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, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
35 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
37 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
38 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
39 are preserved on all copies.
42 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
43 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
44 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
45 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
47 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
48 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
49 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
50 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
51 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
52 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
53 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
58 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
59 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
60 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
61 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and the developers
65 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
68 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
73 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
74 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005,
75 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
77 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
78 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
79 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
80 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
81 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
82 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
83 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
88 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
90 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
91 available utility for network downloads.
93 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005
94 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:: 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.
137 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
141 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
142 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
143 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
144 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
145 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
146 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
147 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
153 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
154 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
155 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
156 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
157 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
158 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
164 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
168 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
169 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
170 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
171 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
172 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
173 download from where it left off.
178 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
179 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
180 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
181 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
182 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
187 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
188 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
189 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
190 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
194 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
195 (@pxref{Following Links}).
199 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
200 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
201 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
202 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
203 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
207 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
208 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
209 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
210 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
215 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
216 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
226 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
227 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
228 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
239 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
242 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
243 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
247 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
248 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
250 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
251 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
252 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
258 * Basic Startup Options::
259 * Logging and Input File Options::
261 * Directory Options::
263 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
265 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
266 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
274 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
275 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
276 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
277 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
281 http://host[:port]/directory/file
282 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
285 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
288 ftp://user:password@@host/path
289 http://user:password@@host/path
292 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
293 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
294 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
295 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
296 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
297 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
300 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
301 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
302 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
303 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
304 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
305 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
307 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
308 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
309 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
310 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
311 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
314 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
315 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
316 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
317 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
318 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
319 for text files. Here is an example:
322 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
325 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
326 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
328 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
333 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
338 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
339 supported in the future.
341 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
342 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
343 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
346 @section Option Syntax
347 @cindex option syntax
348 @cindex syntax of options
350 Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option has a
351 short form and a long form. Long options are more convenient to
352 remember, but take time to type. You may freely mix different option
353 styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you
357 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
360 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
361 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
363 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
370 This is a complete equivalent of:
373 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
376 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
377 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
378 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
384 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
385 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
386 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
387 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
388 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
389 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
390 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
393 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
398 @node Basic Startup Options
399 @section Basic Startup Options
404 Display the version of Wget.
408 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
412 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
413 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
415 @cindex execute wgetrc command
416 @item -e @var{command}
417 @itemx --execute @var{command}
418 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
419 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
420 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
421 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
422 instances of @samp{-e}.
426 @node Logging and Input File Options
427 @section Logging and Input File Options
432 @item -o @var{logfile}
433 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
434 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
437 @cindex append to log
438 @item -a @var{logfile}
439 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
440 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
441 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
442 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
447 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
448 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
449 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
450 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
451 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
452 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
453 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
459 Turn off Wget's output.
464 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
469 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
470 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
471 information still get printed.
475 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
476 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}, in which case no @sc{url}s need to be on
477 the command line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and
478 in an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
479 be retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
480 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
483 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
484 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
485 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
486 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
487 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
492 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
493 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
494 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
495 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
498 @cindex base for relative links in input file
500 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
501 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
502 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
505 @node Download Options
506 @section Download Options
509 @cindex bind() address
510 @cindex client IP address
511 @cindex IP address, client
512 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
513 When making client TCP/IP connections, @code{bind()} to @var{ADDRESS} on
514 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
515 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
520 @cindex number of retries
521 @item -t @var{number}
522 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
523 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
524 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
525 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
526 which are not retried.
529 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
530 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all will
531 be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @var{file}
532 already exists, it will be overwritten. If the @var{file} is @samp{-},
533 the documents will be written to standard output (disabling @samp{-k}).
535 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only well-defined for downloading
538 @cindex clobbering, file
539 @cindex downloading multiple times
543 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
544 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
545 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
546 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
548 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
549 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
550 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
551 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
552 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
553 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
554 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
555 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
556 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
557 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
560 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
561 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
562 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
563 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
566 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
567 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
568 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
569 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
572 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
573 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
574 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
576 @cindex continue retrieval
577 @cindex incomplete downloads
578 @cindex resume download
581 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
582 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
583 by another program. For instance:
586 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
589 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
590 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
591 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
592 length of the local file.
594 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
595 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
596 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
597 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
598 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
600 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
601 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
604 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
605 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
606 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
607 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
608 start from scratch, remove the file.
610 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
611 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
612 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
613 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
614 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
615 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
617 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
618 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
619 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
620 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
621 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
622 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
623 collection or log file.
625 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
626 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
627 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
628 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
629 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
630 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
632 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
633 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
634 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
635 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
637 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
638 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
640 @cindex progress indicator
642 @item --progress=@var{type}
643 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
644 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
646 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
647 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
648 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
651 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
652 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
653 fixed amount of downloaded data.
655 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
656 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
657 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
658 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
659 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
660 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
661 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
662 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
663 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
665 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
666 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
667 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
668 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
669 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
672 @itemx --timestamping
673 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
675 @cindex server response, print
677 @itemx --server-response
678 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
681 @cindex Wget as spider
684 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
685 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
686 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
689 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
692 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
693 functionality of real web spiders.
697 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
698 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
699 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
700 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
702 Whenever Wget connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks for a
703 timeout and aborts the operation if the time expires. This prevents
704 anomalous occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite connects. The
705 only timeout enabled by default is a 900-second timeout for reading.
706 Setting timeout to 0 disables checking for timeouts.
708 Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to set any of the
709 timeout-related options.
713 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
714 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
715 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
716 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
719 @cindex connect timeout
720 @cindex timeout, connect
721 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
722 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
723 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
724 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
727 @cindex timeout, read
728 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
729 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Reads that
730 take longer will fail. The default value for read timeout is 900
733 @cindex bandwidth, limit
735 @cindex limit bandwidth
736 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
737 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
738 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
739 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
740 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This kind of thing is useful when,
741 for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available
744 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
745 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
746 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
747 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
748 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
749 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
753 @item -w @var{seconds}
754 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
755 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
756 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
757 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
758 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
759 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
761 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
762 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
763 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
765 @cindex retries, waiting between
766 @cindex waiting between retries
767 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
768 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
769 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
770 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
771 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
772 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
773 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
776 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
782 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
783 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
784 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
785 to vary between 0 and 2 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
786 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
787 presence from such analysis.
789 A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
790 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
791 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
792 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
795 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
796 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
801 @itemx --proxy=on/off
802 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
803 appropriate environment variable is defined.
805 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
809 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
810 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
811 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
812 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
814 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
815 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
816 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
817 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
818 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
819 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
820 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
822 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
825 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
827 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
828 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
829 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
830 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
833 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
834 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
835 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
836 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
837 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
838 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
839 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
842 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
845 @cindex file names, restrict
846 @cindex Windows file names
847 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
848 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
849 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
850 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
851 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
854 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
855 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
856 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
857 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
858 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
860 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
861 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
862 default on Unix-like OS'es.
864 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
865 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
866 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
867 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
868 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
869 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
870 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
871 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
872 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
873 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
875 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
876 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
877 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
878 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
879 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
886 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
887 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
888 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
889 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
890 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
892 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
893 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
894 If the DNS specifies both an A record and an AAAA record, Wget will
895 try them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to.
897 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
898 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
899 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
900 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified in the
901 same command. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without
904 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
905 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
906 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
909 This avoids spurious errors and correct attempts when accessing hosts
910 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
911 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
912 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
913 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
914 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
915 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
916 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
918 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't forbid access to
919 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
920 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
921 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
922 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
923 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
926 @node Directory Options
927 @section Directory Options
931 @itemx --no-directories
932 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
933 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
934 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
935 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
938 @itemx --force-directories
939 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
940 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
941 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
942 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
945 @itemx --no-host-directories
946 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
947 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
948 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
951 @item --protocol-directories
952 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
953 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
954 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
956 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
957 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
958 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
961 @cindex cut directories
962 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
963 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
964 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
967 Take, for example, the directory at
968 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
969 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
970 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
971 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
972 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
973 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
974 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
978 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
980 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
981 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
983 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
988 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
989 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
990 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
991 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
992 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
994 @cindex directory prefix
995 @item -P @var{prefix}
996 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
997 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
998 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
999 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1004 @section HTTP Options
1007 @cindex .html extension
1009 @itemx --html-extension
1010 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1011 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1012 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1013 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1014 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1015 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1016 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1017 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1018 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1020 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1021 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1022 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1023 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1024 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1025 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1026 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1027 Retrieval Options}).
1030 @cindex http password
1031 @cindex authentication
1032 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1033 @itemx --http-passwd=@var{password}
1034 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1035 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1036 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1037 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1039 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1040 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1041 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1042 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1043 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1044 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1045 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1047 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1053 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1054 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1055 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1056 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1057 documents on proxy servers.
1059 Caching is allowed by default.
1063 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1064 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1065 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1066 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1067 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1068 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1069 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1071 @cindex loading cookies
1072 @cindex cookies, loading
1073 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1074 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1075 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1076 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1078 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1079 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1080 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1081 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1082 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1083 proves your identity.
1085 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1086 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1087 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1088 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1089 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1090 cookie files in different locations:
1094 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1096 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1097 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1098 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1099 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1100 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1102 @item Internet Explorer.
1103 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1104 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1105 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1107 @item Other browsers.
1108 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1109 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1110 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1113 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1114 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1115 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1116 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1117 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1120 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1123 @cindex saving cookies
1124 @cindex cookies, saving
1125 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1126 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1127 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1128 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1130 @cindex cookies, session
1131 @cindex session cookies
1132 @item --keep-session-cookies
1134 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1135 cookies. Session cookies are normally not save because they are
1136 supposed to be forgotten when you exit the browser. Saving them is
1137 useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit the home page
1138 before you can access some pages. With this option, multiple Wget runs
1139 are considered a single browser session as far as the site is concerned.
1141 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1142 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1143 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1144 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1145 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1146 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1147 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1149 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1150 @cindex ignore length
1151 @item --ignore-length
1152 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1153 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1154 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1155 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1156 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1159 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1160 if it never existed.
1163 @item --header=@var{additional-header}
1164 Define an @var{additional-header} to be passed to the @sc{http} servers.
1165 Headers must contain a @samp{:} preceded by one or more non-blank
1166 characters, and must not contain newlines.
1168 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1169 @samp{--header} more than once.
1173 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1174 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1175 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1179 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1180 previous user-defined headers.
1183 @cindex proxy password
1184 @cindex proxy authentication
1185 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1186 @itemx --proxy-passwd=@var{password}
1187 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1188 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1189 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1191 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-passwd}
1192 pertain here as well.
1194 @cindex http referer
1195 @cindex referer, http
1196 @item --referer=@var{url}
1197 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1198 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1199 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1200 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1202 @cindex server response, save
1203 @item --save-headers
1204 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1205 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1208 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1209 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1210 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1212 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1213 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1214 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1215 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1216 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1219 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1220 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1221 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
1222 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
1223 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
1224 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
1225 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
1228 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1229 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1230 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1231 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1232 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1233 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1235 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1236 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1237 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1238 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1239 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1240 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1241 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1242 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1243 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1245 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it will
1246 not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because URLs that
1247 process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular page
1248 (although that's technically disallowed), which does not desire or
1249 accept POST. It is not yet clear that this behavior is optimal; if it
1250 doesn't work out, it will be changed.
1252 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1253 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1258 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1259 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1260 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1261 http://server.com/auth.php
1263 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1264 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1265 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1270 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1271 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1274 To support SSL-based HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1275 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1276 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1279 @item --sslcertfile=@var{file}
1280 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1281 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1282 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1285 @cindex SSL certificate
1286 @item --sslcertkey=@var{keyfile}
1287 Read the certificate key from @var{keyfile}.
1289 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1290 @item --sslcadir=@var{directory}
1291 Specifies directory used for certificate authorities (``CA'').
1293 @item --sslcafile=@var{file}
1294 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities.
1296 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1297 @item --sslcerttype=0/1
1298 Specify the type of the client certificate: 0 means @code{PEM}
1299 (default), 1 means @code{ASN1} (@code{DER}).
1301 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1302 @item --sslcheckcert=0/1
1303 If set to 1, check the server certificate against the specified client
1304 authorities. If this is 0 (the default), Wget will break the SSL
1305 handshake if the server certificate is not valid.
1307 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1308 @item --sslprotocol=0-3
1309 Choose the SSL protocol to be used. If 0 is specified (the default),
1310 the OpenSSL library chooses the appropriate protocol automatically.
1311 Specifying 1 forces the use of SSLv2, specifying 2 forces SSLv3, and
1312 specifying 3 forces TLSv1.
1314 In most cases the OpenSSL library is capable of making an intelligent
1315 choice of the protocol, but there have been reports of sites that use
1316 old (and presumably buggy) server libraries with which a protocol has
1317 to be specified manually.
1320 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1321 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1322 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1323 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1324 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1325 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1326 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1328 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1329 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1330 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1331 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1333 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1334 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1335 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1339 @section FTP Options
1342 @cindex password, FTP
1343 @item --ftp-passwd=@var{string}
1344 Set the default FTP password to @var{string}. Without this, or the
1345 corresponding startup option, the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@},
1346 normally used for anonymous FTP.
1348 @cindex .listing files, removing
1349 @item --no-remove-listing
1350 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1351 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1352 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1353 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1354 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1355 you're running is complete).
1357 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1358 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1359 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1360 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1361 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1362 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1363 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1364 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1365 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1367 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1368 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1369 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1370 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1371 will be overwritten.
1373 @cindex globbing, toggle
1375 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1376 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1377 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1381 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1384 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1385 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1388 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1389 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1390 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1391 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1394 @item --no-passive-ftp
1395 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1396 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1397 connection rather than the other way around.
1399 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1400 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1401 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1402 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1403 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1404 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1406 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1407 @item --retr-symlinks
1408 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1409 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1410 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1411 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1412 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1414 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1415 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1416 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1417 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1420 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1421 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1422 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1425 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1426 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1427 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1428 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1429 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1430 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1431 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1432 the load on the server.
1434 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1435 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1436 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1439 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1440 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1445 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1448 @item -l @var{depth}
1449 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1450 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1451 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1453 @cindex proxy filling
1454 @cindex delete after retrieval
1455 @cindex filling proxy cache
1456 @item --delete-after
1457 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1458 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1459 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1462 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1465 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1468 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1469 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1470 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1471 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1472 created in the first place.
1474 @cindex conversion of links
1475 @cindex link conversion
1477 @itemx --convert-links
1478 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1479 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1480 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1481 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1484 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1488 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1489 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1491 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1492 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1493 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1494 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1497 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1498 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1500 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1501 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1502 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1503 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1506 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1507 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1508 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1509 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1510 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1513 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1514 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1515 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1517 @cindex backing up converted files
1519 @itemx --backup-converted
1520 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1521 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1526 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1527 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1528 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1529 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1531 @cindex page requisites
1532 @cindex required images, downloading
1534 @itemx --page-requisites
1535 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1536 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1537 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1539 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1540 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1541 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1542 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1543 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1546 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1547 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1548 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1549 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1550 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1552 If one executes the command:
1555 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1558 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1559 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1560 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1561 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1562 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1565 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1568 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1569 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1572 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1575 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1576 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1579 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1582 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1583 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1584 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1585 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1586 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1587 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1590 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1593 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1594 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1595 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1596 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1597 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1598 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1601 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1604 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1605 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1606 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1609 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1610 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1611 @item --strict-comments
1612 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1613 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1615 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1616 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1617 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1618 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1619 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1620 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1621 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1623 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1624 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1625 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1626 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1627 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1628 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1629 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1630 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1631 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1633 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1634 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1635 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1636 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1637 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1640 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1641 option to turn it on.
1644 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1645 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1648 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1649 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1650 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1651 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1653 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1654 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1655 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1656 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1658 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1659 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1660 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1662 @cindex follow FTP links
1664 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1665 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1667 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1668 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1669 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1670 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1671 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1672 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1673 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1675 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1676 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1677 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1678 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1680 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1681 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1684 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1687 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1688 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1689 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1690 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1691 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1692 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1696 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1697 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1701 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1702 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1703 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1706 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1707 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1708 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1709 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1712 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1713 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1714 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1715 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1719 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1720 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1721 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1722 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1727 @node Recursive Download
1728 @chapter Recursive Download
1731 @cindex recursive download
1733 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1734 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1735 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1737 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1738 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1739 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1740 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1741 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1744 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1745 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1746 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1747 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1748 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1749 until the specified maximum depth.
1751 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1752 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1754 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1755 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1756 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1757 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1758 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1761 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1762 the one found on the remote server.
1764 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1765 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1766 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1767 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1769 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1770 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1771 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1772 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1773 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1774 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1775 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1777 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1778 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1779 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1780 consume memory and CPU.
1782 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1783 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1784 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1785 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1786 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1787 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1788 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1791 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1794 @node Following Links
1795 @chapter Following Links
1797 @cindex following links
1799 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1800 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1801 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1803 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1804 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1805 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1807 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1808 links it will follow.
1811 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1812 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1813 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1814 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1815 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1818 @node Spanning Hosts
1819 @section Spanning Hosts
1820 @cindex spanning hosts
1821 @cindex hosts, spanning
1823 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1824 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1825 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1826 your Wget into a small version of google.
1828 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1829 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1830 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1831 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1832 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1835 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1837 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1838 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1839 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1840 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1841 up much more data than you have intended.
1843 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1845 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1846 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1847 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1848 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1849 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
1850 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
1853 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
1856 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
1857 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
1859 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
1861 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1862 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1863 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1864 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1865 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1869 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
1875 @node Types of Files
1876 @section Types of Files
1877 @cindex types of files
1879 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1880 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1881 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1882 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
1884 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
1885 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
1888 @cindex accept wildcards
1889 @cindex accept suffixes
1890 @cindex wildcards, accept
1891 @cindex suffixes, accept
1893 @item -A @var{acclist}
1894 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
1895 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
1896 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
1897 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
1898 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
1899 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
1900 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
1902 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
1903 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
1904 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
1905 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
1906 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
1907 a description of how pattern matching works.
1909 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
1910 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
1912 @cindex reject wildcards
1913 @cindex reject suffixes
1914 @cindex wildcards, reject
1915 @cindex suffixes, reject
1916 @item -R @var{rejlist}
1917 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
1918 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
1919 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
1920 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
1921 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
1923 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
1924 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
1925 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
1926 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
1927 expansion by the shell.
1930 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
1931 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
1932 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
1933 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
1935 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
1936 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
1937 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
1939 @node Directory-Based Limits
1940 @section Directory-Based Limits
1942 @cindex directory limits
1944 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
1945 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
1946 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
1947 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
1948 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
1949 @file{/dev} directories.
1951 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
1952 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
1953 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
1955 @cindex directories, include
1956 @cindex include directories
1957 @cindex accept directories
1960 @itemx --include @var{list}
1961 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
1962 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
1963 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
1964 directories are absolute paths.
1966 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
1967 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
1968 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
1971 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
1974 @cindex directories, exclude
1975 @cindex exclude directories
1976 @cindex reject directories
1978 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
1979 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
1980 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
1981 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
1982 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
1983 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
1985 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
1986 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
1987 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
1988 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
1993 @itemx no_parent = on
1994 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
1995 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
1996 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
1997 parent directory/directories.
1999 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2000 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2001 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2004 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2007 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2008 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2009 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2010 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2011 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2012 intelligent fashion.
2015 @node Relative Links
2016 @section Relative Links
2017 @cindex relative links
2019 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2020 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2021 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2025 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2026 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2029 These links are not relative:
2033 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2034 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2037 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2038 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2039 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2041 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2045 @section Following FTP Links
2046 @cindex following ftp links
2048 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2049 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2050 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2053 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2054 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2055 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2056 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2057 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2058 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2059 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2061 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2062 retrieved recursively further.
2065 @chapter Time-Stamping
2066 @cindex time-stamping
2067 @cindex timestamping
2068 @cindex updating the archives
2069 @cindex incremental updating
2071 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2072 Internet is updating your archives.
2074 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2075 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2076 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2077 offer the option of incremental updating.
2079 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2080 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2081 the place of the old ones.
2083 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2087 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2090 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2091 recently than the local file.
2094 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2095 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2096 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2098 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2099 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2100 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2101 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2102 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2104 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2105 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2109 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2110 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2111 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2114 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2115 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2116 @cindex time-stamping usage
2117 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2119 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2120 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2123 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2126 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2127 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2128 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2129 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2131 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2132 changed, and download it if it has.
2135 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2138 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2139 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2140 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2141 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2143 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2146 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2149 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2150 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2152 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2153 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2154 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2155 since the last download.
2157 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2158 command like the following, weekly:
2161 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2164 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2165 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2166 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2167 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2168 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2170 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2171 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2172 @cindex http time-stamping
2174 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2175 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2176 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2177 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2178 retrieved unconditionally.
2180 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2181 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2182 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2185 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2186 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2187 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2188 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2189 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2190 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2193 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2194 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2195 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2196 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2197 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2199 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2200 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2202 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2203 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2204 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2206 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2207 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2210 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2211 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2212 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2213 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2214 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2215 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2216 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2217 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2219 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2220 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2221 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2222 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2223 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2224 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2226 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2227 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2228 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2229 Wget may support this command in the future.
2232 @chapter Startup File
2233 @cindex startup file
2239 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2240 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2241 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2242 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2244 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2245 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2246 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2247 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2249 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2253 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2254 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2255 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2256 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2259 @node Wgetrc Location
2260 @section Wgetrc Location
2261 @cindex wgetrc location
2262 @cindex location of wgetrc
2264 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2265 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2266 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2267 from there, if it exists.
2269 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2270 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2271 further attempts will be made.
2273 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2275 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2276 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2277 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2278 Fascist admins, away!
2281 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2282 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2283 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2285 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2291 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2292 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2294 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2295 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2296 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2299 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2300 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2301 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2307 @node Wgetrc Commands
2308 @section Wgetrc Commands
2309 @cindex wgetrc commands
2311 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2312 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2313 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}. A fancier kind of
2314 Boolean allowed in some cases is the @dfn{lockable Boolean}, which may
2315 be set to @samp{on}, @samp{off}, @samp{always}, or @samp{never}. If an
2316 option is set to @samp{always} or @samp{never}, that value will be
2317 locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation---command-line options
2320 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2321 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2322 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2323 values can be any non-empty string.
2325 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2326 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2327 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2330 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2331 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2333 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2334 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2336 @item continue = on/off
2337 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2338 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2340 @item background = on/off
2341 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2344 @item backup_converted = on/off
2345 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2346 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2348 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2349 @c #### Document me!
2351 @item base = @var{string}
2352 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2353 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2356 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2357 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address} option.
2359 @item cache = on/off
2360 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2363 @item convert_links = on/off
2364 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2366 @item cookies = on/off
2367 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2369 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2370 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies}.
2372 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2373 Save cookies to @var{file}. See @samp{--save-cookies}.
2375 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2376 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2378 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2379 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components.
2381 @item debug = on/off
2382 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2384 @item delete_after = on/off
2385 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2387 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2388 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P}.
2390 @item dirstruct = on/off
2391 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2394 @item dns_cache = on/off
2395 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2396 option is normally used to turn it off. Same as @samp{--dns-cache}.
2398 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2399 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2401 @item domains = @var{string}
2402 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2404 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2405 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2406 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2407 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2408 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2409 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2410 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2412 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2413 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2414 the retrieval (50 by default).
2416 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2417 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2419 @item egd_file = @var{string}
2420 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2423 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2424 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2425 download---the same as @samp{-X} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2427 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2428 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2430 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2431 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2432 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2434 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2435 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2436 @samp{--follow-tags}.
2438 @item force_html = on/off
2439 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2440 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2442 @item ftp_passwd = @var{string}
2443 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2444 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2445 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2447 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2449 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2450 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2454 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2456 @item header = @var{string}
2457 Define an additional header, like @samp{--header}.
2459 @item html_extension = on/off
2460 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2461 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like
2464 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2465 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). The same as
2466 `--http-keep-alive'.
2468 @item http_passwd = @var{string}
2469 Set @sc{http} password.
2471 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2472 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2475 @item http_user = @var{string}
2476 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}.
2478 @item ignore_length = on/off
2479 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2480 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2482 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2483 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2484 @samp{--ignore-tags}.
2486 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2487 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2488 downloading---the same as @samp{-I}.
2490 @item inet4_only = on/off
2491 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2492 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2493 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2494 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2496 @item inet6_only = on/off
2497 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2498 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2501 @item input = @var{string}
2502 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i}.
2504 @item kill_longer = on/off
2505 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid
2506 (and retry getting it). The default behavior is to save as much data
2507 as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in
2508 @code{Content-Length}.
2510 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2511 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2512 The same as @samp{--limit-rate}.
2514 @item logfile = @var{string}
2515 Set logfile---the same as @samp{-o}.
2517 @item login = @var{string}
2518 Your user name on the remote machine, for @sc{ftp}. Defaults to
2521 @item mirror = on/off
2522 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2524 @item netrc = on/off
2525 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2527 @item noclobber = on/off
2530 @item no_parent = on/off
2531 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2532 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2534 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2535 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2536 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2538 @item output_document = @var{string}
2539 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O}.
2541 @item page_requisites = on/off
2542 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2543 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2545 @item passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
2546 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2547 @samp{--passive-ftp} option. Some scripts and @samp{.pm} (Perl
2548 module) files download files using @samp{wget --passive-ftp}. If your
2549 firewall does not allow this, you can set @samp{passive_ftp = never}
2550 to override the command-line.
2552 @item post_data = @var{string}
2553 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2554 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data}.
2556 @item post_file = @var{file}
2557 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2558 @var{file} in the request body. The same as @samp{--post-file}.
2560 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2561 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2562 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2563 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2564 discussion of why this is useful.
2566 @item progress = @var{string}
2567 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are ``dot'' and
2570 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2571 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2572 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2574 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2575 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-user}.
2577 @item proxy_passwd = @var{string}
2578 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-passwd}.
2580 @item quiet = on/off
2581 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2583 @item quota = @var{quota}
2584 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2585 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2586 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2587 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2588 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2589 to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2592 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2593 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as @samp{--read-timeout}.
2595 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2596 Recursion level---the same as @samp{-l}.
2598 @item recursive = on/off
2599 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2601 @item referer = @var{string}
2602 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like @samp{--referer}. (Note it
2603 was the folks who wrote the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of
2604 ``referrer'' wrong.)
2606 @item relative_only = on/off
2607 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2610 @item remove_listing = on/off
2611 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2612 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2614 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2615 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2616 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2618 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2619 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2620 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2622 @item robots = on/off
2623 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2624 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2625 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2626 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2629 @item server_response = on/off
2630 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2631 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2633 @item span_hosts = on/off
2636 @item ssl_cert_file = @var{string}
2637 Set the client certificate file name to @var{string}. The same as
2638 @samp{--sslcertfile}.
2640 @item ssl_cert_key = @var{string}
2641 Set the certificate key file to @var{string}. The same as
2642 @samp{--sslcertkey}.
2644 @item ssl_ca_dir = @var{string}
2645 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2648 @item ssl_ca_file = @var{string}
2649 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{string}. The same
2650 as @samp{--sslcafile}.
2652 @item ssl_cert_type = 0/1
2653 Specify the type of the client certificate: 0 means @code{PEM}
2654 (default), 1 means @code{ASN1} (@code{DER}). The same as
2655 @samp{--sslcerttype}.
2657 @item ssl_check_cert = 0/1
2658 If this is set to 1, the server certificate is checked against the
2659 specified client authorities. The same as @samp{--sslcheckcert}.
2661 @item ssl_protocol = 0-3
2662 Choose the SSL protocol to be used. 0 means choose automatically, 1
2663 means force SSLv2, 2 means force SSLv3, and 3 means force TLSv1. The
2664 same as @samp{--sslprotocol}.
2666 @item strict_comments = on/off
2667 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2669 @item timeout = @var{n}
2670 Set timeout value---the same as @samp{-T}.
2672 @item timestamping = on/off
2673 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2675 @item tries = @var{n}
2676 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t}.
2678 @item use_proxy = on/off
2679 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as @samp{-Y}.
2681 @item verbose = on/off
2682 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2684 @item wait = @var{n}
2685 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w}.
2687 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2688 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2689 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry}. Note that this is turned on by
2690 default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2692 @item randomwait = on/off
2693 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2694 @samp{--random-wait}.
2698 @section Sample Wgetrc
2699 @cindex sample wgetrc
2701 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2702 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2703 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2704 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2706 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2707 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2711 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2718 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2719 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2723 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2724 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2725 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2729 @section Simple Usage
2733 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2736 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2740 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2741 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2742 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2743 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2744 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2745 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2748 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2752 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2753 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2754 shall use @samp{-t}.
2757 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2760 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2761 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2764 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2768 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2772 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2773 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2776 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2781 @node Advanced Usage
2782 @section Advanced Usage
2786 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2793 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2797 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2798 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2799 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2802 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2806 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2807 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2810 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2814 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2815 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
2816 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
2817 references the downloaded links.
2820 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2823 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
2824 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
2825 depending on where they were on the remote server.
2828 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
2829 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
2830 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
2831 subdirectory of the current directory.
2834 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
2835 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2839 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
2843 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
2847 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
2850 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
2855 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
2859 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
2863 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
2864 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
2865 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
2869 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
2872 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
2873 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
2874 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
2875 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
2876 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
2880 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
2881 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
2885 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
2889 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
2890 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
2893 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
2896 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
2897 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
2900 @cindex redirecting output
2902 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
2906 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
2909 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
2910 documents from remote hotlists:
2913 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
2917 @node Very Advanced Usage
2918 @section Very Advanced Usage
2923 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
2924 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
2925 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
2926 to recheck a site each Sunday:
2930 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2934 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
2935 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
2936 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
2937 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
2938 would look like this:
2941 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2942 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2946 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
2947 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
2948 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
2949 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
2950 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
2953 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2954 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
2958 Or, with less typing:
2961 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2970 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
2973 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
2974 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
2975 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
2976 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
2977 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
2978 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
2985 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
2986 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
2987 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
2988 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
2989 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
2990 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
2991 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
2992 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
2993 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
2994 using an authorized proxy.
2996 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
2997 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
2998 the following environment variables:
3002 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
3006 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3007 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
3008 are set to the same @sc{url}.
3011 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3012 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3013 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3017 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3018 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3022 @itemx --proxy=on/off
3023 @itemx proxy = on/off
3024 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
3025 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
3028 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3029 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3030 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3031 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3032 specified by the environment.
3035 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3036 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3037 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3038 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3039 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3041 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3042 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3043 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3044 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3048 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3051 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3052 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3053 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_passwd} to set the proxy
3054 username and password.
3057 @section Distribution
3058 @cindex latest version
3060 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3061 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3062 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3063 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3066 @section Mailing List
3067 @cindex mailing list
3070 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3071 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3072 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3073 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3074 invited to subscribe.
3076 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3077 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3078 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3079 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3080 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3082 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3083 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3084 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3085 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3086 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3087 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3088 only for patch submissions.
3090 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3091 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3092 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3093 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3095 Finally, there is a read-only list at @email{wget-cvs@@sunsite.dk}
3096 that tracks commits to the Wget CVS repository. To subscribe to that
3097 list, send mail to @email{wget-cvs-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The list
3100 @node Reporting Bugs
3101 @section Reporting Bugs
3103 @cindex reporting bugs
3107 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3108 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3110 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3115 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3116 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3117 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3118 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3121 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3122 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3123 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3124 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3125 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3126 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3128 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3129 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3130 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3131 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3132 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3136 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3137 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3138 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3139 with debug support on.
3141 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3142 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3143 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3144 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3145 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3146 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3147 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3150 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3151 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3152 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3158 @section Portability
3160 @cindex operating systems
3162 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3163 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3164 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3165 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3167 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3168 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3169 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3170 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3171 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3172 system, we would like to know about it.
3174 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3175 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3176 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3177 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3178 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3179 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3180 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3181 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3182 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3183 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3184 Windows-related features might look at them.
3188 @cindex signal handling
3191 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3192 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3193 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3194 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3195 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3198 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3201 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3204 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3205 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3210 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3213 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3214 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3215 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3218 @node Robot Exclusion
3219 @section Robot Exclusion
3220 @cindex robot exclusion
3222 @cindex server maintenance
3224 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3225 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3226 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3228 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3229 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3230 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3231 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3232 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3233 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3234 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3235 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3236 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3237 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3238 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3239 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3241 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3242 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3243 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3244 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3245 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3246 they will permit access.
3248 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3249 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3250 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3251 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3252 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3253 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3256 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3257 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3258 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3259 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3262 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3265 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3266 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3267 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3268 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3271 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3272 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3273 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3274 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3275 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3276 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3277 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3278 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3280 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3282 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3283 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3284 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3288 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3291 This is explained in some detail at
3292 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3293 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3296 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3297 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3298 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3299 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3301 @node Security Considerations
3302 @section Security Considerations
3305 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3306 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3307 main issues, and some solutions.
3311 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3312 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3313 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3314 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3315 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3318 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3319 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3322 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3323 solution for this at the moment.
3326 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3327 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3328 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3333 @section Contributors
3334 @cindex contributors
3337 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3340 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3342 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
3343 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
3344 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3346 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3350 Karsten Thygesen---donated system resources such as the mailing list,
3351 web space, and @sc{ftp} space, along with a lot of time to make these
3355 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3358 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3362 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3366 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3367 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3370 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3371 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3375 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3378 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
3382 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3386 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3391 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3394 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3398 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
3402 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3406 The people who provided donations for development, including Brian
3410 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3411 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3412 that make maintenance so much fun:
3432 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3452 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3455 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3475 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3494 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3505 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3506 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3507 (Simos KSenitellis),
3515 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3521 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3552 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3554 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}gues,
3557 Juan Jose Rodrigues,
3571 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3585 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3596 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3597 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3604 @cindex free software
3606 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL),
3607 which makes it @dfn{free software}. Please note that ``free'' in ``free
3608 software'' refers to liberty, not price. As some people like to point
3609 out, it's the ``free'' of ``free speech'', not the ``free'' of ``free
3612 The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below.
3613 The GPL guarantees that you have the right (freedom) to run and change
3614 GNU Wget and distribute it to others, and even---if you want---charge
3615 money for doing any of those things. With these rights comes the
3616 obligation to distribute the source code along with the software and to
3617 grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
3619 This licensing model is also known as @dfn{open source} because it,
3620 among other things, makes sure that all recipients will receive the
3621 source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU
3622 project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons outlined at
3623 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3625 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3626 General Public License it refers to:
3629 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3630 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3631 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3632 option) any later version.
3634 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3635 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3636 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3639 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3640 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3641 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3644 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3647 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3648 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
3649 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
3650 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
3651 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3652 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3653 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3656 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3657 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3658 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3661 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3662 Documentation License are available below.
3665 * GNU General Public License::
3666 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3669 @node GNU General Public License
3670 @section GNU General Public License
3671 @center Version 2, June 1991
3674 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3675 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3677 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3678 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3681 @unnumberedsec Preamble
3683 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
3684 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
3685 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3686 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
3687 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
3688 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
3689 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
3690 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
3693 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
3694 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
3695 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
3696 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
3697 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
3698 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
3700 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
3701 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
3702 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
3703 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
3705 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
3706 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
3707 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
3708 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
3711 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
3712 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
3713 distribute and/or modify the software.
3715 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
3716 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
3717 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
3718 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
3719 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
3720 authors' reputations.
3722 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
3723 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
3724 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
3725 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
3726 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
3728 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
3729 modification follow.
3732 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3735 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3740 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
3741 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
3742 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
3743 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
3744 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
3745 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
3746 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
3747 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
3748 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
3750 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
3751 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
3752 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
3753 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
3754 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
3755 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
3758 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
3759 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
3760 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
3761 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
3762 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
3763 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
3764 along with the Program.
3766 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
3767 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3770 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
3771 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
3772 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
3773 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
3777 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
3778 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
3781 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
3782 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
3783 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
3784 parties under the terms of this License.
3787 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
3788 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
3789 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
3790 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
3791 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
3792 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
3793 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
3794 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
3795 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
3796 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
3799 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
3800 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
3801 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
3802 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
3803 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
3804 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
3805 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
3806 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
3807 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
3809 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
3810 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
3811 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
3812 collective works based on the Program.
3814 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
3815 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
3816 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
3817 the scope of this License.
3820 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
3821 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
3822 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3826 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3827 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3828 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
3831 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
3832 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
3833 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
3834 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
3835 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
3836 customarily used for software interchange; or,
3839 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
3840 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
3841 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
3842 received the program in object code or executable form with such
3843 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
3846 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
3847 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
3848 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
3849 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
3850 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
3851 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
3852 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
3853 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
3854 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
3855 itself accompanies the executable.
3857 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
3858 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
3859 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
3860 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
3861 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
3864 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
3865 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
3866 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
3867 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
3868 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
3869 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3870 parties remain in full compliance.
3873 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
3874 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
3875 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
3876 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
3877 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
3878 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
3879 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
3880 the Program or works based on it.
3883 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
3884 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
3885 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
3886 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
3887 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
3888 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
3892 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
3893 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
3894 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
3895 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
3896 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
3897 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
3898 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
3899 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
3900 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
3901 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
3902 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
3903 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
3905 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
3906 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
3907 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
3910 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
3911 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
3912 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
3913 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
3914 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
3915 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
3916 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
3917 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
3918 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
3921 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
3922 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
3925 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
3926 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
3927 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
3928 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
3929 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
3930 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
3931 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
3934 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
3935 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
3936 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
3937 address new problems or concerns.
3939 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
3940 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
3941 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
3942 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
3943 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
3944 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
3948 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
3949 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
3950 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
3951 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
3952 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
3953 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
3954 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
3957 @heading NO WARRANTY
3965 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
3966 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
3967 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
3968 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
3969 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
3970 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
3971 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
3972 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
3973 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
3976 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
3977 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
3978 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
3979 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
3980 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
3981 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
3982 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
3983 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
3984 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
3988 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3991 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3995 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
3997 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
3998 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
3999 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
4001 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
4002 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
4003 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
4004 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
4007 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
4008 Copyright (C) 20@var{yy} @var{name of author}
4010 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
4011 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
4012 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
4013 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
4015 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
4016 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
4017 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
4018 GNU General Public License for more details.
4020 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
4021 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
4022 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
4025 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
4027 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
4028 when it starts in an interactive mode:
4031 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 20@var{yy} @var{name of author}
4032 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
4033 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
4034 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
4038 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
4039 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
4040 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
4041 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
4044 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
4045 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
4046 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
4050 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
4051 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
4052 (which makes passes at compilers) written
4055 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
4056 Ty Coon, President of Vice
4060 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
4061 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
4062 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
4063 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
4064 Public License instead of this License.
4069 @unnumbered Concept Index