1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
36 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
37 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
38 are preserved on all copies.
41 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
42 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
43 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
44 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
46 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
47 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
49 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
50 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
51 Documentation License''.
56 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
57 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
58 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
59 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
63 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
64 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
67 This is @strong{not} the complete manual for GNU Wget.
68 For more complete information, including more detailed explanations of
69 some of the options, and a number of commands available
70 for use with @file{.wgetrc} files and the @samp{-e} option, see the GNU
71 Info entry for @file{wget}.
76 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
77 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
79 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
80 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
81 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
82 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
83 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
84 Documentation License''.
89 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
91 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
92 available utility for network downloads.
94 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
97 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
98 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
99 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
100 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
101 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
102 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
103 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
104 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
105 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
106 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
107 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
116 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
117 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
118 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
119 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
122 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
126 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
127 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
128 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
129 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
130 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
131 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
136 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
140 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
141 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
142 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
143 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
144 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
145 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
146 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
151 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
152 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
153 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
154 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
155 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
156 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
161 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
165 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
166 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
167 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
168 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
169 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
170 download from where it left off.
174 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
175 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
176 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
177 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
178 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
182 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
183 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
184 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
185 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
188 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
189 (@pxref{Following Links}).
192 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
193 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
194 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
195 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
196 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
199 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
200 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
201 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
202 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
207 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
208 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
217 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
218 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
219 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
220 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
230 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
233 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
234 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
238 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
239 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
241 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
242 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
243 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
249 * Basic Startup Options::
250 * Logging and Input File Options::
252 * Directory Options::
254 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
256 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
257 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
265 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
266 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
267 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
268 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
272 http://host[:port]/directory/file
273 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
276 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
279 ftp://user:password@@host/path
280 http://user:password@@host/path
283 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
284 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
285 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
286 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
287 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
288 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
291 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
292 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
293 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
294 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
295 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
296 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
298 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
299 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
300 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
301 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
302 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
305 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
306 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
307 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
308 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
309 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
310 for text files. Here is an example:
313 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
316 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
317 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
319 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
324 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
329 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
330 supported in the future.
332 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
333 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
334 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
339 @section Option Syntax
340 @cindex option syntax
341 @cindex syntax of options
343 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
344 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
345 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
346 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
347 arguments. Thus you may write:
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 of @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
389 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
390 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
391 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
392 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
393 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
394 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
395 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
398 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
399 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
400 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
401 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
403 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
404 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
405 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
406 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
407 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
408 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
409 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
410 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
411 default from the command line.
413 @node Basic Startup Options
414 @section Basic Startup Options
419 Display the version of Wget.
423 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
427 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
428 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
430 @cindex execute wgetrc command
431 @item -e @var{command}
432 @itemx --execute @var{command}
433 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
434 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
435 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
436 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
437 instances of @samp{-e}.
441 @node Logging and Input File Options
442 @section Logging and Input File Options
447 @item -o @var{logfile}
448 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
449 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
452 @cindex append to log
453 @item -a @var{logfile}
454 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
455 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
456 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
457 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
462 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
463 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
464 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
465 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
466 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
467 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
468 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
474 Turn off Wget's output.
479 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
484 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
485 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
490 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
491 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
492 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
493 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
495 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
496 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
497 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
498 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
499 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
502 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
503 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
504 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
505 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
506 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
511 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
512 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
513 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
514 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
517 @cindex base for relative links in input file
519 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
520 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
521 the @samp{-i} option.
524 @node Download Options
525 @section Download Options
529 @cindex client IP address
530 @cindex IP address, client
531 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
532 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
533 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
534 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
539 @cindex number of retries
540 @item -t @var{number}
541 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
542 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
543 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
544 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
545 which are not retried.
548 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
549 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
550 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
551 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
552 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
553 literally named @samp{-}.)
555 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
556 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
557 analogous to shell redirection:
558 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
559 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
560 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
562 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
563 downloading a single document, and combination with any of @samp{-r},
564 @samp{-p}, or @samp{-N} is not allowed.
566 @cindex clobbering, file
567 @cindex downloading multiple times
571 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
572 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
573 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
574 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
576 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or @samp{p},
577 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
578 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
579 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
580 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
581 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
582 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
583 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
584 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
585 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
588 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N}
589 or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the new copy
590 simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this
591 behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved and any
592 newer copies on the server to be ignored.
594 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
595 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
596 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
597 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
598 same time as @samp{-N}.
600 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
601 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
602 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
604 @cindex continue retrieval
605 @cindex incomplete downloads
606 @cindex resume download
609 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
610 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
611 by another program. For instance:
614 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
617 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
618 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
619 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
620 length of the local file.
622 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
623 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
624 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
625 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
626 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
628 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
629 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
632 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
633 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
634 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
635 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
636 start from scratch, remove the file.
638 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
639 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
640 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
641 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
642 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
643 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
645 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
646 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
647 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
648 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
649 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
650 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
651 collection or log file.
653 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
654 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
655 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
656 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
657 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
658 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
660 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
661 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
662 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
663 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
665 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
666 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
668 @cindex progress indicator
670 @item --progress=@var{type}
671 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
672 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
674 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
675 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
676 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
679 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
680 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
681 fixed amount of downloaded data.
683 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
684 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
685 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
686 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
687 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
688 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
689 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
690 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
691 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
693 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
694 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
695 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
696 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
697 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
700 @itemx --timestamping
701 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
703 @cindex server response, print
705 @itemx --server-response
706 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
709 @cindex Wget as spider
712 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
713 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
714 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
717 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
720 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
721 functionality of real web spiders.
725 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
726 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
727 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
728 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
730 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
731 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
732 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
733 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
734 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
735 change the default timeout settings.
737 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
738 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
739 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
740 server response times or for testing network latency.
744 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
745 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
746 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
747 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
750 @cindex connect timeout
751 @cindex timeout, connect
752 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
753 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
754 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
755 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
758 @cindex timeout, read
759 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
760 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
761 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
762 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
763 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
764 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
766 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
767 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
770 @cindex bandwidth, limit
772 @cindex limit bandwidth
773 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
774 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
775 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
776 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
777 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
778 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
780 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
781 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
784 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
785 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
786 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
787 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
788 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
789 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
793 @item -w @var{seconds}
794 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
795 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
796 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
797 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
798 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
799 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
801 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
802 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
803 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
804 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
805 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
807 @cindex retries, waiting between
808 @cindex waiting between retries
809 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
810 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
811 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
812 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
813 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
814 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
815 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
818 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
824 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
825 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
826 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
827 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
828 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
829 presence from such analysis.
831 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
832 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
833 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
834 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
837 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
838 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
843 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
847 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
852 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
853 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
854 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
855 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
857 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
858 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
859 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
860 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
861 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
862 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
863 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
865 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
868 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
870 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
871 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
872 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
873 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
876 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
877 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
878 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
879 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
880 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
881 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
882 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
885 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
888 @cindex file names, restrict
889 @cindex Windows file names
890 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
891 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
892 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
893 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
894 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
897 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
898 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
899 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
900 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
901 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
903 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
904 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
905 default on Unix-like OS'es.
907 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
908 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
909 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
910 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
911 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
912 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
913 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
914 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
915 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
916 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
918 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
919 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
920 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
921 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
922 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
929 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
930 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
931 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
932 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
933 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
935 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
936 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
937 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
938 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
939 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
941 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
942 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
943 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
944 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
945 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
948 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
949 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
950 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
953 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
954 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
955 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
956 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
957 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
958 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
959 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
960 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
962 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
963 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
964 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
965 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
966 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
967 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
969 @item --retry-connrefused
970 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
971 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
972 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
973 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
974 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
975 short periods of time.
979 @cindex authentication
980 @item --user=@var{user}
981 @itemx --password=@var{password}
982 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
983 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
984 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
985 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
986 options for @sc{http} connections.
989 @node Directory Options
990 @section Directory Options
994 @itemx --no-directories
995 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
996 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
997 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
998 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
1001 @itemx --force-directories
1002 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
1003 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
1004 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1005 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1008 @itemx --no-host-directories
1009 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1010 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1011 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1014 @item --protocol-directories
1015 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1016 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1017 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1019 @cindex cut directories
1020 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1021 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1022 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1025 Take, for example, the directory at
1026 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1027 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1028 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1029 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1030 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1031 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1032 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1036 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1038 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1039 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1041 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1046 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1047 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1048 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1049 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1050 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1052 @cindex directory prefix
1053 @item -P @var{prefix}
1054 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1055 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1056 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1057 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1062 @section HTTP Options
1065 @cindex .html extension
1067 @itemx --html-extension
1068 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1069 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1070 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1071 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1072 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1073 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1074 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1075 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1076 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1078 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1079 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1080 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1081 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1082 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1083 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1084 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1085 Retrieval Options}).
1088 @cindex http password
1089 @cindex authentication
1090 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1091 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1092 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1093 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1094 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1095 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1097 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1098 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1099 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1100 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1101 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1102 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1103 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1106 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1113 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1114 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1115 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1116 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1117 documents on proxy servers.
1119 Caching is allowed by default.
1123 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1124 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1125 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1126 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1127 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1128 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1129 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1131 @cindex loading cookies
1132 @cindex cookies, loading
1133 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1134 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1135 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1136 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1138 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1139 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1140 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1141 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1142 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1143 proves your identity.
1145 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1146 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1147 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1148 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1149 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1150 cookie files in different locations:
1154 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1156 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1157 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1158 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1159 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1160 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1162 @item Internet Explorer.
1163 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1164 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1165 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1167 @item Other browsers.
1168 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1169 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1170 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1173 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1174 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1175 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1176 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1177 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1180 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1183 @cindex saving cookies
1184 @cindex cookies, saving
1185 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1186 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1187 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1188 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1190 @cindex cookies, session
1191 @cindex session cookies
1192 @item --keep-session-cookies
1193 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1194 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1195 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1196 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1197 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1198 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1199 the site is concerned.
1201 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1202 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1203 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1204 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1205 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1206 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1207 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1209 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1210 @cindex ignore length
1211 @item --ignore-length
1212 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1213 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1214 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1215 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1216 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1219 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1220 if it never existed.
1223 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1224 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1225 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1226 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1229 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1230 @samp{--header} more than once.
1234 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1235 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1236 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1240 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1241 previous user-defined headers.
1243 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1244 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1245 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1248 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1251 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1252 sending of duplicate headers.
1255 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1256 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1257 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1258 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1262 @cindex proxy password
1263 @cindex proxy authentication
1264 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1265 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1266 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1267 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1268 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1270 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1271 pertain here as well.
1273 @cindex http referer
1274 @cindex referer, http
1275 @item --referer=@var{url}
1276 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1277 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1278 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1279 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1281 @cindex server response, save
1282 @item --save-headers
1283 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1284 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1287 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1288 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1289 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1291 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1292 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1293 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1294 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1295 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1298 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1299 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1300 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1301 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1302 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1303 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1304 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1307 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1308 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1311 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1312 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1313 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1314 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1315 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1316 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1318 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1319 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1320 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1321 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1322 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1323 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1324 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1325 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1326 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1328 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1329 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1330 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1331 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1332 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1333 be changed in the future.
1335 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1336 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1341 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1342 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1343 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1344 http://server.com/auth.php
1346 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1347 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1348 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1352 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1353 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1354 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1355 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1356 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1359 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1360 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1363 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1364 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1365 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1368 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1369 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1370 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1371 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1372 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1373 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1374 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1376 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1377 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1378 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1379 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1382 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1383 @item --no-check-certificate
1384 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1385 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1386 name presented by the certificate.
1388 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1389 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1390 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1391 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1392 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1393 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1394 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1395 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1396 and allows you to proceed.
1398 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1399 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1400 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1401 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1402 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1403 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1404 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1406 @cindex SSL certificate
1407 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1408 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1409 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1410 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1413 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1414 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1415 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1416 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1419 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1420 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1421 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1423 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1424 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1425 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1427 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1428 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1429 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1431 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1432 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1434 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1435 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1436 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1437 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1438 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1439 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1440 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1441 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1442 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1444 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1445 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1447 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1448 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1449 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1450 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1451 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1453 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1454 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1455 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1456 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1457 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1458 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1461 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1462 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1466 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1467 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1468 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1469 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1470 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1471 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1472 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1474 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1475 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1476 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1477 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1479 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1480 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1481 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1485 @section FTP Options
1489 @cindex ftp password
1490 @cindex ftp authentication
1491 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1492 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1493 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1494 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1495 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1498 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1499 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1500 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1501 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1502 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1503 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1504 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1507 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1511 @cindex .listing files, removing
1512 @item --no-remove-listing
1513 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1514 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1515 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1516 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1517 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1518 you're running is complete).
1520 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1521 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1522 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1523 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1524 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1525 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1526 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1527 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1528 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1530 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1531 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1532 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1533 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1534 will be overwritten.
1536 @cindex globbing, toggle
1538 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1539 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1540 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1544 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1547 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1548 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1551 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1552 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1553 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1554 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1557 @item --no-passive-ftp
1558 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1559 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1560 connection rather than the other way around.
1562 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1563 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1564 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1565 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1566 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1567 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1569 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1570 @item --retr-symlinks
1571 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1572 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1573 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1574 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1575 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1577 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1578 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1579 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1580 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1583 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1584 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1585 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1588 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1589 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1590 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1591 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1592 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1593 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1594 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1595 the load on the server.
1597 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1598 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1599 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1602 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1603 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1608 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1611 @item -l @var{depth}
1612 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1613 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1614 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1616 @cindex proxy filling
1617 @cindex delete after retrieval
1618 @cindex filling proxy cache
1619 @item --delete-after
1620 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1621 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1622 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1625 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1628 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1631 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1632 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1633 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1634 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1635 created in the first place.
1637 @cindex conversion of links
1638 @cindex link conversion
1640 @itemx --convert-links
1641 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1642 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1643 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1644 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1647 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1651 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1652 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1654 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1655 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1656 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1657 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1660 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1661 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1663 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1664 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1665 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1666 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1669 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1670 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1671 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1672 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1673 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1676 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1677 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1678 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1680 @cindex backing up converted files
1682 @itemx --backup-converted
1683 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1684 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1689 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1690 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1691 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1692 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1694 @cindex page requisites
1695 @cindex required images, downloading
1697 @itemx --page-requisites
1698 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1699 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1700 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1702 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1703 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1704 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1705 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1706 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1709 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1710 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1711 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1712 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1713 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1715 If one executes the command:
1718 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1721 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1722 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1723 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1724 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1725 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1728 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1731 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1732 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1735 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1738 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1739 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1742 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1745 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1746 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1747 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1748 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1749 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1750 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1753 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1756 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1757 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1758 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1759 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1760 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1761 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1764 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1767 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1768 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1769 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1772 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1773 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1774 @item --strict-comments
1775 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1776 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1778 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1779 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1780 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1781 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1782 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1783 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1784 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1786 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1787 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1788 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1789 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1790 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1791 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1792 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1793 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1794 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1796 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1797 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1798 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1799 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1800 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1803 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1804 option to turn it on.
1807 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1808 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1811 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1812 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1813 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1814 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
1815 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1816 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1817 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1819 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1820 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1821 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1822 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1824 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1825 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1826 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1828 @cindex follow FTP links
1830 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1831 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1833 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1834 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1835 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1836 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1837 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1838 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1839 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1841 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1842 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1843 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1844 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1846 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1847 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1850 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1853 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1854 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1855 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1856 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1857 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1858 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1863 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1864 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1865 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1866 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1867 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1871 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1872 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1876 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1877 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1878 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1881 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1882 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1883 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
1884 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1887 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1888 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1889 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
1890 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1894 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1895 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1896 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1897 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1902 @node Recursive Download
1903 @chapter Recursive Download
1906 @cindex recursive download
1908 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1909 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1910 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1912 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1913 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1914 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1915 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1916 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1919 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1920 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1921 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1922 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1923 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1924 until the specified maximum depth.
1926 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1927 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1929 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1930 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1931 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1932 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1933 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1936 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1937 the one found on the remote server.
1939 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1940 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1941 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1942 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1944 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1945 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1946 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1947 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1948 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1949 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1950 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1952 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1953 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1954 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1955 consume memory and CPU.
1957 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1958 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1959 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1960 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1961 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1962 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1963 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1966 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1969 @node Following Links
1970 @chapter Following Links
1972 @cindex following links
1974 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1975 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1976 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1978 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1979 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1980 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1982 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1983 links it will follow.
1986 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1987 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1988 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1989 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1990 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1993 @node Spanning Hosts
1994 @section Spanning Hosts
1995 @cindex spanning hosts
1996 @cindex hosts, spanning
1998 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1999 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2000 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2001 your Wget into a small version of google.
2003 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2004 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2005 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2006 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2007 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2010 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2012 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2013 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2014 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2015 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2016 up much more data than you have intended.
2018 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2020 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2021 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2022 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2023 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2024 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2025 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2028 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2031 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2032 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2034 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2036 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2037 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2038 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2039 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2040 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2044 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2050 @node Types of Files
2051 @section Types of Files
2052 @cindex types of files
2054 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2055 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2056 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2057 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2059 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2060 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2063 @cindex accept wildcards
2064 @cindex accept suffixes
2065 @cindex wildcards, accept
2066 @cindex suffixes, accept
2068 @item -A @var{acclist}
2069 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2070 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2071 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2072 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2073 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2074 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2075 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2077 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2078 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2079 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2080 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2081 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2082 a description of how pattern matching works.
2084 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2085 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2087 @cindex reject wildcards
2088 @cindex reject suffixes
2089 @cindex wildcards, reject
2090 @cindex suffixes, reject
2091 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2092 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2093 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2094 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2095 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2096 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2098 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2099 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2100 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2101 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2102 expansion by the shell.
2105 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2106 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2107 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2108 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2110 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2111 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2112 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2114 @node Directory-Based Limits
2115 @section Directory-Based Limits
2117 @cindex directory limits
2119 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2120 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2121 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2122 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2123 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2124 @file{/dev} directories.
2126 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2127 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2128 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2130 @cindex directories, include
2131 @cindex include directories
2132 @cindex accept directories
2135 @itemx --include @var{list}
2136 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2137 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2138 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2139 directories are absolute paths.
2141 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2142 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2143 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2146 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2149 @cindex directories, exclude
2150 @cindex exclude directories
2151 @cindex reject directories
2153 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2154 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2155 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2156 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2157 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2158 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2160 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2161 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2162 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2163 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2168 @itemx no_parent = on
2169 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2170 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2171 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2172 parent directory/directories.
2174 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2175 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2176 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2179 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2182 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2183 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2184 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2185 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2186 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2187 intelligent fashion.
2190 @node Relative Links
2191 @section Relative Links
2192 @cindex relative links
2194 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2195 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2196 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2200 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2201 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2204 These links are not relative:
2208 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2209 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2212 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2213 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2214 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2216 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2220 @section Following FTP Links
2221 @cindex following ftp links
2223 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2224 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2225 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2228 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2229 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2230 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2231 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2232 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2233 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2234 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2236 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2237 retrieved recursively further.
2240 @chapter Time-Stamping
2241 @cindex time-stamping
2242 @cindex timestamping
2243 @cindex updating the archives
2244 @cindex incremental updating
2246 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2247 Internet is updating your archives.
2249 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2250 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2251 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2252 offer the option of incremental updating.
2254 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2255 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2256 the place of the old ones.
2258 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2262 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2265 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2266 recently than the local file.
2269 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2270 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2271 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2273 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2274 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2275 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2276 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2277 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2279 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2280 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2284 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2285 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2286 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2289 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2290 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2291 @cindex time-stamping usage
2292 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2294 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2295 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2298 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2301 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2302 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2303 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2304 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2306 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2307 changed, and download it if it has.
2310 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2313 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2314 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2315 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2316 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2318 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2321 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2324 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2325 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2327 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2328 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2329 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2330 since the last download.
2332 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2333 command like the following, weekly:
2336 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2339 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2340 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2341 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2342 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2343 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2345 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2346 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2347 @cindex http time-stamping
2349 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2350 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2351 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2352 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2353 retrieved unconditionally.
2355 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2356 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2357 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2360 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2361 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2362 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2363 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2364 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2365 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2368 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2369 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2370 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2371 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2372 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2374 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2375 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2377 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2378 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2379 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2381 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2382 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2385 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2386 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2387 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2388 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2389 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2390 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2391 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2392 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2394 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2395 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2396 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2397 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2398 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2399 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2401 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2402 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2403 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2404 Wget may support this command in the future.
2407 @chapter Startup File
2408 @cindex startup file
2414 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2415 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2416 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2417 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2419 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2420 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2421 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2422 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2424 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2428 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2429 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2430 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2431 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2434 @node Wgetrc Location
2435 @section Wgetrc Location
2436 @cindex wgetrc location
2437 @cindex location of wgetrc
2439 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2440 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2441 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2442 from there, if it exists.
2444 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2445 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2446 further attempts will be made.
2448 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2450 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2451 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2452 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2453 Fascist admins, away!
2456 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2457 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2458 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2460 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2466 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2467 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2469 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2470 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2471 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2474 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2475 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2476 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2482 @node Wgetrc Commands
2483 @section Wgetrc Commands
2484 @cindex wgetrc commands
2486 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2487 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2488 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2490 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2491 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2492 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2493 values can be any non-empty string.
2495 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2496 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2497 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2500 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2501 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2503 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2504 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2506 @item background = on/off
2507 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2510 @item backup_converted = on/off
2511 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2512 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2514 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2515 @c #### Document me!
2517 @item base = @var{string}
2518 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2519 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2520 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2522 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2523 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2525 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2526 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2527 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2529 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2530 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2531 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2533 @item cache = on/off
2534 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2537 @item certificate = @var{file}
2538 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2539 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2541 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2542 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2543 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2544 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2546 @item check_certificate = on/off
2547 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2548 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2549 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2551 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2552 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2554 @item content_disposition = on/off
2555 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
2556 @samp{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
2557 extra round-trips to the server for a @samp{HEAD} request, which is why
2558 it is not currently enabled by default.
2560 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
2561 @samp{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
2562 downloaded file should be.
2564 @item continue = on/off
2565 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2566 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2568 @item convert_links = on/off
2569 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2571 @item cookies = on/off
2572 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2574 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2575 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2576 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2578 @item debug = on/off
2579 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2581 @item delete_after = on/off
2582 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2584 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2585 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2587 @item dirstruct = on/off
2588 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2591 @item dns_cache = on/off
2592 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2593 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2594 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2596 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2597 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2599 @item domains = @var{string}
2600 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2602 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2603 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2604 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2605 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2606 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2607 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2608 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2610 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2611 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2613 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2614 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2615 the retrieval (50 by default).
2617 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2618 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2619 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2621 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2622 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2623 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2626 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2627 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2630 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2631 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2632 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2634 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2635 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2636 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2638 @item force_html = on/off
2639 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2640 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2642 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2643 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2644 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2645 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2647 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2649 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2650 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2653 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2654 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2656 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2659 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2661 @item header = @var{string}
2662 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2663 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2665 @item html_extension = on/off
2666 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2667 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2669 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2670 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2671 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2673 @item http_password = @var{string}
2674 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2675 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2677 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2678 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2681 @item http_user = @var{string}
2682 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2683 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2685 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2686 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2689 @item ignore_case = on/off
2690 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2691 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2693 @item ignore_length = on/off
2694 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2695 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2697 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2698 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2699 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2701 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2702 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2703 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2705 @item inet4_only = on/off
2706 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2707 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2708 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2709 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2711 @item inet6_only = on/off
2712 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2713 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2716 @item input = @var{file}
2717 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2719 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2720 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2721 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2723 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2724 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2726 @item logfile = @var{file}
2727 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2729 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
2730 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
2731 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
2733 @item mirror = on/off
2734 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2736 @item netrc = on/off
2737 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2739 @item no_clobber = on/off
2742 @item no_parent = on/off
2743 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2744 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2746 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2747 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2748 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2750 @item output_document = @var{file}
2751 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2753 @item page_requisites = on/off
2754 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2755 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2757 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2758 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2759 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2761 @itemx password = @var{string}
2762 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2763 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2764 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2766 @item post_data = @var{string}
2767 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2768 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2770 @item post_file = @var{file}
2771 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2772 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2773 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2775 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2776 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2777 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2778 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2779 discussion of why this is useful.
2781 @item private_key = @var{file}
2782 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2783 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2785 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2786 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2787 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2788 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2790 @item progress = @var{string}
2791 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2792 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2794 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2795 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2796 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2798 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2799 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2800 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2802 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2803 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2804 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2806 @item quiet = on/off
2807 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2809 @item quota = @var{quota}
2810 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2811 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2812 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2813 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2814 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2815 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2818 @item random_file = @var{file}
2819 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2822 @item random_wait = on/off
2823 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2824 @samp{--random-wait}.
2826 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2827 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2828 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2830 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2831 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2833 @item recursive = on/off
2834 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2836 @item referer = @var{string}
2837 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2838 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
2839 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2841 @item relative_only = on/off
2842 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2845 @item remove_listing = on/off
2846 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2847 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2849 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2850 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2851 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2853 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2854 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2855 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2857 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2858 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2859 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2861 @item robots = on/off
2862 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2863 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2864 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2865 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2868 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2869 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2872 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2873 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2874 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2875 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2877 @item server_response = on/off
2878 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2879 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2881 @item span_hosts = on/off
2884 @item strict_comments = on/off
2885 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2887 @item timeout = @var{n}
2888 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2891 @item timestamping = on/off
2892 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2894 @item tries = @var{n}
2895 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2897 @item use_proxy = on/off
2898 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2899 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2902 @item user = @var{string}
2903 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2904 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2905 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2907 @item verbose = on/off
2908 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2910 @item wait = @var{n}
2911 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2914 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
2915 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2916 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2917 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2921 @section Sample Wgetrc
2922 @cindex sample wgetrc
2924 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2925 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2926 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2927 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2929 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2930 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2934 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2941 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2942 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2946 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2947 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2948 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2952 @section Simple Usage
2956 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2959 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2963 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2964 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2965 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2966 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2967 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2968 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2971 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2975 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2976 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2977 shall use @samp{-t}.
2980 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2983 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2984 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2987 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2991 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2995 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2996 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2999 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3004 @node Advanced Usage
3005 @section Advanced Usage
3009 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3016 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3020 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3021 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3022 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3025 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3029 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
3030 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3033 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3037 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3038 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3039 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3040 references the downloaded links.
3043 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3046 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3047 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3048 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3051 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3052 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3053 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3054 subdirectory of the current directory.
3057 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3058 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3062 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3066 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3070 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3073 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3078 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3082 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3086 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3087 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3088 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3092 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3095 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3096 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3097 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3098 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3099 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3103 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3104 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3108 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3112 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3113 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3116 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3119 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3120 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3123 @cindex redirecting output
3125 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3129 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3132 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3133 documents from remote hotlists:
3136 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3140 @node Very Advanced Usage
3141 @section Very Advanced Usage
3146 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3147 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3148 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3149 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3153 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3157 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3158 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3159 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3160 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3161 would look like this:
3164 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3165 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3169 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3170 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3171 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3172 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3173 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3176 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3177 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3181 Or, with less typing:
3184 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3193 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3196 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3197 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3198 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3199 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3200 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3201 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3202 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3209 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3210 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3211 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3212 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3213 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3214 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3215 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3216 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3217 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3218 using an authorized proxy.
3220 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3221 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3222 the following environment variables:
3227 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3228 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3229 connections respectively.
3232 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3233 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3234 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3237 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3238 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3239 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3243 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3244 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3248 @itemx proxy = on/off
3249 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3250 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3252 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3253 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3254 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3255 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3256 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3257 specified by the environment.
3260 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3261 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3262 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3263 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3264 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3266 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3267 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3268 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3269 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3273 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3276 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3277 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3278 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3279 username and password.
3282 @section Distribution
3283 @cindex latest version
3285 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3286 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3287 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3288 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3294 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3295 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3296 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3297 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3300 @section Mailing List
3301 @cindex mailing list
3304 There are several Wget-related mailing lists. The general discussion
3305 list is at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for
3306 support requests and suggestions, as well as for discussion of
3307 development. You are invited to subscribe.
3309 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3310 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3311 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3312 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3313 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3315 Another mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3316 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3317 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3318 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3319 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3320 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3321 only for patch submissions.
3323 Subscription is the same as above for @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, except
3324 that you send to @email{wget-patches-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}, instead.
3325 The mailing list is archived at
3326 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3328 Finally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3329 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives commit notifications
3330 from the source repository, and also bug report-change notifications.
3331 This is the highest-traffic list for Wget, and is recommended only for
3332 people who are seriously interested in ongoing Wget development.
3333 Subscription is through the @code{mailman} interface at
3334 @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3336 @node Reporting Bugs
3337 @section Reporting Bugs
3339 @cindex reporting bugs
3343 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3344 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3346 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3351 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3352 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3353 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3354 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3355 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3359 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3360 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3361 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3362 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3363 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3364 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3366 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3367 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3368 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3369 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3370 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3374 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3375 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3376 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3377 with debug support on.
3379 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3380 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3381 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3382 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3383 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3384 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3385 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3388 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3389 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3390 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3396 @section Portability
3398 @cindex operating systems
3400 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3401 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3402 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3403 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3405 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3406 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3407 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3408 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3409 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3410 system, we would like to know about it.
3412 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3413 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3414 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3415 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3416 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3417 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3418 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3419 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3420 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3421 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3422 Windows-related features might look at them.
3424 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3425 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3426 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3430 @cindex signal handling
3433 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3434 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3435 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3436 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3437 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3440 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3443 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3446 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3447 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3452 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3455 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3456 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3457 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3460 @node Robot Exclusion
3461 @section Robot Exclusion
3462 @cindex robot exclusion
3464 @cindex server maintenance
3466 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3467 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3468 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3470 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3471 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3472 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3473 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3474 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3475 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3476 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3477 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3478 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3479 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3480 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3481 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3483 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3484 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3485 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3486 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3487 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3488 they will permit access.
3490 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3491 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3492 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3493 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3494 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3495 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3498 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3499 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3500 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3501 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3504 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3507 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3508 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3509 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3510 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3513 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3514 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3515 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3516 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3517 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3518 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3519 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3520 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3522 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3524 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3525 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3526 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3530 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3533 This is explained in some detail at
3534 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3535 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3538 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3539 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3540 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3541 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3543 @node Security Considerations
3544 @section Security Considerations
3547 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3548 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3549 main issues, and some solutions.
3553 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3554 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3555 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3556 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3557 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3560 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3561 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3564 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3565 solution for this at the moment.
3568 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3569 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3570 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3575 @section Contributors
3576 @cindex contributors
3579 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3582 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3584 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3586 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3587 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3588 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3590 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3593 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3594 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3595 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3598 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3599 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3600 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3603 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3604 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3605 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3606 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3610 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3611 bug and build reports for many years.
3614 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3617 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3621 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3625 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3626 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3629 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3630 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3634 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3637 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3642 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3646 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3651 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3654 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3658 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3659 layout and many other things.
3662 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3666 Mauro Tortonesi---Improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
3667 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
3668 Wget from 2004--2007.
3671 Christopher G.@: Lewis---Maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
3674 Gisle Vanem---Many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
3675 Windows and MS-DOS support.
3678 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3681 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3682 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3683 that make maintenance so much fun:
3702 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3711 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3724 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3727 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3746 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3765 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3778 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3779 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3780 (Simos KSenitellis),
3789 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3795 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
3804 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
3836 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3838 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3841 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3843 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
3849 Steven M.@: Schweda,
3859 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3873 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
3875 Joshua David Williams,
3886 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3887 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3889 @node Copying this manual
3890 @appendix Copying this manual
3893 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
3900 @unnumbered Concept Index