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 Free
35 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 Free Software
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 Free Software
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, you
181 can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks. Wget
182 also supports the passive @sc{ftp} downloading as an option.
186 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
187 (@pxref{Following Links}).
191 The retrieval is conveniently traced with printing dots, each dot
192 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). These
193 representations can be customized to your preferences.
197 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
198 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
199 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
200 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
205 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
206 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
216 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
217 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
218 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
229 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
232 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
233 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
237 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
238 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
240 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
241 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
242 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
248 * Basic Startup Options::
249 * Logging and Input File Options::
251 * Directory Options::
254 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
255 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
263 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
264 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
265 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
266 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
270 http://host[:port]/directory/file
271 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
274 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
277 ftp://user:password@@host/path
278 http://user:password@@host/path
281 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
282 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
283 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
284 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
285 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
286 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
289 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
290 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
291 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
292 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
293 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
294 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
296 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
297 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
298 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
299 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
300 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
303 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
304 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
305 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
306 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
307 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
308 for text files. Here is an example:
311 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
314 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
315 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
317 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
322 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
327 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
328 supported in the future.
330 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
331 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
332 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
335 @section Option Syntax
336 @cindex option syntax
337 @cindex syntax of options
339 Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option has a
340 short form and a long form. Long options are more convenient to
341 remember, but take time to type. You may freely mix different option
342 styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you
346 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
349 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
350 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
352 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
359 This is a complete equivalent of:
362 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
365 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
366 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
367 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
373 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
374 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
375 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
376 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
377 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
378 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
379 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
382 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
387 @node Basic Startup Options
388 @section Basic Startup Options
393 Display the version of Wget.
397 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
401 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
402 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
404 @cindex execute wgetrc command
405 @item -e @var{command}
406 @itemx --execute @var{command}
407 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
408 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
409 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
413 @node Logging and Input File Options
414 @section Logging and Input File Options
419 @item -o @var{logfile}
420 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
421 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
424 @cindex append to log
425 @item -a @var{logfile}
426 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
427 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
428 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
429 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
434 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
435 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
436 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
437 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
438 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
439 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
440 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
446 Turn off Wget's output.
451 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
456 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
457 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
458 information still get printed.
462 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
463 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}, in which case no @sc{url}s need to be on
464 the command line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and
465 in an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
466 be retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
467 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
470 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
471 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
472 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
473 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
474 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
479 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
480 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
481 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
482 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
485 @cindex base for relative links in input file
487 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
488 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
489 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
492 @node Download Options
493 @section Download Options
496 @cindex bind() address
497 @cindex client IP address
498 @cindex IP address, client
499 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
500 When making client TCP/IP connections, @code{bind()} to @var{ADDRESS} on
501 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
502 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
507 @cindex number of retries
508 @item -t @var{number}
509 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
510 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
511 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
512 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
513 which are not retried.
516 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
517 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all will
518 be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @var{file}
519 already exists, it will be overwritten. If the @var{file} is @samp{-},
520 the documents will be written to standard output.
522 @cindex clobbering, file
523 @cindex downloading multiple times
527 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
528 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
529 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
530 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
532 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
533 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
534 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
535 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
536 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
537 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
538 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
539 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
540 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
541 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
544 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
545 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
546 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
547 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
550 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
551 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
552 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
553 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
556 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
557 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
558 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
560 @cindex continue retrieval
561 @cindex incomplete downloads
562 @cindex resume download
565 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
566 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
567 by another program. For instance:
570 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
573 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
574 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
575 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
576 length of the local file.
578 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
579 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
580 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
581 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
582 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
584 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
585 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
588 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
589 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
590 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
591 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
592 start from scratch, remove the file.
594 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
595 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
596 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
597 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
598 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
599 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
601 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
602 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
603 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
604 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
605 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
606 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
607 collection or log file.
609 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
610 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
611 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
612 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
613 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
614 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
616 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
617 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
618 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
619 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
621 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
622 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
624 @cindex progress indicator
626 @item --progress=@var{type}
627 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
628 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
630 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
631 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
632 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
635 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
636 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
637 fixed amount of downloaded data.
639 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
640 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
641 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
642 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
643 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
644 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
645 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
646 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
647 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
649 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
650 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
651 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
652 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
653 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
656 @itemx --timestamping
657 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
659 @cindex server response, print
661 @itemx --server-response
662 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
665 @cindex Wget as spider
668 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
669 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
670 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
673 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
676 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
677 functionality of real web spiders.
681 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
682 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
683 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
684 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
686 Whenever Wget connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks for a
687 timeout and aborts the operation if the time expires. This prevents
688 anomalous occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite connects. The
689 only timeout enabled by default is a 900-second timeout for reading.
690 Setting timeout to 0 disables checking for timeouts.
692 Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to set any of the
693 timeout-related options.
697 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
698 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
699 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
700 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
703 @cindex connect timeout
704 @cindex timeout, connect
705 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
706 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
707 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
708 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
711 @cindex timeout, read
712 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
713 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Reads that
714 take longer will fail. The default value for read timeout is 900
717 @cindex bandwidth, limit
719 @cindex limit bandwidth
720 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
721 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
722 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
723 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
724 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This kind of thing is useful when,
725 for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available
728 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
729 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
730 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
731 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
732 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
733 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
737 @item -w @var{seconds}
738 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
739 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
740 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
741 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
742 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
743 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
745 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
746 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
747 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
749 @cindex retries, waiting between
750 @cindex waiting between retries
751 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
752 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
753 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
754 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
755 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
756 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
757 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
760 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
766 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
767 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
768 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
769 to vary between 0 and 2 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
770 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
771 presence from such analysis.
773 A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
774 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
775 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
776 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
779 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
780 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
785 @itemx --proxy=on/off
786 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
787 appropriate environment variable is defined.
789 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
793 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
794 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
795 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
796 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
798 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
799 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
800 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
801 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
802 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
803 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
804 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
806 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
809 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
810 @item --dns-cache=off
811 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the addresses
812 it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly contact the DNS
813 server for the same (typically small) set of addresses it retrieves
814 from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will contact DNS
817 However, in some cases it is not desirable to cache host names, even for
818 the duration of a short-running application like Wget. For example,
819 some HTTP servers are hosted on machines with dynamically allocated IP
820 addresses that change from time to time. Their DNS entries are updated
821 along with each change. When Wget's download from such a host gets
822 interrupted by IP address change, Wget retries the download, but (due to
823 DNS caching) it contacts the old address. With the DNS cache turned
824 off, Wget will repeat the DNS lookup for every connect and will thus get
825 the correct dynamic address every time---at the cost of additional DNS
826 lookups where they're probably not needed.
828 If you don't understand the above description, you probably won't need
831 @cindex file names, restrict
832 @cindex Windows file names
833 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
834 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
835 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
836 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
837 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
840 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
841 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
842 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
843 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
844 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
846 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
847 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
848 default on Unix-like OS'es.
850 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
851 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
852 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
853 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
854 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
855 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
856 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
857 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
858 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
859 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
861 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
862 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
863 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
864 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
865 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
868 @node Directory Options
869 @section Directory Options
873 @itemx --no-directories
874 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
875 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
876 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
877 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
880 @itemx --force-directories
881 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
882 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
883 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
884 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
887 @itemx --no-host-directories
888 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
889 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
890 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
893 @item --protocol-directories
894 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
895 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
896 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
898 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
899 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
900 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
903 @cindex cut directories
904 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
905 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
906 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
909 Take, for example, the directory at
910 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
911 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
912 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
913 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
914 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
915 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
916 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
920 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
922 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
923 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
925 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
930 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
931 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
932 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
933 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
934 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
936 @cindex directory prefix
937 @item -P @var{prefix}
938 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
939 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
940 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
941 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
946 @section HTTP Options
949 @cindex .html extension
951 @itemx --html-extension
952 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
953 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
954 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
955 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
956 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
957 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
958 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
959 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
960 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
962 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
963 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
964 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
965 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
966 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
967 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
968 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
972 @cindex http password
973 @cindex authentication
974 @item --http-user=@var{user}
975 @itemx --http-passwd=@var{password}
976 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
977 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
978 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
979 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
981 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
982 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
983 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
984 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
985 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
986 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
987 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
989 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
995 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
996 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
997 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
998 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
999 documents on proxy servers.
1001 Caching is allowed by default.
1005 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1006 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1007 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1008 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1009 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1010 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1011 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1013 @cindex loading cookies
1014 @cindex cookies, loading
1015 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1016 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1017 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1018 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1020 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1021 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1022 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1023 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1024 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1025 proves your identity.
1027 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1028 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1029 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1030 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1031 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1032 cookie files in different locations:
1036 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1038 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1039 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1040 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1041 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1042 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1044 @item Internet Explorer.
1045 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1046 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1047 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1049 @item Other browsers.
1050 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1051 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1052 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1055 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1056 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1057 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1058 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1059 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1062 wget --cookies=off --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1065 @cindex saving cookies
1066 @cindex cookies, saving
1067 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1068 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1069 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1070 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1072 @cindex cookies, session
1073 @cindex session cookies
1074 @item --keep-session-cookies
1076 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1077 cookies. Session cookies are normally not save because they are
1078 supposed to be forgotten when you exit the browser. Saving them is
1079 useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit the home page
1080 before you can access some pages. With this option, multiple Wget runs
1081 are considered a single browser session as far as the site is concerned.
1083 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1084 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1085 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1086 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1087 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1088 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1089 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1091 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1092 @cindex ignore length
1093 @item --ignore-length
1094 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1095 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1096 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1097 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1098 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1101 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1102 if it never existed.
1105 @item --header=@var{additional-header}
1106 Define an @var{additional-header} to be passed to the @sc{http} servers.
1107 Headers must contain a @samp{:} preceded by one or more non-blank
1108 characters, and must not contain newlines.
1110 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1111 @samp{--header} more than once.
1115 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1116 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1117 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1121 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1122 previous user-defined headers.
1125 @cindex proxy password
1126 @cindex proxy authentication
1127 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1128 @itemx --proxy-passwd=@var{password}
1129 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1130 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1131 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1133 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-passwd}
1134 pertain here as well.
1136 @cindex http referer
1137 @cindex referer, http
1138 @item --referer=@var{url}
1139 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1140 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1141 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1142 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1144 @cindex server response, save
1145 @item --save-headers
1146 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1147 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1150 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1151 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1152 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1154 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1155 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1156 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1157 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1158 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1161 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1162 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1163 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
1164 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
1165 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
1166 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
1167 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
1170 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1171 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1172 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1173 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1174 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1175 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1177 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1178 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1179 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1180 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1181 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1182 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1183 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1184 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1185 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1187 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it will
1188 not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because URLs that
1189 process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular page
1190 (although that's technically disallowed), which does not desire or
1191 accept POST. It is not yet clear that this behavior is optimal; if it
1192 doesn't work out, it will be changed.
1194 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1195 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1200 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1201 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1202 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1203 http://server.com/auth.php
1205 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1206 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1207 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1213 @section FTP Options
1216 @cindex .listing files, removing
1217 @item --no-remove-listing
1218 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1219 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1220 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1221 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1222 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1223 you're running is complete).
1225 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1226 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1227 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1228 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1229 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1230 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1231 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1232 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1233 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1235 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1236 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1237 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1238 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1239 will be overwritten.
1241 @cindex globbing, toggle
1243 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1244 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1245 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1249 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1252 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1253 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1256 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1257 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1258 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1259 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1263 Use the @dfn{passive} @sc{ftp} retrieval scheme, in which the client
1264 initiates the data connection. This is sometimes required for @sc{ftp}
1265 to work behind firewalls.
1267 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1268 @item --retr-symlinks
1269 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1270 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1271 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1272 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1273 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1275 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1276 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1277 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1278 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1281 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1282 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1283 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1287 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1288 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1293 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1296 @item -l @var{depth}
1297 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1298 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1299 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1301 @cindex proxy filling
1302 @cindex delete after retrieval
1303 @cindex filling proxy cache
1304 @item --delete-after
1305 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1306 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1307 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1310 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1313 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1316 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1317 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1318 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1319 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1320 created in the first place.
1322 @cindex conversion of links
1323 @cindex link conversion
1325 @itemx --convert-links
1326 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1327 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1328 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1329 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1332 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1336 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1337 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1339 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1340 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1341 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1342 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1345 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1346 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1348 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1349 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1350 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1351 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1354 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1355 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1356 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1357 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1358 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1361 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1362 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1363 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1365 @cindex backing up converted files
1367 @itemx --backup-converted
1368 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1369 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1374 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1375 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1376 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1377 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1379 @cindex page requisites
1380 @cindex required images, downloading
1382 @itemx --page-requisites
1383 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1384 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1385 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1387 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1388 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1389 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1390 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1391 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1394 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1395 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1396 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1397 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1398 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1400 If one executes the command:
1403 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1406 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1407 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1408 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1409 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1410 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1413 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1416 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1417 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1420 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1423 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1424 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1427 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1430 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1431 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1432 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1433 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1434 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1435 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1438 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1441 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1442 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1443 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1444 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1445 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1446 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1449 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1452 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1453 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1454 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1457 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1458 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1459 @item --strict-comments
1460 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1461 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1463 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1464 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1465 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1466 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1467 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1468 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1469 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1471 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1472 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1473 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1474 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1475 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1476 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1477 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1478 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1479 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1481 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1482 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1483 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1484 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1485 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1488 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1489 option to turn it on.
1492 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1493 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1496 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1497 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1498 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1499 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1501 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1502 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1503 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1504 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1506 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1507 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1508 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1510 @cindex follow FTP links
1512 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1513 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1515 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1516 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1517 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1518 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1519 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1520 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1521 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1523 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1524 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1525 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1526 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1528 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1529 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1532 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1535 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1536 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1537 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1538 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1539 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1540 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1544 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1545 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1549 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1550 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1551 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1554 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1555 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1556 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1557 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1560 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1561 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1562 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1563 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1567 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1568 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1569 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1570 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1575 @node Recursive Download
1576 @chapter Recursive Download
1579 @cindex recursive download
1581 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1582 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1583 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1585 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1586 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1587 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1588 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1589 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1592 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1593 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1594 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1595 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1596 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1597 until the specified maximum depth.
1599 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1600 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1602 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1603 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1604 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1605 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1606 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1609 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1610 the one found on the remote server.
1612 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1613 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1614 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1615 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1617 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1618 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1619 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1620 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1621 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1622 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1623 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1625 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1626 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1627 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1628 consume memory and CPU.
1630 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1631 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1632 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1633 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1634 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1635 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1636 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1639 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1642 @node Following Links
1643 @chapter Following Links
1645 @cindex following links
1647 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1648 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1649 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1651 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1652 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1653 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1655 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1656 links it will follow.
1659 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1660 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1661 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1662 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1663 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1666 @node Spanning Hosts
1667 @section Spanning Hosts
1668 @cindex spanning hosts
1669 @cindex hosts, spanning
1671 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1672 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1673 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1674 your Wget into a small version of google.
1676 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1677 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1678 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1679 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1680 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1683 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1685 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1686 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1687 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1688 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1689 up much more data than you have intended.
1691 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1693 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1694 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1695 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1696 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1697 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
1698 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
1701 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
1704 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
1705 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
1707 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
1709 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1710 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1711 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1712 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1713 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1717 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
1723 @node Types of Files
1724 @section Types of Files
1725 @cindex types of files
1727 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1728 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1729 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1730 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
1732 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
1733 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
1736 @cindex accept wildcards
1737 @cindex accept suffixes
1738 @cindex wildcards, accept
1739 @cindex suffixes, accept
1741 @item -A @var{acclist}
1742 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
1743 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
1744 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
1745 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
1746 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
1747 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
1748 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
1750 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
1751 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
1752 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
1753 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
1754 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
1755 a description of how pattern matching works.
1757 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
1758 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
1760 @cindex reject wildcards
1761 @cindex reject suffixes
1762 @cindex wildcards, reject
1763 @cindex suffixes, reject
1764 @item -R @var{rejlist}
1765 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
1766 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
1767 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
1768 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
1769 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
1771 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
1772 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
1773 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
1774 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
1775 expansion by the shell.
1778 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
1779 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
1780 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
1781 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
1783 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
1784 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
1785 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
1787 @node Directory-Based Limits
1788 @section Directory-Based Limits
1790 @cindex directory limits
1792 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
1793 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
1794 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
1795 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
1796 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
1797 @file{/dev} directories.
1799 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
1800 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
1801 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
1803 @cindex directories, include
1804 @cindex include directories
1805 @cindex accept directories
1808 @itemx --include @var{list}
1809 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
1810 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
1811 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
1812 directories are absolute paths.
1814 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
1815 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
1816 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
1819 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
1822 @cindex directories, exclude
1823 @cindex exclude directories
1824 @cindex reject directories
1826 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
1827 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
1828 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
1829 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
1830 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
1831 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
1833 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
1834 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
1835 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
1836 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
1841 @itemx no_parent = on
1842 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
1843 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
1844 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
1845 parent directory/directories.
1847 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
1848 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
1849 Supposing you issue Wget with:
1852 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
1855 You may rest assured that none of the references to
1856 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
1857 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
1858 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
1859 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
1860 intelligent fashion.
1863 @node Relative Links
1864 @section Relative Links
1865 @cindex relative links
1867 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
1868 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
1869 server root. For example, these links are relative:
1873 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
1874 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
1877 These links are not relative:
1881 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
1882 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
1885 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
1886 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
1887 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
1889 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
1893 @section Following FTP Links
1894 @cindex following ftp links
1896 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
1897 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
1898 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
1901 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
1902 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
1903 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
1904 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
1905 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
1906 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
1907 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
1909 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
1910 retrieved recursively further.
1913 @chapter Time-Stamping
1914 @cindex time-stamping
1915 @cindex timestamping
1916 @cindex updating the archives
1917 @cindex incremental updating
1919 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
1920 Internet is updating your archives.
1922 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
1923 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
1924 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
1925 offer the option of incremental updating.
1927 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
1928 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
1929 the place of the old ones.
1931 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
1935 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
1938 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
1939 recently than the local file.
1942 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
1943 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
1944 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
1946 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
1947 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
1948 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
1949 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
1950 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
1952 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
1953 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
1957 * Time-Stamping Usage::
1958 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1959 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1962 @node Time-Stamping Usage
1963 @section Time-Stamping Usage
1964 @cindex time-stamping usage
1965 @cindex usage, time-stamping
1967 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
1968 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
1971 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1974 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
1975 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
1976 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
1977 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
1979 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
1980 changed, and download it if it has.
1983 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1986 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
1987 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
1988 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
1989 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
1991 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
1994 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
1997 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
1998 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2000 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2001 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2002 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2003 since the last download.
2005 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2006 command like the following, weekly:
2009 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2012 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2013 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2014 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2015 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2016 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2018 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2019 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2020 @cindex http time-stamping
2022 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2023 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2024 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2025 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2026 retrieved unconditionally.
2028 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2029 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2030 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2033 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2034 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2035 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2036 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2037 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2038 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2041 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2042 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2043 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2044 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2045 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2047 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2048 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2050 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2051 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2052 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2054 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2055 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2058 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2059 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2060 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2061 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2062 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2063 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2064 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2065 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2067 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2068 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2069 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2070 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2071 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2072 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2074 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2075 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2076 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2077 Wget may support this command in the future.
2080 @chapter Startup File
2081 @cindex startup file
2087 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2088 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2089 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2090 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2092 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2093 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2094 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2095 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2097 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2101 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2102 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2103 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2104 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2107 @node Wgetrc Location
2108 @section Wgetrc Location
2109 @cindex wgetrc location
2110 @cindex location of wgetrc
2112 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2113 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2114 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2115 from there, if it exists.
2117 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2118 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2119 further attempts will be made.
2121 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2123 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2124 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2125 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2126 Fascist admins, away!
2129 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2130 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2131 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2133 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2139 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2140 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2142 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2143 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2144 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2147 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2148 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2149 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2155 @node Wgetrc Commands
2156 @section Wgetrc Commands
2157 @cindex wgetrc commands
2159 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2160 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2161 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}. A fancier kind of
2162 Boolean allowed in some cases is the @dfn{lockable Boolean}, which may
2163 be set to @samp{on}, @samp{off}, @samp{always}, or @samp{never}. If an
2164 option is set to @samp{always} or @samp{never}, that value will be
2165 locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation---command-line options
2168 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2169 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2170 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2171 values can be any non-empty string.
2173 Most of these commands have command-line equivalents (@pxref{Invoking}),
2174 though some of the more obscure or rarely used ones do not.
2177 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2178 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2180 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2181 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2183 @item continue = on/off
2184 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2185 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2187 @item background = on/off
2188 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2191 @item backup_converted = on/off
2192 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2193 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2195 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2196 @c #### Document me!
2198 @item base = @var{string}
2199 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2200 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2203 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2204 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address} option.
2206 @item cache = on/off
2207 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2210 @item convert_links = on/off
2211 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2213 @item cookies = on/off
2214 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2216 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2217 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies}.
2219 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2220 Save cookies to @var{file}. See @samp{--save-cookies}.
2222 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2223 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2225 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2226 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components.
2228 @item debug = on/off
2229 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2231 @item delete_after = on/off
2232 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2234 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2235 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P}.
2237 @item dirstruct = on/off
2238 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2241 @item dns_cache = on/off
2242 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2243 option is normally used to turn it off. Same as @samp{--dns-cache}.
2245 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2246 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2248 @item domains = @var{string}
2249 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2251 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2252 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2253 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2254 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2255 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2256 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2257 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2259 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2260 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2261 the retrieval (50 by default).
2263 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2264 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2266 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2267 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2268 download---the same as @samp{-X} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2270 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2271 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2273 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2274 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2275 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2277 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2278 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2279 @samp{--follow-tags}.
2281 @item force_html = on/off
2282 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2283 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2285 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2286 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2290 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2292 @item header = @var{string}
2293 Define an additional header, like @samp{--header}.
2295 @item html_extension = on/off
2296 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2297 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like
2300 @item http_passwd = @var{string}
2301 Set @sc{http} password.
2303 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2304 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2307 @item http_user = @var{string}
2308 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}.
2310 @item ignore_length = on/off
2311 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2312 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2314 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2315 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2316 @samp{--ignore-tags}.
2318 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2319 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2320 downloading---the same as @samp{-I}.
2322 @item input = @var{string}
2323 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i}.
2325 @item kill_longer = on/off
2326 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid
2327 (and retry getting it). The default behavior is to save as much data
2328 as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in
2329 @code{Content-Length}.
2331 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2332 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2333 The same as @samp{--limit-rate}.
2335 @item logfile = @var{string}
2336 Set logfile---the same as @samp{-o}.
2338 @item login = @var{string}
2339 Your user name on the remote machine, for @sc{ftp}. Defaults to
2342 @item mirror = on/off
2343 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2345 @item netrc = on/off
2346 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2348 @item noclobber = on/off
2351 @item no_parent = on/off
2352 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2353 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2355 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2356 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2357 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2359 @item output_document = @var{string}
2360 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O}.
2362 @item page_requisites = on/off
2363 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2364 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2366 @item passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
2367 Set passive @sc{ftp}---the same as @samp{--passive-ftp}. Some scripts
2368 and @samp{.pm} (Perl module) files download files using @samp{wget
2369 --passive-ftp}. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set
2370 @samp{passive_ftp = never} to override the command-line.
2372 @item passwd = @var{string}
2373 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{password}. Without this setting, the
2374 password defaults to @samp{username@@hostname.domainname}.
2376 @item post_data = @var{string}
2377 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2378 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data}.
2380 @item post_file = @var{file}
2381 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2382 @var{file} in the request body. The same as @samp{--post-file}.
2384 @item progress = @var{string}
2385 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are ``dot'' and
2388 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2389 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2390 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2392 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2393 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-user}.
2395 @item proxy_passwd = @var{string}
2396 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-passwd}.
2398 @item referer = @var{string}
2399 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like @samp{--referer}. (Note it
2400 was the folks who wrote the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of
2401 ``referrer'' wrong.)
2403 @item quiet = on/off
2404 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2406 @item quota = @var{quota}
2407 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2408 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2409 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2410 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2411 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2412 to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2415 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2416 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as @samp{--read-timeout}.
2418 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2419 Recursion level---the same as @samp{-l}.
2421 @item recursive = on/off
2422 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2424 @item relative_only = on/off
2425 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2428 @item remove_listing = on/off
2429 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2430 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2432 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2433 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2434 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2436 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2437 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2438 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2440 @item robots = on/off
2441 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2442 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2443 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2444 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2447 @item server_response = on/off
2448 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2449 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2451 @item span_hosts = on/off
2454 @item strict_comments = on/off
2455 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2457 @item timeout = @var{n}
2458 Set timeout value---the same as @samp{-T}.
2460 @item timestamping = on/off
2461 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2463 @item tries = @var{n}
2464 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t}.
2466 @item use_proxy = on/off
2467 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as @samp{-Y}.
2469 @item verbose = on/off
2470 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2472 @item wait = @var{n}
2473 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w}.
2475 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2476 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2477 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry}. Note that this is turned on by
2478 default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2480 @item randomwait = on/off
2481 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2482 @samp{--random-wait}.
2486 @section Sample Wgetrc
2487 @cindex sample wgetrc
2489 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2490 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2491 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2492 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2494 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2495 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2499 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2506 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2507 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2511 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2512 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2513 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2517 @section Simple Usage
2521 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2524 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2528 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2529 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2530 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2531 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2532 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2533 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2536 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2540 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2541 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2542 shall use @samp{-t}.
2545 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2548 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2549 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2552 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2556 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2560 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2561 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2564 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2569 @node Advanced Usage
2570 @section Advanced Usage
2574 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2581 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2585 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2586 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2587 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2590 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2594 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2595 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2598 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2602 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2603 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
2604 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
2605 references the downloaded links.
2608 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2611 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
2612 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
2613 depending on where they were on the remote server.
2616 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
2617 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
2618 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
2619 subdirectory of the current directory.
2622 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
2623 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2627 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
2631 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
2635 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
2638 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
2643 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
2647 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
2651 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
2652 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
2653 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
2657 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
2660 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
2661 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
2662 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
2663 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
2664 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
2668 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
2669 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
2673 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
2677 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
2678 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
2681 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
2684 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
2685 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
2688 @cindex redirecting output
2690 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
2694 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
2697 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
2698 documents from remote hotlists:
2701 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
2705 @node Very Advanced Usage
2706 @section Very Advanced Usage
2711 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
2712 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
2713 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
2714 to recheck a site each Sunday:
2718 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2722 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
2723 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
2724 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
2725 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
2726 would look like this:
2729 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2730 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2734 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
2735 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
2736 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
2737 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
2738 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
2741 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2742 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
2746 Or, with less typing:
2749 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2758 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
2761 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
2762 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
2763 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
2764 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
2765 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
2766 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
2773 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
2774 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
2775 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
2776 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
2777 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
2778 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
2779 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
2780 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
2781 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
2782 using an authorized proxy.
2784 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
2785 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
2786 the following environment variables:
2790 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
2794 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
2795 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
2796 are set to the same @sc{url}.
2799 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
2800 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
2801 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
2805 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
2806 may be specified from within Wget itself.
2810 @itemx --proxy=on/off
2811 @itemx proxy = on/off
2812 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
2813 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
2816 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
2817 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
2818 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
2819 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
2820 specified by the environment.
2823 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
2824 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
2825 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
2826 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
2827 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
2829 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
2830 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
2831 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
2832 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
2836 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
2839 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
2840 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
2841 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_passwd} to set the proxy
2842 username and password.
2845 @section Distribution
2846 @cindex latest version
2848 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
2849 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
2850 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
2851 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
2854 @section Mailing List
2855 @cindex mailing list
2858 Wget has its own mailing list at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, thanks
2859 to Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget
2860 features and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of
2861 interest to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
2862 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
2864 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2865 Unsubscribe by mailing to @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2867 The mailing list is archived at @url{http://fly.srk.fer.hr/archive/wget}.
2868 Alternative archive is available at
2869 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.auc.dk/}.
2871 @node Reporting Bugs
2872 @section Reporting Bugs
2874 @cindex reporting bugs
2878 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
2879 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
2881 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
2886 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
2887 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
2888 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
2889 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
2892 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
2893 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
2894 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
2895 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
2896 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
2897 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
2899 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
2900 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
2901 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
2902 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
2903 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
2907 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send the log (or the
2908 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
2909 recompile it. It is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs with debug support
2913 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
2914 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace.
2919 @section Portability
2921 @cindex operating systems
2923 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
2924 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
2925 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
2926 work) on all common Unix flavors.
2928 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
2929 Unix systems, including Solaris, GNU/Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital Unix
2930 or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others; refer to the file
2931 @file{MACHINES} in the distribution directory for a comprehensive list.
2932 If you compile it on an architecture not listed there, please let me
2933 know so I can update it.
2935 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
2936 @file{MACHINES}. If it doesn't, please let me know.
2938 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works on
2939 Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
2940 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
2941 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
2942 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
2943 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is
2944 @strong{neither tested nor maintained} by me---all questions and
2945 problems in Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
2946 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
2947 Windows-related features might look at them.
2951 @cindex signal handling
2954 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
2955 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
2956 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
2957 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
2958 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
2961 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
2962 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
2965 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
2966 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
2971 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
2974 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
2975 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
2976 * Contributors:: People who helped.
2979 @node Robot Exclusion
2980 @section Robot Exclusion
2981 @cindex robot exclusion
2983 @cindex server maintenance
2985 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
2986 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
2987 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
2989 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
2990 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
2991 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
2992 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
2993 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
2994 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
2995 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
2996 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
2997 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
2998 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
2999 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3000 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3002 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3003 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3004 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3005 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3006 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3007 they will permit access.
3009 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3010 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3011 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3012 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3013 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3014 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3017 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3018 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3019 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3020 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3023 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3026 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3027 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3028 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3029 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3032 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3033 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3034 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3035 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3036 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3037 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3038 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3039 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3041 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3043 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3044 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3045 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3049 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3052 This is explained in some detail at
3053 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3054 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3057 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3058 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3059 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3060 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3062 @node Security Considerations
3063 @section Security Considerations
3066 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3067 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3068 main issues, and some solutions.
3071 @item The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}.
3072 The best way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s
3073 to Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by
3074 @kbd{C-d}. Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store
3075 passwords; however, storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a
3079 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3080 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3083 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3084 solution for this at the moment.
3087 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3088 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3089 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3094 @section Contributors
3095 @cindex contributors
3098 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3101 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3103 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
3104 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
3105 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3107 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3111 Karsten Thygesen---donated system resources such as the mailing list,
3112 web space, and @sc{ftp} space, along with a lot of time to make these
3116 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3119 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3123 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3127 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3128 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3131 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3132 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3136 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3139 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
3143 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3147 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3152 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3155 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3159 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
3163 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3167 The people who provided donations for development, including Brian
3171 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3172 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3173 that make maintenance so much fun:
3192 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3211 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3214 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3231 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3249 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3260 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3261 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3262 (Simos KSenitellis),
3270 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3276 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3304 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3306 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}gues,
3309 Juan Jose Rodrigues,
3322 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3330 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3340 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3341 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3348 @cindex free software
3350 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL),
3351 which makes it @dfn{free software}. Please note that ``free'' in ``free
3352 software'' refers to liberty, not price. As some people like to point
3353 out, it's the ``free'' of ``free speech'', not the ``free'' of ``free
3356 The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below.
3357 The GPL guarantees that you have the right (freedom) to run and change
3358 GNU Wget and distribute it to others, and even---if you want---charge
3359 money for doing any of those things. With these rights comes the
3360 obligation to distribute the source code along with the software and to
3361 grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
3363 This licensing model is also known as @dfn{open source} because it,
3364 among other things, makes sure that all recipients will receive the
3365 source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU
3366 project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons outlined at
3367 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3369 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3370 General Public License it refers to:
3373 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3374 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3375 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3376 option) any later version.
3378 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3379 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3380 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3383 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3384 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3385 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3388 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3391 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3392 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
3393 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
3394 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
3395 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3396 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3397 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3400 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3401 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3402 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3405 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3406 Documentation License are available below.
3409 * GNU General Public License::
3410 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3413 @node GNU General Public License
3414 @section GNU General Public License
3415 @center Version 2, June 1991
3418 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3419 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3421 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3422 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3425 @unnumberedsec Preamble
3427 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
3428 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
3429 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3430 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
3431 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
3432 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
3433 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
3434 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
3437 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
3438 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
3439 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
3440 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
3441 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
3442 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
3444 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
3445 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
3446 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
3447 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
3449 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
3450 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
3451 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
3452 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
3455 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
3456 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
3457 distribute and/or modify the software.
3459 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
3460 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
3461 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
3462 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
3463 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
3464 authors' reputations.
3466 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
3467 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
3468 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
3469 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
3470 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
3472 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
3473 modification follow.
3476 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3479 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3484 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
3485 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
3486 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
3487 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
3488 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
3489 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
3490 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
3491 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
3492 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
3494 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
3495 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
3496 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
3497 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
3498 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
3499 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
3502 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
3503 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
3504 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
3505 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
3506 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
3507 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
3508 along with the Program.
3510 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
3511 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3514 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
3515 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
3516 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
3517 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
3521 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
3522 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
3525 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
3526 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
3527 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
3528 parties under the terms of this License.
3531 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
3532 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
3533 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
3534 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
3535 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
3536 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
3537 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
3538 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
3539 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
3540 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
3543 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
3544 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
3545 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
3546 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
3547 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
3548 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
3549 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
3550 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
3551 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
3553 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
3554 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
3555 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
3556 collective works based on the Program.
3558 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
3559 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
3560 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
3561 the scope of this License.
3564 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
3565 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
3566 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3570 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3571 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3572 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
3575 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
3576 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
3577 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
3578 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
3579 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
3580 customarily used for software interchange; or,
3583 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
3584 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
3585 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
3586 received the program in object code or executable form with such
3587 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
3590 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
3591 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
3592 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
3593 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
3594 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
3595 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
3596 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
3597 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
3598 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
3599 itself accompanies the executable.
3601 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
3602 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
3603 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
3604 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
3605 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
3608 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
3609 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
3610 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
3611 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
3612 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
3613 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3614 parties remain in full compliance.
3617 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
3618 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
3619 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
3620 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
3621 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
3622 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
3623 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
3624 the Program or works based on it.
3627 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
3628 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
3629 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
3630 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
3631 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
3632 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
3636 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
3637 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
3638 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
3639 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
3640 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
3641 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
3642 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
3643 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
3644 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
3645 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
3646 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
3647 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
3649 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
3650 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
3651 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
3654 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
3655 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
3656 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
3657 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
3658 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
3659 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
3660 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
3661 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
3662 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
3665 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
3666 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
3669 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
3670 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
3671 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
3672 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
3673 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
3674 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
3675 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
3678 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
3679 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
3680 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
3681 address new problems or concerns.
3683 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
3684 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
3685 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
3686 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
3687 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
3688 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
3692 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
3693 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
3694 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
3695 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
3696 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
3697 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
3698 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
3701 @heading NO WARRANTY
3709 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
3710 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
3711 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
3712 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
3713 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
3714 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
3715 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
3716 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
3717 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
3720 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
3721 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
3722 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
3723 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
3724 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
3725 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
3726 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
3727 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
3728 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
3732 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3735 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3739 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
3741 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
3742 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
3743 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
3745 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
3746 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
3747 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
3748 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
3751 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
3752 Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3754 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
3755 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
3756 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
3757 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
3759 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3760 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3761 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3762 GNU General Public License for more details.
3764 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3765 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
3766 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3769 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
3771 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
3772 when it starts in an interactive mode:
3775 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3776 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
3777 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
3778 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
3782 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
3783 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
3784 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
3785 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
3788 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
3789 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
3790 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
3794 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
3795 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
3796 (which makes passes at compilers) written
3799 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
3800 Ty Coon, President of Vice
3804 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
3805 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
3806 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
3807 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
3808 Public License instead of this License.
3813 @unnumbered Concept Index