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
1954 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
1955 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
1957 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping Usage, Time-Stamping
1958 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
1959 @cindex http time-stamping
1961 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
1962 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
1963 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
1964 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
1965 retrieved unconditionally.
1967 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
1968 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
1969 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
1972 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
1973 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
1974 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
1975 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
1976 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
1977 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
1980 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
1981 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
1982 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
1983 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
1984 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
1986 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
1987 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
1989 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals, , HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping
1990 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
1991 @cindex ftp time-stamping
1993 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
1994 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
1997 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
1998 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
1999 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2000 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2001 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2002 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2003 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2004 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2006 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2007 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2008 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2009 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2010 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2011 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2013 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2014 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2015 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2016 Wget may support this command in the future.
2018 @node Startup File, Examples, Time-Stamping, Top
2019 @chapter Startup File
2020 @cindex startup file
2026 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2027 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2028 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2029 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2031 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2032 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2033 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2034 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2036 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2040 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2041 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2042 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2043 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2046 @node Wgetrc Location, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File, Startup File
2047 @section Wgetrc Location
2048 @cindex wgetrc location
2049 @cindex location of wgetrc
2051 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2052 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2053 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2054 from there, if it exists.
2056 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2057 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2058 further attempts will be made.
2060 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2062 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2063 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2064 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2065 Fascist admins, away!
2067 @node Wgetrc Syntax, Wgetrc Commands, Wgetrc Location, Startup File
2068 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2069 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2070 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2072 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2078 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2079 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2081 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2082 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2083 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2086 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2087 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2088 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2094 @node Wgetrc Commands, Sample Wgetrc, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File
2095 @section Wgetrc Commands
2096 @cindex wgetrc commands
2098 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2099 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2100 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}. A fancier kind of
2101 Boolean allowed in some cases is the @dfn{lockable Boolean}, which may
2102 be set to @samp{on}, @samp{off}, @samp{always}, or @samp{never}. If an
2103 option is set to @samp{always} or @samp{never}, that value will be
2104 locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation---commandline options
2107 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2108 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2109 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2110 values can be any non-empty string.
2112 Most of these commands have commandline equivalents (@pxref{Invoking}),
2113 though some of the more obscure or rarely used ones do not.
2116 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2117 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2119 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2120 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2122 @item continue = on/off
2123 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2124 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2126 @item background = on/off
2127 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2130 @item backup_converted = on/off
2131 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2132 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2134 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2135 @c #### Document me!
2137 @item base = @var{string}
2138 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2139 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2142 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2143 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address} option.
2145 @item cache = on/off
2146 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{-C} option.
2148 @item convert links = on/off
2149 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2151 @item cookies = on/off
2152 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2154 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2155 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies}.
2157 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2158 Save cookies to @var{file}. See @samp{--save-cookies}.
2160 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2161 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2163 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2164 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components.
2166 @item debug = on/off
2167 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2169 @item delete_after = on/off
2170 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2172 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2173 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P}.
2175 @item dirstruct = on/off
2176 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2179 @item dns_cache = on/off
2180 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2181 option is normally used to turn it off. Same as @samp{--dns-cache}.
2183 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2184 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2186 @item domains = @var{string}
2187 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2189 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2190 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2191 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2192 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2193 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2194 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2195 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2197 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2198 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2199 the retrieval (50 by default).
2201 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2202 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2204 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2205 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2206 download---the same as @samp{-X} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2208 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2209 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2211 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2212 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2213 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2215 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2216 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2217 @samp{--follow-tags}.
2219 @item force_html = on/off
2220 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2221 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2223 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2224 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2228 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{-g}.
2230 @item header = @var{string}
2231 Define an additional header, like @samp{--header}.
2233 @item html_extension = on/off
2234 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2235 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like
2238 @item http_passwd = @var{string}
2239 Set @sc{http} password.
2241 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2242 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2245 @item http_user = @var{string}
2246 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}.
2248 @item ignore_length = on/off
2249 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2250 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2252 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2253 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2254 @samp{-G} / @samp{--ignore-tags}.
2256 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2257 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2258 downloading---the same as @samp{-I}.
2260 @item input = @var{string}
2261 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i}.
2263 @item kill_longer = on/off
2264 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid
2265 (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save as much data
2266 as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in
2267 @code{Content-Length}.
2269 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2270 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2271 The same as @samp{--limit-rate}.
2273 @item logfile = @var{string}
2274 Set logfile---the same as @samp{-o}.
2276 @item login = @var{string}
2277 Your user name on the remote machine, for @sc{ftp}. Defaults to
2280 @item mirror = on/off
2281 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2283 @item netrc = on/off
2284 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2286 @item noclobber = on/off
2289 @item no_parent = on/off
2290 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2291 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2293 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2294 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2295 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2297 @item output_document = @var{string}
2298 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O}.
2300 @item page_requisites = on/off
2301 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single HTML page to
2302 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2304 @item passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
2305 Set passive @sc{ftp}---the same as @samp{--passive-ftp}. Some scripts
2306 and @samp{.pm} (Perl module) files download files using @samp{wget
2307 --passive-ftp}. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set
2308 @samp{passive_ftp = never} to override the commandline.
2310 @item passwd = @var{string}
2311 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{password}. Without this setting, the
2312 password defaults to @samp{username@@hostname.domainname}.
2314 @item progress = @var{string}
2315 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are ``dot'' and
2318 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2319 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-user}.
2321 @item proxy_passwd = @var{string}
2322 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-passwd}.
2324 @item referer = @var{string}
2325 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like @samp{--referer}. (Note it
2326 was the folks who wrote the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of
2327 ``referrer'' wrong.)
2329 @item quiet = on/off
2330 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2332 @item quota = @var{quota}
2333 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2334 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2335 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2336 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2337 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2338 to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2341 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2342 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as @samp{--read-timeout}.
2344 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2345 Recursion level---the same as @samp{-l}.
2347 @item recursive = on/off
2348 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2350 @item relative_only = on/off
2351 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2354 @item remove_listing = on/off
2355 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2356 to off is the same as @samp{-nr}.
2358 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2359 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2360 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2362 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2363 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2364 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2366 @item robots = on/off
2367 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2368 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2369 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2370 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2373 @item server_response = on/off
2374 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2375 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2377 @item span_hosts = on/off
2380 @item strict_comments = on/off
2381 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2383 @item timeout = @var{n}
2384 Set timeout value---the same as @samp{-T}.
2386 @item timestamping = on/off
2387 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2389 @item tries = @var{n}
2390 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t}.
2392 @item use_proxy = on/off
2393 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as @samp{-Y}.
2395 @item verbose = on/off
2396 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2398 @item wait = @var{n}
2399 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w}.
2401 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2402 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2403 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry}. Note that this is turned on by
2404 default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2406 @item randomwait = on/off
2407 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2408 @samp{--random-wait}.
2411 @node Sample Wgetrc, , Wgetrc Commands, Startup File
2412 @section Sample Wgetrc
2413 @cindex sample wgetrc
2415 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2416 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2417 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2418 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2420 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2421 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2425 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2428 @node Examples, Various, Startup File, Top
2432 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2433 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2437 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2438 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2439 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2442 @node Simple Usage, Advanced Usage, Examples, Examples
2443 @section Simple Usage
2447 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2450 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2454 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2455 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2456 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2457 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2458 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2459 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2462 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2466 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2467 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2468 shall use @samp{-t}.
2471 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2474 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2475 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2478 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2482 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2486 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2487 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2490 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
2495 @node Advanced Usage, Very Advanced Usage, Simple Usage, Examples
2496 @section Advanced Usage
2500 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2507 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2511 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2512 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2513 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2516 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2520 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2521 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2524 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2528 Retrieve only one HTML page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2529 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
2530 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
2531 references the downloaded links.
2534 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2537 The HTML page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
2538 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
2539 depending on where they were on the remote server.
2542 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
2543 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
2544 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
2545 subdirectory of the current directory.
2548 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
2549 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2553 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
2557 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
2561 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
2564 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
2569 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
2573 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
2577 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
2578 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
2579 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
2583 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
2586 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
2587 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Retrieval}), with maximum depth
2588 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
2589 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
2590 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
2594 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
2595 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
2599 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
2603 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
2604 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
2607 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
2610 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
2611 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
2614 @cindex redirecting output
2616 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
2620 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
2623 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
2624 documents from remote hotlists:
2627 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
2631 @node Very Advanced Usage, , Advanced Usage, Examples
2632 @section Very Advanced Usage
2637 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
2638 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
2639 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
2640 to recheck a site each Sunday:
2644 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2648 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
2649 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
2650 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
2651 back up the original HTML files before the conversion. Wget invocation
2652 would look like this:
2655 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2656 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2660 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
2661 when HTML files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
2662 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
2663 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
2664 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
2667 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2668 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
2672 Or, with less typing:
2675 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2680 @node Various, Appendices, Examples, Top
2684 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
2687 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
2688 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
2689 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
2690 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
2691 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
2692 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
2695 @node Proxies, Distribution, Various, Various
2699 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
2700 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
2701 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
2702 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
2703 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
2704 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
2705 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
2706 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
2707 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
2708 using an authorized proxy.
2710 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
2711 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
2712 the following environment variables:
2716 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
2720 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
2721 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
2722 are set to the same @sc{url}.
2725 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
2726 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
2727 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
2731 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
2732 may be specified from within Wget itself.
2736 @itemx --proxy=on/off
2737 @itemx proxy = on/off
2738 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
2739 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
2742 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
2743 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
2744 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
2745 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
2746 specified by the environment.
2749 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
2750 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
2751 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
2752 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
2753 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
2755 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
2756 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
2757 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
2758 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
2762 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
2765 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
2766 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
2767 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_passwd} to set the proxy
2768 username and password.
2770 @node Distribution, Mailing List, Proxies, Various
2771 @section Distribution
2772 @cindex latest version
2774 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
2775 master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For example,
2776 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
2777 @url{ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
2779 @node Mailing List, Reporting Bugs, Distribution, Various
2780 @section Mailing List
2781 @cindex mailing list
2784 Wget has its own mailing list at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, thanks
2785 to Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget
2786 features and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of
2787 interest to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
2788 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
2790 To subscribe, send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2791 the magic word @samp{subscribe} in the subject line. Unsubscribe by
2792 mailing to @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2794 The mailing list is archived at @url{http://fly.srk.fer.hr/archive/wget}.
2795 Alternative archive is available at
2796 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.auc.dk/}.
2798 @node Reporting Bugs, Portability, Mailing List, Various
2799 @section Reporting Bugs
2801 @cindex reporting bugs
2805 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
2806 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
2808 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
2813 Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a bug. If
2814 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
2815 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
2816 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
2819 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
2820 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
2821 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
2822 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
2823 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
2824 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
2826 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
2827 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
2828 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
2829 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
2830 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
2834 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send the log (or the
2835 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
2836 recompile it. It is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs with debug support
2840 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
2841 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace.
2845 @node Portability, Signals, Reporting Bugs, Various
2846 @section Portability
2848 @cindex operating systems
2850 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
2851 using ``special'' ultra--mega--cool features of any particular Unix, it
2852 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
2854 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
2855 Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital Unix),
2856 Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file @file{MACHINES} in the
2857 distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it on
2858 an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update it.
2860 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
2861 @file{MACHINES}. If it doesn't, please let me know.
2863 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works on
2864 Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
2865 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
2866 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
2867 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
2868 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is
2869 @strong{neither tested nor maintained} by me---all questions and
2870 problems should be reported to Wget mailing list at
2871 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the maintainers will look at them.
2873 @node Signals, , Portability, Various
2875 @cindex signal handling
2878 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
2879 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
2880 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
2881 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
2882 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
2885 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
2886 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
2889 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
2890 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
2892 @node Appendices, Copying, Various, Top
2895 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
2898 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
2899 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
2900 * Contributors:: People who helped.
2903 @node Robot Exclusion, Security Considerations, Appendices, Appendices
2904 @section Robot Exclusion
2905 @cindex robot exclusion
2907 @cindex server maintenance
2909 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
2910 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
2911 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
2913 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
2914 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
2915 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
2916 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
2917 section handled by an, uh, @dfn{bitchin'} CGI Perl script that converts
2918 Info files to HTML on the fly. The script is slow, but works well
2919 enough for human users viewing an occasional Info file. However, when
2920 someone's recursive Wget download stumbles upon the index page that
2921 links to all the Info files through the script, the system is brought to
2922 its knees without providing anything useful to the downloader.
2924 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
2925 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
2926 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} has been invented. The idea is that
2927 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
2928 portions of the site they wish to protect from the robots.
2930 The most popular mechanism, and the de facto standard supported by all
2931 the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written by
2932 Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text file
2933 containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to avoid.
2934 To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
2935 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are supposed to
2938 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
2939 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
2940 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
2941 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
2944 wget -r http://www.server.com/
2947 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
2948 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
2949 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
2950 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
2953 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
2954 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
2955 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
2956 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
2957 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
2958 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
2959 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
2960 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
2962 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
2964 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
2965 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
2966 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
2970 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
2973 This is explained in some detail at
2974 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
2975 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
2978 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
2979 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
2980 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
2981 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
2983 @node Security Considerations, Contributors, Robot Exclusion, Appendices
2984 @section Security Considerations
2987 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
2988 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
2989 main issues, and some solutions.
2992 @item The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}.
2993 The best way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s
2994 to Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by
2995 @kbd{C-d}. Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store
2996 passwords; however, storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a
3000 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3001 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3004 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3005 solution for this at the moment.
3008 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3009 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3010 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3014 @node Contributors, , Security Considerations, Appendices
3015 @section Contributors
3016 @cindex contributors
3019 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@arsdigita.com}.
3022 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@arsdigita.com}.
3024 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
3025 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
3026 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3028 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3032 Karsten Thygesen---donated system resources such as the mailing list,
3033 web space, and @sc{ftp} space, along with a lot of time to make these
3037 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3040 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3044 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3048 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3049 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3052 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3053 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3057 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3060 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
3064 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3068 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3073 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3076 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3080 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
3084 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3088 The people who provided donations for development, including Brian
3092 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3093 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3094 that make maintenance so much fun:
3113 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3131 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3134 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3150 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3168 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3179 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3180 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3181 (Simos KSenitellis),
3189 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3195 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3220 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3222 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}gues,
3225 Juan Jose Rodrigues,
3237 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3243 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3253 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3254 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3256 @node Copying, Concept Index, Appendices, Top
3261 @cindex free software
3263 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU GPL, which makes it @dfn{free
3266 Please note that ``free'' in ``free software'' refers to liberty, not
3267 price. As some GNU project advocates like to point out, think of ``free
3268 speech'' rather than ``free beer''. The exact and legally binding
3269 distribution terms are spelled out below; in short, you have the right
3270 (freedom) to run and change Wget and distribute it to other people, and
3271 even---if you want---charge money for doing either. The important
3272 restriction is that you have to grant your recipients the same rights
3273 and impose the same restrictions.
3275 This method of licensing software is also known as @dfn{open source}
3276 because, among other things, it makes sure that all recipients will
3277 receive the source code along with the program, and be able to improve
3278 it. The GNU project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons
3280 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3282 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3283 General Public License it refers to:
3286 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3287 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3288 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3289 option) any later version.
3291 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3292 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3293 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3296 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3297 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3298 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3301 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3304 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3305 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
3306 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
3307 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
3308 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3309 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3310 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3313 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3314 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3315 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3318 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3319 Documentation License are available below.
3322 * GNU General Public License::
3323 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3326 @node GNU General Public License, GNU Free Documentation License, Copying, Copying
3327 @section GNU General Public License
3328 @center Version 2, June 1991
3331 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3332 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3334 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3335 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3338 @unnumberedsec Preamble
3340 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
3341 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
3342 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3343 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
3344 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
3345 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
3346 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
3347 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
3350 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
3351 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
3352 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
3353 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
3354 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
3355 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
3357 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
3358 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
3359 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
3360 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
3362 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
3363 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
3364 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
3365 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
3368 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
3369 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
3370 distribute and/or modify the software.
3372 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
3373 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
3374 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
3375 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
3376 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
3377 authors' reputations.
3379 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
3380 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
3381 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
3382 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
3383 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
3385 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
3386 modification follow.
3389 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3392 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3397 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
3398 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
3399 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
3400 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
3401 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
3402 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
3403 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
3404 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
3405 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
3407 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
3408 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
3409 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
3410 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
3411 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
3412 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
3415 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
3416 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
3417 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
3418 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
3419 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
3420 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
3421 along with the Program.
3423 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
3424 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3427 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
3428 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
3429 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
3430 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
3434 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
3435 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
3438 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
3439 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
3440 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
3441 parties under the terms of this License.
3444 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
3445 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
3446 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
3447 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
3448 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
3449 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
3450 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
3451 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
3452 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
3453 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
3456 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
3457 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
3458 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
3459 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
3460 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
3461 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
3462 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
3463 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
3464 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
3466 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
3467 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
3468 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
3469 collective works based on the Program.
3471 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
3472 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
3473 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
3474 the scope of this License.
3477 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
3478 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
3479 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3483 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3484 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3485 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
3488 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
3489 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
3490 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
3491 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
3492 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
3493 customarily used for software interchange; or,
3496 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
3497 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
3498 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
3499 received the program in object code or executable form with such
3500 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
3503 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
3504 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
3505 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
3506 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
3507 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
3508 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
3509 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
3510 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
3511 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
3512 itself accompanies the executable.
3514 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
3515 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
3516 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
3517 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
3518 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
3521 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
3522 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
3523 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
3524 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
3525 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
3526 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3527 parties remain in full compliance.
3530 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
3531 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
3532 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
3533 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
3534 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
3535 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
3536 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
3537 the Program or works based on it.
3540 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
3541 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
3542 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
3543 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
3544 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
3545 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
3549 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
3550 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
3551 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
3552 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
3553 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
3554 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
3555 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
3556 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
3557 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
3558 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
3559 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
3560 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
3562 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
3563 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
3564 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
3567 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
3568 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
3569 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
3570 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
3571 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
3572 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
3573 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
3574 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
3575 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
3578 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
3579 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
3582 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
3583 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
3584 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
3585 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
3586 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
3587 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
3588 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
3591 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
3592 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
3593 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
3594 address new problems or concerns.
3596 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
3597 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
3598 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
3599 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
3600 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
3601 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
3605 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
3606 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
3607 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
3608 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
3609 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
3610 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
3611 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
3614 @heading NO WARRANTY
3622 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
3623 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
3624 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
3625 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
3626 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
3627 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
3628 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
3629 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
3630 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
3633 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
3634 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
3635 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
3636 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
3637 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
3638 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
3639 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
3640 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
3641 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
3645 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3648 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3652 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
3654 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
3655 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
3656 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
3658 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
3659 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
3660 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
3661 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
3664 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
3665 Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3667 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
3668 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
3669 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
3670 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
3672 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3673 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3674 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3675 GNU General Public License for more details.
3677 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3678 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
3679 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3682 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
3684 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
3685 when it starts in an interactive mode:
3688 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3689 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
3690 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
3691 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
3695 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
3696 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
3697 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
3698 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
3701 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
3702 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
3703 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
3707 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
3708 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
3709 (which makes passes at compilers) written
3712 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
3713 Ty Coon, President of Vice
3717 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
3718 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
3719 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
3720 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
3721 Public License instead of this License.
3723 @node GNU Free Documentation License, , GNU General Public License, Copying
3724 @section GNU Free Documentation License
3725 @center Version 1.1, March 2000
3728 Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3729 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
3731 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3732 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3739 The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other
3740 written document ``free'' in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone
3741 the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without
3742 modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily,
3743 this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get
3744 credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for
3745 modifications made by others.
3747 This License is a kind of ``copyleft'', which means that derivative
3748 works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It
3749 complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft
3750 license designed for free software.
3752 We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
3753 software, because free software needs free documentation: a free
3754 program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the
3755 software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals;
3756 it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
3757 whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License
3758 principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
3762 APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
3764 This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a
3765 notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed
3766 under the terms of this License. The ``Document'', below, refers to any
3767 such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is
3768 addressed as ``you''.
3770 A ``Modified Version'' of the Document means any work containing the
3771 Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with
3772 modifications and/or translated into another language.
3774 A ``Secondary Section'' is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
3775 the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
3776 publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject
3777 (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly
3778 within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a
3779 textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any
3780 mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical
3781 connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
3782 commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding
3785 The ``Invariant Sections'' are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
3786 are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice
3787 that says that the Document is released under this License.
3789 The ``Cover Texts'' are certain short passages of text that are listed,
3790 as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that
3791 the Document is released under this License.
3793 A ``Transparent'' copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy,
3794 represented in a format whose specification is available to the
3795 general public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and
3796 straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of
3797 pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available
3798 drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or
3799 for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input
3800 to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file
3801 format whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage
3802 subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is
3803 not ``Transparent'' is called ``Opaque''.
3805 Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain
3806 ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML
3807 or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple
3808 HTML designed for human modification. Opaque formats include
3809 PostScript, PDF, proprietary formats that can be read and edited only
3810 by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or
3811 processing tools are not generally available, and the
3812 machine-generated HTML produced by some word processors for output
3815 The ``Title Page'' means, for a printed book, the title page itself,
3816 plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material
3817 this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in
3818 formats which do not have any title page as such, ``Title Page'' means
3819 the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title,
3820 preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
3825 You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
3826 commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
3827 copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
3828 to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other
3829 conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use
3830 technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further
3831 copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
3832 compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough
3833 number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
3835 You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and
3836 you may publicly display copies.
3841 If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100,
3842 and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose
3843 the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover
3844 Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on
3845 the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify
3846 you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present
3847 the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and
3848 visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition.
3849 Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve
3850 the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated
3851 as verbatim copying in other respects.
3853 If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit
3854 legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit
3855 reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent
3858 If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering
3859 more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent
3860 copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy
3861 a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete
3862 Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material, which the
3863 general network-using public has access to download anonymously at no
3864 charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter
3865 option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin
3866 distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this
3867 Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location
3868 until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque
3869 copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to
3872 It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
3873 Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give
3874 them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
3879 You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
3880 the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
3881 the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified
3882 Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution
3883 and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy
3884 of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
3886 A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct
3887 from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions
3888 (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section
3889 of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version
3890 if the original publisher of that version gives permission.@*
3891 B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
3892 responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
3893 Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
3894 Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less than five).@*
3895 C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the
3896 Modified Version, as the publisher.@*
3897 D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.@*
3898 E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications
3899 adjacent to the other copyright notices.@*
3900 F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice
3901 giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the
3902 terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.@*
3903 G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections
3904 and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.@*
3905 H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.@*
3906 I. Preserve the section entitled ``History'', and its title, and add to
3907 it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and
3908 publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If
3909 there is no section entitled ``History'' in the Document, create one
3910 stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as
3911 given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified
3912 Version as stated in the previous sentence.@*
3913 J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for
3914 public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise
3915 the network locations given in the Document for previous versions
3916 it was based on. These may be placed in the ``History'' section.
3917 You may omit a network location for a work that was published at
3918 least four years before the Document itself, or if the original
3919 publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.@*
3920 K. In any section entitled ``Acknowledgements'' or ``Dedications'',
3921 preserve the section's title, and preserve in the section all the
3922 substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements
3923 and/or dedications given therein.@*
3924 L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document,
3925 unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers
3926 or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.@*
3927 M. Delete any section entitled ``Endorsements''. Such a section
3928 may not be included in the Modified Version.@*
3929 N. Do not retitle any existing section as ``Endorsements''
3930 or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.@*
3932 If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or
3933 appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material
3934 copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all
3935 of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the
3936 list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice.
3937 These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
3939 You may add a section entitled ``Endorsements'', provided it contains
3940 nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various
3941 parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has
3942 been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a
3945 You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a
3946 passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list
3947 of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of
3948 Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or
3949 through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already
3950 includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or
3951 by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of,
3952 you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit
3953 permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
3955 The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License
3956 give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or
3957 imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
3962 You may combine the Document with other documents released under this
3963 License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified
3964 versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the
3965 Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and
3966 list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its
3969 The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and
3970 multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single
3971 copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but
3972 different contents, make the title of each such section unique by
3973 adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original
3974 author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number.
3975 Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of
3976 Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
3978 In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled ``History''
3979 in the various original documents, forming one section entitled
3980 ``History''; likewise combine any sections entitled ``Acknowledgements'',
3981 and any sections entitled ``Dedications''. You must delete all sections
3982 entitled ``Endorsements.''
3985 COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
3987 You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents
3988 released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this
3989 License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in
3990 the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for
3991 verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.
3993 You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute
3994 it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this
3995 License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all
3996 other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
3999 AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
4001 A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
4002 and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
4003 distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version
4004 of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the
4005 compilation. Such a compilation is called an ``aggregate'', and this
4006 License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled
4007 with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they
4008 are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
4010 If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these
4011 copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter
4012 of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on
4013 covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate.
4014 Otherwise they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.
4019 Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
4020 distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4.
4021 Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special
4022 permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
4023 translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the
4024 original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a
4025 translation of this License provided that you also include the
4026 original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement
4027 between the translation and the original English version of this
4028 License, the original English version will prevail.
4033 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except
4034 as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to
4035 copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will
4036 automatically terminate your rights under this License. However,
4037 parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this
4038 License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
4039 parties remain in full compliance.
4042 FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
4044 The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions
4045 of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new
4046 versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
4047 differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See
4048 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
4050 Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.
4051 If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this
4052 License ``or any later version'' applies to it, you have the option of
4053 following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or
4054 of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the
4055 Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version
4056 number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not
4057 as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
4061 @unnumberedsec ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents
4063 To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
4064 the License in the document and put the following copyright and
4065 license notices just after the title page:
4070 Copyright (C) @var{year} @var{your name}.
4071 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
4072 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
4073 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
4074 with the Invariant Sections being @var{list their titles}, with the
4075 Front-Cover Texts being @var{list}, and with the Back-Cover Texts being @var{list}.
4076 A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU
4077 Free Documentation License''.
4080 If you have no Invariant Sections, write ``with no Invariant Sections''
4081 instead of saying which ones are invariant. If you have no
4082 Front-Cover Texts, write ``no Front-Cover Texts'' instead of
4083 ``Front-Cover Texts being @var{list}''; likewise for Back-Cover Texts.
4085 If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
4086 recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of
4087 free software license, such as the GNU General Public License,
4088 to permit their use in free software.
4091 @node Concept Index, , Copying, Top
4092 @unnumbered Concept Index