1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
36 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
37 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
38 are preserved on all copies.
41 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
42 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
43 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
44 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
46 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
47 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
49 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
50 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
51 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
56 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
57 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
58 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
59 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
63 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
66 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
71 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
72 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
74 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
75 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
76 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
77 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
78 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
79 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
84 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
86 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
87 available utility for network downloads.
89 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
92 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
93 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
94 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
95 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
96 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
97 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
98 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
99 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
100 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
101 * Copying:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
102 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
111 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
112 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
113 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
114 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
117 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
121 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
122 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
123 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
124 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
125 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
126 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
131 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
135 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
136 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
137 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
138 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
139 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
140 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
141 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
146 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
147 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
148 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
149 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
150 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
151 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
156 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
160 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
161 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
162 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
163 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
164 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
165 download from where it left off.
169 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
170 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
171 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
172 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
173 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
177 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
178 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
179 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
180 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
183 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
184 (@pxref{Following Links}).
187 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
188 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
189 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
190 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
191 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
194 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
195 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
196 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
197 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
202 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
203 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
212 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
213 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
214 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
225 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
228 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
229 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
233 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
234 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
236 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
237 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
238 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
244 * Basic Startup Options::
245 * Logging and Input File Options::
247 * Directory Options::
249 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
251 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
252 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
260 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
261 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
262 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
263 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
267 http://host[:port]/directory/file
268 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
271 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
274 ftp://user:password@@host/path
275 http://user:password@@host/path
278 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
279 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
280 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
281 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
282 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
283 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
286 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
287 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
288 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
289 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
290 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
291 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
293 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
294 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
295 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
296 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
297 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
300 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
301 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
302 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
303 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
304 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
305 for text files. Here is an example:
308 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
311 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
312 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
314 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
319 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
324 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
325 supported in the future.
327 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
328 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
329 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
334 @section Option Syntax
335 @cindex option syntax
336 @cindex syntax of options
338 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
339 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
340 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
341 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
342 arguments. Thus you may write:
345 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
348 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
349 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
351 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
358 This is a complete equivalent of:
361 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
364 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
365 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
366 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
372 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
373 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
374 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
375 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
376 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
377 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
378 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
381 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
384 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
385 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
386 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
387 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
388 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
389 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
390 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
393 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
394 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
395 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
396 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
398 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
399 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
400 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
401 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
402 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
403 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
404 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
405 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
406 default from the command line.
408 @node Basic Startup Options
409 @section Basic Startup Options
414 Display the version of Wget.
418 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
422 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
423 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
425 @cindex execute wgetrc command
426 @item -e @var{command}
427 @itemx --execute @var{command}
428 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
429 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
430 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
431 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
432 instances of @samp{-e}.
436 @node Logging and Input File Options
437 @section Logging and Input File Options
442 @item -o @var{logfile}
443 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
444 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
447 @cindex append to log
448 @item -a @var{logfile}
449 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
450 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
451 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
452 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
457 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
458 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
459 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
460 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
461 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
462 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
463 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
469 Turn off Wget's output.
474 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
479 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
480 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
485 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
486 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
487 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
488 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
490 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
491 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
492 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
493 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
494 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
497 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
498 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
499 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
500 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
501 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
506 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
507 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
508 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
509 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
512 @cindex base for relative links in input file
514 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
515 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
516 the @samp{-i} option.
519 @node Download Options
520 @section Download Options
524 @cindex client IP address
525 @cindex IP address, client
526 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
527 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
528 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
529 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
534 @cindex number of retries
535 @item -t @var{number}
536 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
537 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
538 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
539 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
540 which are not retried.
543 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
544 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
545 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
546 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
547 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
548 literally named @samp{-}.)
550 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only well-defined for
551 downloading a single document.
553 @cindex clobbering, file
554 @cindex downloading multiple times
558 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
559 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
560 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
561 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
563 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
564 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
565 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
566 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
567 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
568 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
569 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
570 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
571 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
572 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
575 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
576 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
577 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
578 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
581 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
582 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
583 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
584 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
587 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
588 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
589 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
591 @cindex continue retrieval
592 @cindex incomplete downloads
593 @cindex resume download
596 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
597 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
598 by another program. For instance:
601 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
604 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
605 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
606 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
607 length of the local file.
609 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
610 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
611 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
612 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
613 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
615 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
616 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
619 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
620 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
621 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
622 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
623 start from scratch, remove the file.
625 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
626 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
627 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
628 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
629 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
630 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
632 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
633 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
634 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
635 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
636 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
637 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
638 collection or log file.
640 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
641 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
642 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
643 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
644 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
645 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
647 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
648 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
649 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
650 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
652 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
653 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
655 @cindex progress indicator
657 @item --progress=@var{type}
658 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
659 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
661 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
662 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
663 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
666 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
667 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
668 fixed amount of downloaded data.
670 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
671 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
672 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
673 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
674 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
675 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
676 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
677 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
678 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
680 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
681 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
682 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
683 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
684 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
687 @itemx --timestamping
688 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
690 @cindex server response, print
692 @itemx --server-response
693 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
696 @cindex Wget as spider
699 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
700 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
701 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
704 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
707 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
708 functionality of real web spiders.
712 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
713 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
714 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
715 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
717 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
718 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
719 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
720 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
721 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
722 change the default timeout settings.
724 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
725 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
726 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
727 server response times or for testing network latency.
731 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
732 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
733 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
734 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
737 @cindex connect timeout
738 @cindex timeout, connect
739 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
740 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
741 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
742 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
745 @cindex timeout, read
746 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
747 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
748 ``time'' of this timeout refers @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
749 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
750 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
751 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
753 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
754 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
757 @cindex bandwidth, limit
759 @cindex limit bandwidth
760 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
761 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
762 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
763 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
764 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
765 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
767 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
768 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
771 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
772 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
773 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
774 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
775 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
776 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
780 @item -w @var{seconds}
781 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
782 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
783 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
784 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
785 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
786 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
788 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
789 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
790 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
791 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
792 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
794 @cindex retries, waiting between
795 @cindex waiting between retries
796 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
797 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
798 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
799 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
800 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
801 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
802 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
805 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
811 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
812 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
813 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
814 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
815 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
816 presence from such analysis.
818 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
819 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
820 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
821 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
824 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
825 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
830 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
833 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
837 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
838 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
839 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
840 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
842 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
843 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
844 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
845 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
846 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
847 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
848 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
850 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
853 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
855 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
856 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
857 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
858 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
861 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
862 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
863 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
864 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
865 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
866 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
867 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
870 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
873 @cindex file names, restrict
874 @cindex Windows file names
875 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
876 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
877 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
878 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
879 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
882 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
883 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
884 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
885 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
886 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
888 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
889 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
890 default on Unix-like OS'es.
892 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
893 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
894 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
895 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
896 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
897 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
898 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
899 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
900 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
901 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
903 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
904 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
905 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
906 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
907 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
914 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
915 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
916 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
917 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
918 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
920 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
921 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
922 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
923 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
924 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
926 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
927 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
928 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
929 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
930 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
933 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
934 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
935 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
938 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
939 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
940 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
941 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
942 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
943 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
944 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
945 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
947 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
948 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
949 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
950 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
951 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
952 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
954 @item --retry-connrefused
955 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
956 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
957 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
958 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
959 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
960 short periods of time.
964 @cindex authentication
965 @item --user=@var{user}
966 @itemx --password=@var{password}
967 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
968 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
969 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
970 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
971 options for @sc{http} connections.
974 @node Directory Options
975 @section Directory Options
979 @itemx --no-directories
980 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
981 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
982 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
983 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
986 @itemx --force-directories
987 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
988 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
989 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
990 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
993 @itemx --no-host-directories
994 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
995 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
996 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
999 @item --protocol-directories
1000 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1001 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1002 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1004 @cindex cut directories
1005 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1006 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1007 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1010 Take, for example, the directory at
1011 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1012 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1013 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1014 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1015 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1016 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1017 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1021 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1023 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1024 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1026 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1031 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1032 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1033 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1034 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1035 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1037 @cindex directory prefix
1038 @item -P @var{prefix}
1039 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1040 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1041 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1042 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1047 @section HTTP Options
1050 @cindex .html extension
1052 @itemx --html-extension
1053 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1054 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1055 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1056 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1057 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1058 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1059 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1060 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1061 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1063 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1064 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1065 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1066 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1067 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1068 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1069 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1070 Retrieval Options}).
1073 @cindex http password
1074 @cindex authentication
1075 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1076 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1077 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1078 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1079 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1080 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1082 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1083 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1084 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1085 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1086 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1087 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1088 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1091 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1098 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1099 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1100 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1101 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1102 documents on proxy servers.
1104 Caching is allowed by default.
1108 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1109 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1110 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1111 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1112 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1113 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1114 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1116 @cindex loading cookies
1117 @cindex cookies, loading
1118 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1119 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1120 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1121 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1123 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1124 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1125 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1126 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1127 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1128 proves your identity.
1130 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1131 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1132 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1133 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1134 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1135 cookie files in different locations:
1139 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1141 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1142 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1143 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1144 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1145 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1147 @item Internet Explorer.
1148 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1149 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1150 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1152 @item Other browsers.
1153 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1154 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1155 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1158 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1159 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1160 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1161 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1162 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1165 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1168 @cindex saving cookies
1169 @cindex cookies, saving
1170 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1171 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1172 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1173 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1175 @cindex cookies, session
1176 @cindex session cookies
1177 @item --keep-session-cookies
1178 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1179 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1180 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1181 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1182 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1183 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1184 the site is concerned.
1186 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1187 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1188 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1189 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1190 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1191 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1192 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1194 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1195 @cindex ignore length
1196 @item --ignore-length
1197 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1198 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1199 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1200 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1201 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1204 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1205 if it never existed.
1208 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1209 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1210 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1211 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1214 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1215 @samp{--header} more than once.
1219 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1220 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1221 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1225 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1226 previous user-defined headers.
1228 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1229 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1230 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1233 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1236 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1237 sending of duplicate headers.
1240 @cindex proxy password
1241 @cindex proxy authentication
1242 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1243 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1244 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1245 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1246 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1248 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1249 pertain here as well.
1251 @cindex http referer
1252 @cindex referer, http
1253 @item --referer=@var{url}
1254 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1255 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1256 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1257 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1259 @cindex server response, save
1260 @item --save-headers
1261 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1262 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1265 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1266 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1267 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1269 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1270 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1271 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1272 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1273 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1276 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1277 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1278 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1279 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1280 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1281 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1282 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1285 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1286 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1289 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1290 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1291 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1292 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1293 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1294 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1296 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1297 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1298 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1299 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1300 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1301 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1302 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1303 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1304 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1306 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1307 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1308 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1309 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1310 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1311 be changed in the future.
1313 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1314 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1319 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1320 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1321 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1322 http://server.com/auth.php
1324 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1325 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1326 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1330 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1331 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1332 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1333 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1334 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1337 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1338 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1341 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1342 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1343 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1346 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1347 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1348 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1349 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1350 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1351 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1352 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1354 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1355 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1356 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1357 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1360 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1361 @item --no-check-certificate
1362 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1363 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1364 name presented by the certificate.
1366 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1367 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1368 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1369 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1370 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1371 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1372 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1373 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1374 and allows you to proceed.
1376 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1377 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1378 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1379 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1380 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1381 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1382 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1384 @cindex SSL certificate
1385 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1386 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1387 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1388 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1391 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1392 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1393 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1394 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1397 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1398 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1399 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1401 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1402 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1403 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1405 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1406 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1407 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1409 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1410 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1412 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1413 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1414 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1415 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1416 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1417 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1418 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1419 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1420 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1422 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1423 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1425 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1426 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1427 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1428 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1429 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1431 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1432 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1433 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1434 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1435 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1436 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1439 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1440 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1444 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1445 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1446 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1447 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1448 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1449 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1450 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1452 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1453 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1454 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1455 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1457 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1458 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1459 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1463 @section FTP Options
1467 @cindex ftp password
1468 @cindex ftp authentication
1469 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1470 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1471 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1472 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1473 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1476 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1477 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1478 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1479 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1480 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1481 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1482 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1485 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1489 @cindex .listing files, removing
1490 @item --no-remove-listing
1491 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1492 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1493 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1494 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1495 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1496 you're running is complete).
1498 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1499 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1500 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1501 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1502 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1503 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1504 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1505 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1506 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1508 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1509 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1510 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1511 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1512 will be overwritten.
1514 @cindex globbing, toggle
1516 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1517 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1518 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1522 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1525 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1526 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1529 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1530 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1531 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1532 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1535 @item --no-passive-ftp
1536 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1537 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1538 connection rather than the other way around.
1540 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1541 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1542 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1543 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1544 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1545 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1547 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1548 @item --retr-symlinks
1549 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1550 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1551 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1552 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1553 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1555 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1556 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1557 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1558 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1561 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1562 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1563 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1566 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1567 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1568 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1569 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1570 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1571 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1572 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1573 the load on the server.
1575 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1576 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1577 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1580 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1581 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1586 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1589 @item -l @var{depth}
1590 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1591 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1592 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1594 @cindex proxy filling
1595 @cindex delete after retrieval
1596 @cindex filling proxy cache
1597 @item --delete-after
1598 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1599 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1600 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1603 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1606 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1609 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1610 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1611 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1612 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1613 created in the first place.
1615 @cindex conversion of links
1616 @cindex link conversion
1618 @itemx --convert-links
1619 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1620 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1621 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1622 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1625 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1629 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1630 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1632 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1633 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1634 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1635 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1638 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1639 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1641 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1642 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1643 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1644 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1647 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1648 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1649 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1650 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1651 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1654 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1655 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1656 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1658 @cindex backing up converted files
1660 @itemx --backup-converted
1661 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1662 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1667 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1668 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1669 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1670 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1672 @cindex page requisites
1673 @cindex required images, downloading
1675 @itemx --page-requisites
1676 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1677 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1678 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1680 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1681 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1682 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1683 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1684 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1687 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1688 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1689 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1690 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1691 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1693 If one executes the command:
1696 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1699 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1700 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1701 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1702 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1703 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1706 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1709 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1710 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1713 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1716 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1717 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1720 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1723 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1724 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1725 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1726 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1727 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1728 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1731 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1734 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1735 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1736 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1737 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1738 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1739 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1742 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1745 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1746 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1747 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1750 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1751 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1752 @item --strict-comments
1753 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1754 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1756 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1757 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1758 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1759 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1760 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1761 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1762 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1764 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1765 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1766 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1767 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1768 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1769 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1770 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1771 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1772 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1774 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1775 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1776 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1777 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1778 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1781 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1782 option to turn it on.
1785 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1786 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1789 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1790 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1791 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1792 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1794 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1795 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1796 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1797 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1799 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1800 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1801 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1803 @cindex follow FTP links
1805 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1806 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1808 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1809 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1810 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1811 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1812 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1813 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1814 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1816 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1817 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1818 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1819 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1821 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1822 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1825 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1828 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1829 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1830 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1831 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1832 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1833 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1838 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1839 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1840 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1841 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1842 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1846 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1847 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1851 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1852 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1853 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1856 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1857 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1858 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1859 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1862 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1863 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1864 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1865 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1869 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1870 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1871 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1872 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1877 @node Recursive Download
1878 @chapter Recursive Download
1881 @cindex recursive download
1883 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1884 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1885 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1887 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1888 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1889 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1890 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1891 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1894 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1895 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1896 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1897 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1898 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1899 until the specified maximum depth.
1901 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1902 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1904 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1905 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1906 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1907 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1908 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1911 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1912 the one found on the remote server.
1914 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1915 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1916 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1917 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1919 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1920 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1921 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1922 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1923 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1924 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1925 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1927 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1928 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1929 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1930 consume memory and CPU.
1932 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1933 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1934 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1935 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1936 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1937 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1938 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1941 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1944 @node Following Links
1945 @chapter Following Links
1947 @cindex following links
1949 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1950 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1951 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1953 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1954 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1955 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1957 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1958 links it will follow.
1961 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1962 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1963 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1964 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1965 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1968 @node Spanning Hosts
1969 @section Spanning Hosts
1970 @cindex spanning hosts
1971 @cindex hosts, spanning
1973 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1974 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1975 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1976 your Wget into a small version of google.
1978 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1979 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1980 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1981 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1982 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1985 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1987 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1988 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1989 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1990 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1991 up much more data than you have intended.
1993 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1995 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1996 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1997 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1998 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1999 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2000 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2003 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2006 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2007 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2009 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2011 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2012 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2013 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2014 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2015 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2019 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2025 @node Types of Files
2026 @section Types of Files
2027 @cindex types of files
2029 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2030 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2031 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2032 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2034 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2035 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2038 @cindex accept wildcards
2039 @cindex accept suffixes
2040 @cindex wildcards, accept
2041 @cindex suffixes, accept
2043 @item -A @var{acclist}
2044 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2045 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2046 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2047 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2048 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2049 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2050 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2052 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2053 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2054 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2055 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2056 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2057 a description of how pattern matching works.
2059 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2060 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2062 @cindex reject wildcards
2063 @cindex reject suffixes
2064 @cindex wildcards, reject
2065 @cindex suffixes, reject
2066 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2067 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2068 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2069 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2070 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2071 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2073 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2074 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2075 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2076 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2077 expansion by the shell.
2080 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2081 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2082 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2083 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2085 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2086 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2087 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2089 @node Directory-Based Limits
2090 @section Directory-Based Limits
2092 @cindex directory limits
2094 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2095 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2096 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2097 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2098 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2099 @file{/dev} directories.
2101 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2102 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2103 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2105 @cindex directories, include
2106 @cindex include directories
2107 @cindex accept directories
2110 @itemx --include @var{list}
2111 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2112 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2113 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2114 directories are absolute paths.
2116 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2117 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2118 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2121 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2124 @cindex directories, exclude
2125 @cindex exclude directories
2126 @cindex reject directories
2128 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2129 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2130 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2131 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2132 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2133 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2135 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2136 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2137 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2138 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2143 @itemx no_parent = on
2144 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2145 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2146 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2147 parent directory/directories.
2149 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2150 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2151 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2154 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2157 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2158 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2159 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2160 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2161 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2162 intelligent fashion.
2165 @node Relative Links
2166 @section Relative Links
2167 @cindex relative links
2169 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2170 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2171 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2175 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2176 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2179 These links are not relative:
2183 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2184 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2187 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2188 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2189 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2191 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2195 @section Following FTP Links
2196 @cindex following ftp links
2198 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2199 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2200 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2203 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2204 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2205 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2206 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2207 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2208 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2209 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2211 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2212 retrieved recursively further.
2215 @chapter Time-Stamping
2216 @cindex time-stamping
2217 @cindex timestamping
2218 @cindex updating the archives
2219 @cindex incremental updating
2221 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2222 Internet is updating your archives.
2224 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2225 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2226 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2227 offer the option of incremental updating.
2229 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2230 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2231 the place of the old ones.
2233 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2237 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2240 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2241 recently than the local file.
2244 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2245 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2246 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2248 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2249 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2250 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2251 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2252 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2254 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2255 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2259 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2260 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2261 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2264 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2265 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2266 @cindex time-stamping usage
2267 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2269 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2270 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2273 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2276 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2277 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2278 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2279 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2281 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2282 changed, and download it if it has.
2285 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2288 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2289 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2290 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2291 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2293 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2296 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2299 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2300 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2302 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2303 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2304 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2305 since the last download.
2307 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2308 command like the following, weekly:
2311 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2314 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2315 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2316 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2317 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2318 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2320 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2321 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2322 @cindex http time-stamping
2324 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2325 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2326 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2327 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2328 retrieved unconditionally.
2330 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2331 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2332 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2335 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2336 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2337 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2338 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2339 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2340 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2343 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2344 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2345 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2346 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2347 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2349 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2350 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2352 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2353 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2354 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2356 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2357 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2360 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2361 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2362 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2363 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2364 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2365 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2366 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2367 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2369 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2370 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2371 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2372 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2373 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2374 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2376 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2377 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2378 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2379 Wget may support this command in the future.
2382 @chapter Startup File
2383 @cindex startup file
2389 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2390 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2391 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2392 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2394 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2395 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2396 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2397 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2399 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2403 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2404 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2405 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2406 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2409 @node Wgetrc Location
2410 @section Wgetrc Location
2411 @cindex wgetrc location
2412 @cindex location of wgetrc
2414 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2415 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2416 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2417 from there, if it exists.
2419 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2420 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2421 further attempts will be made.
2423 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2425 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2426 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2427 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2428 Fascist admins, away!
2431 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2432 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2433 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2435 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2441 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2442 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2444 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2445 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2446 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2449 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2450 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2451 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2457 @node Wgetrc Commands
2458 @section Wgetrc Commands
2459 @cindex wgetrc commands
2461 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2462 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2463 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2465 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2466 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2467 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2468 values can be any non-empty string.
2470 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2471 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2472 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2475 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2476 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2478 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2479 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2481 @item continue = on/off
2482 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2483 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2485 @item background = on/off
2486 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2489 @item backup_converted = on/off
2490 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2491 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2493 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2494 @c #### Document me!
2496 @item base = @var{string}
2497 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2498 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2499 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2501 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2502 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2504 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2505 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2506 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2508 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2509 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2510 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2512 @item cache = on/off
2513 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2516 @item certificate = @var{file}
2517 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2518 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2520 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2521 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2522 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2523 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2525 @item check_certificate = on/off
2526 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2527 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2528 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2530 @item convert_links = on/off
2531 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2533 @item cookies = on/off
2534 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2536 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2537 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2539 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2540 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2541 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2543 @item debug = on/off
2544 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2546 @item delete_after = on/off
2547 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2549 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2550 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2552 @item dirstruct = on/off
2553 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2556 @item dns_cache = on/off
2557 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2558 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2559 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2561 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2562 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2564 @item domains = @var{string}
2565 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2567 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2568 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2569 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2570 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2571 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2572 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2573 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2575 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2576 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2577 the retrieval (50 by default).
2579 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2580 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2582 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2583 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2584 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2586 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2587 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2588 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2591 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2592 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2595 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2596 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2597 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2599 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2600 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2601 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2603 @item force_html = on/off
2604 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2605 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2607 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2608 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2609 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2610 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2612 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2614 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2615 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2618 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2619 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2621 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2624 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2626 @item header = @var{string}
2627 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2628 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2630 @item html_extension = on/off
2631 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2632 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2634 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2635 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2636 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2638 @item http_password = @var{string}
2639 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2640 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2642 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2643 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2646 @item http_user = @var{string}
2647 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2648 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2650 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2651 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2654 @item ignore_case = on/off
2655 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2656 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2658 @item ignore_length = on/off
2659 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2660 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2662 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2663 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2664 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2666 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2667 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2668 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2670 @item inet4_only = on/off
2671 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2672 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2673 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2674 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2676 @item inet6_only = on/off
2677 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2678 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2681 @item input = @var{file}
2682 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2684 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2685 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2686 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2688 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2689 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2691 @item logfile = @var{file}
2692 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2694 @item mirror = on/off
2695 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2697 @item netrc = on/off
2698 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2700 @item noclobber = on/off
2703 @item no_parent = on/off
2704 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2705 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2707 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2708 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2709 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2711 @item output_document = @var{file}
2712 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2714 @item page_requisites = on/off
2715 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2716 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2718 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2719 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2720 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2722 @itemx password = @var{string}
2723 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2724 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2725 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2727 @item post_data = @var{string}
2728 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2729 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2731 @item post_file = @var{file}
2732 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2733 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2734 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2736 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2737 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2738 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2739 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2740 discussion of why this is useful.
2742 @item private_key = @var{file}
2743 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2744 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2746 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2747 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2748 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2749 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2751 @item progress = @var{string}
2752 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2753 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2755 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2756 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2757 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2759 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2760 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2761 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2763 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2764 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2765 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2767 @item quiet = on/off
2768 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2770 @item quota = @var{quota}
2771 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2772 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2773 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2774 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2775 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2776 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2779 @item random_file = @var{file}
2780 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2783 @item random_wait = on/off
2784 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2785 @samp{--random-wait}.
2787 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2788 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2789 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2791 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2792 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2794 @item recursive = on/off
2795 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2797 @item referer = @var{string}
2798 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2799 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note it was the folks who wrote the
2800 @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2802 @item relative_only = on/off
2803 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2806 @item remove_listing = on/off
2807 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2808 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2810 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2811 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2812 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2814 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2815 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2816 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2818 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2819 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2820 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2822 @item robots = on/off
2823 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2824 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2825 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2826 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2829 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2830 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2833 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2834 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2835 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2836 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2838 @item server_response = on/off
2839 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2840 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2842 @item span_hosts = on/off
2845 @item strict_comments = on/off
2846 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2848 @item timeout = @var{n}
2849 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2852 @item timestamping = on/off
2853 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2855 @item tries = @var{n}
2856 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2858 @item use_proxy = on/off
2859 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2860 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2863 @item user = @var{string}
2864 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2865 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2866 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2868 @item verbose = on/off
2869 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2871 @item wait = @var{n}
2872 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2875 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2876 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2877 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2878 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2882 @section Sample Wgetrc
2883 @cindex sample wgetrc
2885 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2886 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2887 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2888 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2890 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2891 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2895 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2902 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2903 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2907 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2908 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2909 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2913 @section Simple Usage
2917 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2920 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2924 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2925 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2926 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2927 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2928 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2929 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2932 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2936 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2937 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2938 shall use @samp{-t}.
2941 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2944 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2945 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2948 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2952 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2956 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2957 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2960 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2965 @node Advanced Usage
2966 @section Advanced Usage
2970 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2977 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2981 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2982 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2983 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2986 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2990 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2991 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2994 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2998 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2999 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3000 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3001 references the downloaded links.
3004 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3007 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3008 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3009 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3012 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3013 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3014 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3015 subdirectory of the current directory.
3018 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3019 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3023 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3027 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3031 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3034 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3039 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3043 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3047 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3048 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3049 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3053 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3056 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3057 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3058 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3059 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3060 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3064 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3065 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3069 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3073 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3074 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3077 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3080 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3081 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3084 @cindex redirecting output
3086 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3090 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3093 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3094 documents from remote hotlists:
3097 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3101 @node Very Advanced Usage
3102 @section Very Advanced Usage
3107 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3108 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3109 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3110 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3114 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3118 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3119 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3120 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3121 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3122 would look like this:
3125 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3126 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3130 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3131 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3132 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3133 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3134 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3137 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3138 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3142 Or, with less typing:
3145 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3154 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3157 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
3158 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3159 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3160 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3161 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3162 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3169 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3170 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3171 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3172 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3173 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3174 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3175 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3176 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3177 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3178 using an authorized proxy.
3180 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3181 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3182 the following environment variables:
3187 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3188 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3189 connections respectively.
3192 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3193 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3194 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3197 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3198 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3199 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3203 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3204 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3208 @itemx proxy = on/off
3209 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3210 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3212 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3213 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3214 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3215 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3216 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3217 specified by the environment.
3220 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3221 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3222 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3223 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3224 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3226 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3227 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3228 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3229 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3233 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3236 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3237 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3238 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3239 username and password.
3242 @section Distribution
3243 @cindex latest version
3245 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3246 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3247 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3248 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3251 @section Mailing List
3252 @cindex mailing list
3255 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3256 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3257 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3258 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3259 invited to subscribe.
3261 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3262 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3263 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3264 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3265 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3267 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3268 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3269 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3270 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3271 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3272 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3273 only for patch submissions.
3275 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3276 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3277 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3278 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3280 @node Reporting Bugs
3281 @section Reporting Bugs
3283 @cindex reporting bugs
3287 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3288 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3290 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3295 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3296 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3297 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3298 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3301 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3302 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3303 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3304 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3305 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3306 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3308 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3309 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3310 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3311 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3312 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3316 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3317 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3318 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3319 with debug support on.
3321 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3322 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3323 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3324 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3325 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3326 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3327 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3330 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3331 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3332 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3338 @section Portability
3340 @cindex operating systems
3342 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3343 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3344 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3345 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3347 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3348 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3349 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3350 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3351 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3352 system, we would like to know about it.
3354 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3355 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3356 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3357 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3358 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3359 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3360 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3361 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3362 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3363 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3364 Windows-related features might look at them.
3368 @cindex signal handling
3371 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3372 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3373 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3374 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3375 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3378 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3381 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3384 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3385 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3390 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3393 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3394 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3395 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3398 @node Robot Exclusion
3399 @section Robot Exclusion
3400 @cindex robot exclusion
3402 @cindex server maintenance
3404 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3405 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3406 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3408 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3409 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3410 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3411 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3412 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3413 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3414 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3415 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3416 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3417 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3418 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3419 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3421 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3422 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3423 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3424 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3425 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3426 they will permit access.
3428 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3429 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3430 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3431 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3432 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3433 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3436 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3437 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3438 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3439 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3442 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3445 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3446 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3447 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3448 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3451 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3452 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3453 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3454 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3455 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3456 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3457 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3458 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3460 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3462 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3463 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3464 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3468 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3471 This is explained in some detail at
3472 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3473 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3476 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3477 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3478 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3479 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3481 @node Security Considerations
3482 @section Security Considerations
3485 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3486 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3487 main issues, and some solutions.
3491 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3492 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3493 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3494 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3495 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3498 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3499 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3502 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3503 solution for this at the moment.
3506 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3507 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3508 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3513 @section Contributors
3514 @cindex contributors
3517 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3520 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3522 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
3523 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
3524 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3526 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3529 @item Mauro Tortonesi---contributed high-quality IPv6 code and many
3532 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3533 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3534 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3537 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3538 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3539 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3542 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3543 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3544 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3545 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3549 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3550 bug and build reports for many years.
3553 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3556 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3560 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3564 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3565 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3568 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3569 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3573 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3576 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3581 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3585 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3590 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3593 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3597 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3598 layout and many other things.
3601 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3605 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3608 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3609 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3610 that make maintenance so much fun:
3629 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3638 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3651 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3654 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3673 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3692 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3705 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3706 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3707 (Simos KSenitellis),
3716 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3722 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3762 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3764 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3767 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3785 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3799 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3810 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3811 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3818 @cindex free software
3820 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL),
3821 which makes it @dfn{free software}. Please note that ``free'' in ``free
3822 software'' refers to liberty, not price. As some people like to point
3823 out, it's the ``free'' of ``free speech'', not the ``free'' of ``free
3826 The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below.
3827 The GPL guarantees that you have the right (freedom) to run and change
3828 GNU Wget and distribute it to others, and even---if you want---charge
3829 money for doing any of those things. With these rights comes the
3830 obligation to distribute the source code along with the software and to
3831 grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
3833 This licensing model is also known as @dfn{open source} because it,
3834 among other things, makes sure that all recipients will receive the
3835 source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU
3836 project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons outlined at
3837 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3839 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3840 General Public License it refers to:
3843 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3844 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3845 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3846 option) any later version.
3848 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3849 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3850 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3853 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3854 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3855 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3858 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3861 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3862 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
3863 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
3864 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3865 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3866 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3869 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3870 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3871 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3874 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3875 Documentation License are available below.
3878 * GNU General Public License::
3879 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3887 @unnumbered Concept Index