1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
5 @settitle GNU Wget Manual
6 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
8 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
13 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
17 @c This should really be auto-generated!
18 @set VERSION 1.5.3+dev
21 @dircategory Net Utilities
22 @dircategory World Wide Web
24 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
28 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
31 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
33 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
34 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
35 are preserved on all copies.
38 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
39 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
40 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
41 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
43 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
44 manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the
45 sections entitled ``Copying'' and ``GNU General Public License'' are
46 included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire
47 resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission
48 notice identical to this one.
53 @subtitle The noninteractive downloading utility
54 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
55 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and the developers
58 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
59 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
61 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
62 manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
63 preserved on all copies.
65 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
66 manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the
67 sections entitled ``Copying'' and ``GNU General Public License'' are
68 included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire
69 resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission
70 notice identical to this one.
72 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual
73 into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions,
74 except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation
75 approved by the Free Software Foundation.
79 @node Top, Overview, (dir), (dir)
80 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
82 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
83 available utility for network download.
85 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
88 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
89 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
90 * Recursive Retrieval:: Description of recursive retrieval.
91 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
92 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
93 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
94 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
95 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
96 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
97 * Copying:: You may give out copies of Wget.
98 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
102 @node Overview, Invoking, Top, Top
107 GNU Wget is a freely available network utility to retrieve files from
108 the World Wide Web, using @sc{http} (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) and
109 @sc{ftp} (File Transfer Protocol), the two most widely used Internet
110 protocols. It has many useful features to make downloading easier, some
115 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
116 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
117 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
118 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
119 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
123 Wget is capable of descending recursively through the structure of
124 @sc{html} documents and @sc{ftp} directory trees, making a local copy of
125 the directory hierarchy similar to the one on the remote server. This
126 feature can be used to mirror archives and home pages, or traverse the
127 web in search of data, like a @sc{www} robot (@xref{Robots}). In that
128 spirit, Wget understands the @code{norobots} convention.
132 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
133 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
134 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
135 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
136 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
137 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
142 Wget works exceedingly well on slow or unstable connections,
143 retrying the document until it is fully retrieved, or until a
144 user-specified retry count is surpassed. It will try to resume the
145 download from the point of interruption, using @code{REST} with @sc{ftp}
146 and @code{Range} with @sc{http} servers that support them.
150 By default, Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network
151 load, speed up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However,
152 if you are behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style
153 gateway, you can get the socks library and build wget with support for
154 socks. Wget also supports the passive @sc{ftp} downloading as an
159 Builtin features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
160 (@xref{Following Links}).
164 The retrieval is conveniently traced with printing dots, each dot
165 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). These
166 representations can be customized to your preferences.
170 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
171 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@xref{Startup
172 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
173 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
177 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
178 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
179 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
183 @node Invoking, Recursive Retrieval, Overview, Top
190 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
193 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
196 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
197 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
199 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
200 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
201 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@xref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
207 * Basic Startup Options::
208 * Logging and Input File Options::
210 * Directory Options::
213 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
214 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
217 @node URL Format, Option Syntax, Invoking, Invoking
222 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
223 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
224 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
225 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
229 http://host[:port]/directory/file
230 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
233 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
236 ftp://user:password@@host/path
237 http://user:password@@host/path
240 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
241 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
242 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
243 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
244 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
245 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
248 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
249 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
250 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
251 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
252 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
255 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
256 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
257 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
258 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
259 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
260 for text files. Here is an example:
263 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
266 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
267 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
269 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
274 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
279 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
280 supported in the future.
282 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
283 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
284 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
286 @node Option Syntax, Basic Startup Options, URL Format, Invoking
287 @section Option Syntax
288 @cindex option syntax
289 @cindex syntax of options
291 Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option has a
292 short form and a long form. Long options are more convenient to
293 remember, but take time to type. You may freely mix different option
294 styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you
298 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/ -o log
301 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
302 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
304 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
311 This is a complete equivalent of:
314 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
317 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
318 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
319 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
325 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
326 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
327 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
328 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
329 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
330 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
331 (@xref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
334 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
337 @node Basic Startup Options, Logging and Input File Options, Option Syntax, Invoking
338 @section Basic Startup Options
343 Display the version of Wget.
347 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
351 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
352 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
354 @cindex execute wgetrc command
355 @item -e @var{command}
356 @itemx --execute @var{command}
357 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
358 (@xref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
359 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
363 @node Logging and Input File Options, Download Options, Basic Startup Options, Invoking
364 @section Logging and Input File Options
369 @item -o @var{logfile}
370 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
371 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
374 @cindex append to log
375 @item -a @var{logfile}
376 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
377 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
378 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
379 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
384 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
385 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
386 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
387 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
388 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
389 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
390 @xref{Reporting Bugs} for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
396 Turn off Wget's output.
401 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
406 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
407 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
408 information still get printed.
412 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
413 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}, in which case no @sc{url}s need to be on
414 the command line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and
415 in an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
416 be retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
417 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
420 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
421 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
422 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
423 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
424 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
429 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
430 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
431 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
432 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
435 @cindex base for relative links in input file
437 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
438 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
439 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
442 @node Download Options, Directory Options, Logging and Input File Options, Invoking
443 @section Download Options
448 @cindex number of retries
449 @item -t @var{number}
450 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
451 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
455 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
456 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all will
457 be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @var{file}
458 already exists, it will be overwritten. If the @var{file} is @samp{-},
459 the documents will be written to standard output. Including this option
460 automatically sets the number of tries to 1.
462 @cindex clobbering, file
463 @cindex downloading multiple times
467 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, wget's
468 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
469 cases, the local file will be "clobbered", or overwritten, upon repeated
470 download. In other cases it will be preserved.
472 When running wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
473 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
474 original copy of @samp{@var{file}} being preserved and the second copy
475 being named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again,
476 the third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
477 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and wget will
478 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
479 "no-clobber" is actually a misnomer in this mode -- it's not clobbering
480 that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already preventing
481 clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's prevented.
483 When running wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
484 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
485 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
486 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
489 When running wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
490 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
491 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
492 (@xref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
495 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
496 @samp{.html} or (yuck) @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk
497 and parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
499 @cindex continue retrieval
502 Continue getting an existing file. This is useful when you want to
503 finish up the download started by another program, or a previous
504 instance of Wget. Thus you can write:
507 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
510 If there is a file name @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
511 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
512 require the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
513 length of the local file.
515 Note that you need not specify this option if all you want is Wget to
516 continue retrieving where it left off when the connection is lost---Wget
517 does this by default. You need this option only when you want to
518 continue retrieval of a file already halfway retrieved, saved by another
519 @sc{ftp} client, or left by Wget being killed.
521 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just begin to download the
522 remote file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}. The @samp{-c} option is also
523 applicable for @sc{http} servers that support the @code{Range} header.
525 Note that if you use @samp{-c} on a file that's already downloaded
526 completely, @samp{@var{file}} will not be changed, nor will a second
527 @samp{@var{file}.1} copy be created.
530 @cindex retrieval tracing style
531 @item --dot-style=@var{style}
532 Set the retrieval style to @var{style}. Wget traces the retrieval of
533 each document by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
534 fixed amount of retrieved data. Any number of dots may be separated in
535 a @dfn{cluster}, to make counting easier. This option allows you to
536 choose one of the pre-defined styles, determining the number of bytes
537 represented by a dot, the number of dots in a cluster, and the number of
540 With the @code{default} style each dot represents 1K, there are ten dots
541 in a cluster and 50 dots in a line. The @code{binary} style has a more
542 ``computer''-like orientation---8K dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots
543 per line (which makes for 384K lines). The @code{mega} style is
544 suitable for downloading very large files---each dot represents 64K
545 retrieved, there are eight dots in a cluster, and 48 dots on each line
546 (so each line contains 3M). The @code{micro} style is exactly the
547 reverse; it is suitable for downloading small files, with 128-byte dots,
548 8 dots per cluster, and 48 dots (6K) per line.
551 @itemx --timestamping
552 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping} for details.
554 @cindex server response, print
556 @itemx --server-response
557 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
560 @cindex Wget as spider
563 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
564 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
565 are there. You can use it to check your bookmarks, e.g. with:
568 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
571 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
572 functionality of real @sc{www} spiders.
576 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
577 Set the read timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Whenever a network read
578 is issued, the file descriptor is checked for a timeout, which could
579 otherwise leave a pending connection (uninterrupted read). The default
580 timeout is 900 seconds (fifteen minutes). Setting timeout to 0 will
581 disable checking for timeouts.
583 Please do not lower the default timeout value with this option unless
584 you know what you are doing.
588 @item -w @var{seconds}
589 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
590 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
591 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
592 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
593 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
594 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
596 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
597 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
598 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
600 @cindex retries, waiting between
601 @cindex waiting between retries
602 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
603 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
604 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
605 use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
606 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
607 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
608 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
611 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
616 @itemx --proxy=on/off
617 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
618 appropriate environmental variable is defined.
622 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
623 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
624 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
625 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
627 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
628 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
629 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
630 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
631 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
632 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
633 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
635 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
638 @node Directory Options, HTTP Options, Download Options, Invoking
639 @section Directory Options
643 @itemx --no-directories
644 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving
645 recursively. With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the
646 current directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than
647 once, the filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
650 @itemx --force-directories
651 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
652 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
653 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
654 @file{fly.cc.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
657 @itemx --no-host-directories
658 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
659 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
660 directories beginning with @file{fly.cc.fer.hr/}. This option disables
663 @cindex cut directories
664 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
665 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
666 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
669 Take, for example, the directory at
670 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
671 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
672 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
673 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
674 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
675 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
676 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
680 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
682 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
683 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
685 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
690 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
691 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
692 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
693 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
694 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
696 @cindex directory prefix
697 @item -P @var{prefix}
698 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
699 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
700 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
701 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
705 @node HTTP Options, FTP Options, Directory Options, Invoking
706 @section HTTP Options
710 @cindex http password
711 @cindex authentication
712 @item --http-user=@var{user}
713 @itemx --http-passwd=@var{password}
714 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
715 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
716 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
717 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
719 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
720 (@xref{URL Format}). For more information about security issues with
721 Wget, @xref{Security Considerations}.
726 @itemx --cache=on/off
727 When set to off, disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will
728 send the remote server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma:
729 no-cache}) to get the file from the remote service, rather than
730 returning the cached version. This is especially useful for retrieving
731 and flushing out-of-date documents on proxy servers.
733 Caching is allowed by default.
735 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
736 @cindex ignore length
737 @item --ignore-length
738 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
739 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
740 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
741 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
742 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
745 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
749 @item --header=@var{additional-header}
750 Define an @var{additional-header} to be passed to the @sc{http} servers.
751 Headers must contain a @samp{:} preceded by one or more non-blank
752 characters, and must not contain newlines.
754 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
755 @samp{--header} more than once.
759 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
760 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
761 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
765 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
766 previous user-defined headers.
769 @cindex proxy password
770 @cindex proxy authentication
771 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
772 @itemx --proxy-passwd=@var{password}
773 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
774 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
775 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
778 @cindex referer, http
779 @item --referer=@var{url}
780 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
781 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
782 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
783 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
785 @cindex server response, save
787 @itemx --save-headers
788 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
789 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
792 @item -U @var{agent-string}
793 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
794 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
796 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
797 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
798 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
799 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
800 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
803 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
804 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
805 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
806 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
807 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
808 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
809 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
811 @strong{NOTE} that Netscape Communications Corp. has claimed that false
812 transmissions of @samp{Mozilla} as the @code{User-Agent} are a copyright
813 infringement, which will be prosecuted. @strong{DO NOT} misrepresent
817 @node FTP Options, Recursive Retrieval Options, HTTP Options, Invoking
821 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
822 @item --retr-symlinks
823 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
824 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
825 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
826 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
827 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
829 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
830 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
831 option does not cause wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
832 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
835 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
836 specified on the commandline, rather than because it was recursed to,
837 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
840 @cindex globbing, toggle
843 Turn @sc{ftp} globbing on or off. Globbing means you may use the
844 shell-like special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*},
845 @samp{?}, @samp{[} and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the
846 same directory at once, like:
849 wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/*.msg
852 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
853 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
856 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
857 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
858 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
859 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
863 Use the @dfn{passive} @sc{ftp} retrieval scheme, in which the client
864 initiates the data connection. This is sometimes required for @sc{ftp}
865 to work behind firewalls.
868 @node Recursive Retrieval Options, Recursive Accept/Reject Options, FTP Options, Invoking
869 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
874 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Retrieval} for more
878 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
879 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@xref{Recursive
880 Retrieval}). The default maximum depth is 5.
882 @cindex proxy filling
883 @cindex delete after retrieval
884 @cindex filling proxy cache
886 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
887 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
888 pages through proxy, e.g.:
891 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
894 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} not to
897 @cindex conversion of links
898 @cindex link conversion
900 @itemx --convert-links
901 Convert the non-relative links to relative ones locally. Only the
902 references to the documents actually downloaded will be converted; the
903 rest will be left unchanged.
905 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
906 been downloaded. Because of that, much of the work done by @samp{-k}
907 will be performed at the end of the downloads.
909 @cindex backing up converted files
911 @itemx --backup-converted
912 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
913 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@xref{HTTP Time-Stamping
918 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
919 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
920 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
921 @samp{-r -N -l inf -nr}.
924 @itemx --dont-remove-listing
925 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
926 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
927 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful to
928 access the full remote file list when running a mirror, or for debugging
931 @cindex page requisites
932 @cindex required images, downloading
934 @itemx --page-requisites
935 This option causes wget to download all the files that are necessary to
936 properly display a given HTML page. This includes such things as
937 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
939 Ordinarily, when downloading a single HTML page, any requisite documents
940 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
941 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since wget does not
942 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
943 generally left with "leaf documents" that are missing their requisites.
945 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
946 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
947 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is the same but that its
948 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
949 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
951 If one executes the command:
954 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
957 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
958 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
959 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because wget is simply counting the
960 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
961 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
964 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
967 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
968 will be downloaded. Similarly,
971 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
974 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
975 to be downloaded. One might think that:
978 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
981 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
982 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to @samp{-l inf}
983 -- that is, infinite recursion. To download a single HTML page (or a
984 handful of them, all specified on the commandline or in a @samp{-i} @sc{url}
985 input file) and its requisites, simply leave off @samp{-p} and @samp{-l}:
988 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
991 Note that wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
992 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
993 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
994 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
995 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
996 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
999 wget -H -k -K -nh -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1002 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that wget's idea of an
1003 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1004 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1008 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options, , Recursive Retrieval Options, Invoking
1009 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1012 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1013 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1014 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1015 accept or reject (@xref{Types of Files} for more details).
1017 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1018 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1019 Set domains to be accepted and @sc{dns} looked-up, where
1020 @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list. Note that it does
1021 @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}. This option speeds things up, even if
1022 only one host is spanned (@xref{Domain Acceptance}).
1024 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1025 Exclude the domains given in a comma-separated @var{domain-list} from
1026 @sc{dns}-lookup (@xref{Domain Acceptance}).
1028 @cindex follow FTP links
1030 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1031 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1033 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1034 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1035 Wget has an internal table of HTML tag / attribute pairs that it
1036 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1037 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1038 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1039 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1042 @itemx --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1043 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1044 certain HTML tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1045 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1047 In the past, the @samp{-G} option was the best bet for downloading a
1048 single page and its requisites, using a commandline like:
1051 wget -Ga,area -H -k -K -nh -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1054 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1055 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1056 @samp{-G} was not enough. One can't just tell wget to ignore
1057 @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded. Now the
1058 best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1059 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1063 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving (@xref{All
1068 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1069 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1070 (@xref{Relative Links}).
1073 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1074 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1075 downloading (@xref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1076 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1079 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1080 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1081 download (@xref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1082 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1085 @itemx --no-host-lookup
1086 Disable the time-consuming @sc{dns} lookup of almost all hosts
1087 (@xref{Host Checking}).
1091 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1092 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1093 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1094 @xref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.
1097 @node Recursive Retrieval, Following Links, Invoking, Top
1098 @chapter Recursive Retrieval
1101 @cindex recursive retrieval
1103 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1104 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), depth-first following links and directory
1105 structure. This is called @dfn{recursive} retrieving, or
1108 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1109 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1110 document was referring to, through markups like @code{href}, or
1111 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1112 @code{text/html}, it will be parsed and followed further.
1114 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1115 with the @samp{-l} option (the default maximum depth is five layers).
1116 @xref{Recursive Retrieval}.
1118 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1119 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1120 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1121 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1124 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1125 the one found on the remote server.
1127 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1128 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1129 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1130 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1132 You should be warned that invoking recursion may cause grave overloading
1133 on your system, because of the fast exchange of data through the
1134 network; all of this may hamper other users' work. The same stands for
1135 the foreign server you are mirroring---the more requests it gets in a
1136 rows, the greater is its load.
1138 Careless retrieving can also fill your file system uncontrollably, which
1139 can grind the machine to a halt.
1141 The load can be minimized by lowering the maximum recursion level
1142 (@samp{-l}) and/or by lowering the number of retries (@samp{-t}). You
1143 may also consider using the @samp{-w} option to slow down your requests
1144 to the remote servers, as well as the numerous options to narrow the
1145 number of followed links (@xref{Following Links}).
1147 Recursive retrieval is a good thing when used properly. Please take all
1148 precautions not to wreak havoc through carelessness.
1150 @node Following Links, Time-Stamping, Recursive Retrieval, Top
1151 @chapter Following Links
1153 @cindex following links
1155 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1156 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1157 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1159 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1160 @samp{fly.cc.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1161 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1163 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1164 links it will follow.
1167 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1168 * Host Checking:: Follow links on the same host.
1169 * Domain Acceptance:: Check on a list of domains.
1170 * All Hosts:: No host restrictions.
1171 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1172 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1173 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1176 @node Relative Links, Host Checking, Following Links, Following Links
1177 @section Relative Links
1178 @cindex relative links
1180 When only relative links are followed (option @samp{-L}), recursive
1181 retrieving will never span hosts. No time-expensive @sc{dns}-lookups
1182 will be performed, and the process will be very fast, with the minimum
1183 strain of the network. This will suit your needs often, especially when
1184 mirroring the output of various @code{x2html} converters, since they
1185 generally output relative links.
1187 @node Host Checking, Domain Acceptance, Relative Links, Following Links
1188 @section Host Checking
1191 @cindex host checking
1193 The drawback of following the relative links solely is that humans often
1194 tend to mix them with absolute links to the very same host, and the very
1195 same page. In this mode (which is the default mode for following links)
1196 all @sc{url}s that refer to the same host will be retrieved.
1198 The problem with this option are the aliases of the hosts and domains.
1199 Thus there is no way for Wget to know that @samp{regoc.srce.hr} and
1200 @samp{www.srce.hr} are the same host, or that @samp{fly.cc.fer.hr} is
1201 the same as @samp{fly.cc.etf.hr}. Whenever an absolute link is
1202 encountered, the host is @sc{dns}-looked-up with @code{gethostbyname} to
1203 check whether we are maybe dealing with the same hosts. Although the
1204 results of @code{gethostbyname} are cached, it is still a great
1205 slowdown, e.g. when dealing with large indices of home pages on different
1206 hosts (because each of the hosts must be @sc{dns}-resolved to see
1207 whether it just @emph{might} be an alias of the starting host).
1209 To avoid the overhead you may use @samp{-nh}, which will turn off
1210 @sc{dns}-resolving and make Wget compare hosts literally. This will
1211 make things run much faster, but also much less reliable
1212 (e.g. @samp{www.srce.hr} and @samp{regoc.srce.hr} will be flagged as
1215 Note that modern @sc{http} servers allow one IP address to host several
1216 @dfn{virtual servers}, each having its own directory hierarchy. Such
1217 ``servers'' are distinguished by their hostnames (all of which point to
1218 the same IP address); for this to work, a client must send a @code{Host}
1219 header, which is what Wget does. However, in that case Wget @emph{must
1220 not} try to divine a host's ``real'' address, nor try to use the same
1221 hostname for each access, i.e. @samp{-nh} must be turned on.
1223 In other words, the @samp{-nh} option must be used to enable the
1224 retrieval from virtual servers distinguished by their hostnames. As the
1225 number of such server setups grow, the behavior of @samp{-nh} may become
1226 the default in the future.
1228 @node Domain Acceptance, All Hosts, Host Checking, Following Links
1229 @section Domain Acceptance
1231 With the @samp{-D} option you may specify the domains that will be
1232 followed. The hosts the domain of which is not in this list will not be
1233 @sc{dns}-resolved. Thus you can specify @samp{-Dmit.edu} just to make
1234 sure that @strong{nothing outside of @sc{mit} gets looked up}. This is
1235 very important and useful. It also means that @samp{-D} does @emph{not}
1236 imply @samp{-H} (span all hosts), which must be specified explicitly.
1237 Feel free to use this options since it will speed things up, with almost
1238 all the reliability of checking for all hosts. Thus you could invoke
1241 wget -r -D.hr http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
1244 to make sure that only the hosts in @samp{.hr} domain get
1245 @sc{dns}-looked-up for being equal to @samp{fly.cc.fer.hr}. So
1246 @samp{fly.cc.etf.hr} will be checked (only once!) and found equal, but
1247 @samp{www.gnu.ai.mit.edu} will not even be checked.
1249 Of course, domain acceptance can be used to limit the retrieval to
1250 particular domains with spanning of hosts in them, but then you must
1251 specify @samp{-H} explicitly. E.g.:
1254 wget -r -H -Dmit.edu,stanford.edu http://www.mit.edu/
1257 will start with @samp{http://www.mit.edu/}, following links across
1258 @sc{mit} and Stanford.
1260 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1261 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1262 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1263 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1264 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1268 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu http://www.foo.edu/
1271 @node All Hosts, Types of Files, Domain Acceptance, Following Links
1276 When @samp{-H} is specified without @samp{-D}, all hosts are freely
1277 spanned. There are no restrictions whatsoever as to what part of the
1278 net Wget will go to fetch documents, other than maximum retrieval depth.
1279 If a page references @samp{www.yahoo.com}, so be it. Such an option is
1280 rarely useful for itself.
1282 @node Types of Files, Directory-Based Limits, All Hosts, Following Links
1283 @section Types of Files
1284 @cindex types of files
1286 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1287 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1288 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1289 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
1291 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
1292 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
1295 @cindex accept wildcards
1296 @cindex accept suffixes
1297 @cindex wildcards, accept
1298 @cindex suffixes, accept
1300 @item -A @var{acclist}
1301 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
1302 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
1303 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
1304 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
1305 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
1306 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
1307 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
1309 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
1310 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
1311 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
1312 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
1313 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
1314 a description of how pattern matching works.
1316 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
1317 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
1319 @cindex reject wildcards
1320 @cindex reject suffixes
1321 @cindex wildcards, reject
1322 @cindex suffixes, reject
1323 @item -R @var{rejlist}
1324 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
1325 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
1326 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
1327 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
1328 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
1330 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
1331 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
1332 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
1333 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
1334 expansion by the shell.
1337 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
1338 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
1339 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
1340 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
1342 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
1343 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
1344 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
1346 @node Directory-Based Limits, FTP Links, Types of Files, Following Links
1347 @section Directory-Based Limits
1349 @cindex directory limits
1351 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
1352 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
1353 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
1354 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
1355 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
1356 @file{/dev} directories.
1358 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
1359 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
1360 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
1362 @cindex directories, include
1363 @cindex include directories
1364 @cindex accept directories
1367 @itemx --include @var{list}
1368 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
1369 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
1370 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
1371 directories are absolute paths.
1373 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
1374 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
1375 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
1378 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
1381 @cindex directories, exclude
1382 @cindex exclude directories
1383 @cindex reject directories
1385 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
1386 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
1387 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
1388 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
1389 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
1390 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
1392 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
1393 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
1394 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
1395 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
1400 @itemx no_parent = on
1401 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
1402 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
1403 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
1404 parent directory/directories.
1406 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
1407 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
1408 Supposing you issue Wget with:
1411 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
1414 You may rest assured that none of the references to
1415 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
1416 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
1417 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
1418 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
1419 intelligent fashion.
1422 @node FTP Links, , Directory-Based Limits, Following Links
1423 @section Following FTP Links
1424 @cindex following ftp links
1426 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
1427 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
1428 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
1431 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
1432 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
1433 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
1434 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
1435 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
1436 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
1437 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
1439 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
1440 retrieved recursively further.
1442 @node Time-Stamping, Startup File, Following Links, Top
1443 @chapter Time-Stamping
1444 @cindex time-stamping
1445 @cindex timestamping
1446 @cindex updating the archives
1447 @cindex incremental updating
1449 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
1450 Internet is updating your archives.
1452 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
1453 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
1454 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
1455 offer the option of incremental updating.
1457 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
1458 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
1459 the place of the old ones.
1461 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
1465 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
1468 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
1469 recently than the local file.
1472 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
1473 modification of both remote and local files. Such information are
1474 called the @dfn{time-stamps}.
1476 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
1477 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
1478 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
1479 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
1480 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
1482 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
1483 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
1487 * Time-Stamping Usage::
1488 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1489 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1492 @node Time-Stamping Usage, HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping, Time-Stamping
1493 @section Time-Stamping Usage
1494 @cindex time-stamping usage
1495 @cindex usage, time-stamping
1497 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
1498 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
1501 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1504 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
1505 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
1506 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
1509 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
1510 changed, and download it if it has.
1513 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1516 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
1517 is newer, the remote file will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote
1518 file is more recent, Wget will proceed fetching it normally.
1520 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
1523 wget ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*
1526 @code{ls} will show that the timestamps are set according to the state
1527 on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N} will make
1528 Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified.
1530 In both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrieval Wget will time-stamp the local
1531 file correctly (with or without @samp{-N}) if it gets the stamps,
1532 i.e. gets the directory listing for @sc{ftp} or the @code{Last-Modified}
1533 header for @sc{http}.
1535 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use the
1536 following command every week:
1539 wget --timestamping -r ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
1542 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping Usage, Time-Stamping
1543 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
1544 @cindex http time-stamping
1546 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
1547 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
1548 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
1549 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
1550 retrieved unconditionally.
1552 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
1553 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
1554 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
1557 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
1558 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
1559 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
1560 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
1561 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
1562 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
1565 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
1566 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
1567 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
1568 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
1569 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
1571 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
1572 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
1574 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals, , HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping
1575 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
1576 @cindex ftp time-stamping
1578 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
1579 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be received from the
1582 For each directory files must be retrieved from, Wget will use the
1583 @code{LIST} command to get the listing. It will try to analyze the
1584 listing, assuming that it is a Unix @code{ls -l} listing, and extract
1585 the time-stamps. The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}.
1587 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
1588 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
1589 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
1590 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
1591 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
1592 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
1594 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
1595 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
1596 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
1597 Wget may support this command in the future.
1599 @node Startup File, Examples, Time-Stamping, Top
1600 @chapter Startup File
1601 @cindex startup file
1607 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
1608 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
1609 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
1610 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
1612 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
1613 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
1614 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
1615 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
1617 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
1621 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
1622 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
1623 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
1624 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
1627 @node Wgetrc Location, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File, Startup File
1628 @section Wgetrc Location
1629 @cindex wgetrc location
1630 @cindex location of wgetrc
1632 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
1633 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
1634 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
1635 from there, if it exists.
1637 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
1638 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
1639 further attempts will be made.
1641 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
1643 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
1644 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
1645 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
1646 Fascist admins, away!
1648 @node Wgetrc Syntax, Wgetrc Commands, Wgetrc Location, Startup File
1649 @section Wgetrc Syntax
1650 @cindex wgetrc syntax
1651 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
1653 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
1659 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
1660 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
1662 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
1663 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
1664 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
1667 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
1668 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
1669 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
1675 @node Wgetrc Commands, Sample Wgetrc, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File
1676 @section Wgetrc Commands
1677 @cindex wgetrc commands
1679 The complete set of commands is listed below, the letter after @samp{=}
1680 denoting the value the command takes. It is @samp{on/off} for @samp{on}
1681 or @samp{off} (which can also be @samp{1} or @samp{0}), @var{string} for
1682 any non-empty string or @var{n} for a positive integer. For example,
1683 you may specify @samp{use_proxy = off} to disable use of proxy servers
1684 by default. You may use @samp{inf} for infinite values, where
1687 Most of the commands have their equivalent command-line option
1688 (@xref{Invoking}), except some more obscure or rarely used ones.
1691 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
1692 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@xref{Types of Files}).
1694 @item add_hostdir = on/off
1695 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
1697 @item continue = on/off
1698 Enable/disable continuation of the retrieval -- the same as @samp{-c}
1701 @item background = on/off
1702 Enable/disable going to background -- the same as @samp{-b} (which enables
1705 @item backup_converted = on/off
1706 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix @samp{.orig}
1707 -- the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
1709 @c @item backups = @var{number}
1710 @c #### Document me!
1712 @item base = @var{string}
1713 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
1714 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string} -- the same
1717 @item cache = on/off
1718 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{-C} option.
1720 @item convert links = on/off
1721 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
1723 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
1724 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components.
1726 @item debug = on/off
1727 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
1729 @item delete_after = on/off
1730 Delete after download -- the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
1732 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
1733 Top of directory tree -- the same as @samp{-P}.
1735 @item dirstruct = on/off
1736 Turning dirstruct on or off -- the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
1739 @item domains = @var{string}
1740 Same as @samp{-D} (@xref{Domain Acceptance}).
1742 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
1743 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
1744 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
1745 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
1746 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
1747 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
1748 (@xref{Download Options}).
1750 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
1751 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
1752 the retrieval (50 by default).
1754 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
1755 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
1757 @item dot_style = @var{string}
1758 Specify the dot retrieval @dfn{style}, as with @samp{--dot-style}.
1760 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
1761 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1762 download -- the same as @samp{-X} (@xref{Directory-Based Limits}).
1764 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
1765 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains} (@xref{Domain Acceptance}).
1767 @item follow_ftp = on/off
1768 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents -- the same as @samp{-f}.
1770 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
1771 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
1772 @samp{--follow-tags}.
1774 @item force_html = on/off
1775 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
1776 document -- the same as @samp{-F}.
1778 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
1779 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
1783 Turn globbing on/off -- the same as @samp{-g}.
1785 @item header = @var{string}
1786 Define an additional header, like @samp{--header}.
1788 @item http_passwd = @var{string}
1789 Set @sc{http} password.
1791 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
1792 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
1795 @item http_user = @var{string}
1796 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}.
1798 @item ignore_length = on/off
1799 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
1800 @samp{--ignore-length}.
1802 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
1803 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
1804 @samp{-G} / @samp{--ignore-tags}.
1806 @item include_directories = @var{string}
1807 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1808 downloading -- the same as @samp{-I}.
1810 @item input = @var{string}
1811 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i}.
1813 @item kill_longer = on/off
1814 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header
1815 as invalid (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save
1816 as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal
1817 to the value in @code{Content-Length}.
1819 @item logfile = @var{string}
1820 Set logfile -- the same as @samp{-o}.
1822 @item login = @var{string}
1823 Your user name on the remote machine, for @sc{ftp}. Defaults to
1826 @item mirror = on/off
1827 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
1829 @item netrc = on/off
1830 Turn reading netrc on or off.
1832 @item noclobber = on/off
1835 @item no_parent = on/off
1836 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
1837 @samp{--no-parent} (@xref{Directory-Based Limits}).
1839 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
1840 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
1841 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
1843 @item output_document = @var{string}
1844 Set the output filename -- the same as @samp{-O}.
1846 @item page_requisites = on/off
1847 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single HTML page to
1848 display properly -- the same as @samp{-p}.
1850 @item passive_ftp = on/off
1851 Set passive @sc{ftp} -- the same as @samp{--passive-ftp}.
1853 @item passwd = @var{string}
1854 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{password}. Without this setting, the
1855 password defaults to @samp{username@@hostname.domainname}.
1857 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
1858 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
1859 @samp{--proxy-user}.
1861 @item proxy_passwd = @var{string}
1862 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
1863 @samp{--proxy-passwd}.
1865 @item quiet = on/off
1866 Quiet mode -- the same as @samp{-q}.
1868 @item quota = @var{quota}
1869 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
1870 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop retrieving
1871 after the download sum has become greater than quota. The quota can be
1872 specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or mbytes
1873 (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota to 5
1874 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system settings.
1876 @item reclevel = @var{n}
1877 Recursion level -- the same as @samp{-l}.
1879 @item recursive = on/off
1880 Recursive on/off -- the same as @samp{-r}.
1882 @item relative_only = on/off
1883 Follow only relative links -- the same as @samp{-L} (@xref{Relative
1886 @item remove_listing = on/off
1887 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
1888 to off is the same as @samp{-nr}.
1890 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
1891 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
1892 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
1894 @item robots = on/off
1895 Use (or not) @file{/robots.txt} file (@xref{Robots}). Be sure to know
1896 what you are doing before changing the default (which is @samp{on}).
1898 @item server_response = on/off
1899 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
1900 responses -- the same as @samp{-S}.
1902 @item simple_host_check = on/off
1903 Same as @samp{-nh} (@xref{Host Checking}).
1905 @item span_hosts = on/off
1908 @item timeout = @var{n}
1909 Set timeout value -- the same as @samp{-T}.
1911 @item timestamping = on/off
1912 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@xref{Time-Stamping}).
1914 @item tries = @var{n}
1915 Set number of retries per @sc{url} -- the same as @samp{-t}.
1917 @item use_proxy = on/off
1918 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as @samp{-Y}.
1920 @item verbose = on/off
1921 Turn verbose on/off -- the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
1923 @item wait = @var{n}
1924 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals -- the same as @samp{-w}.
1926 @item waitretry = @var{n}
1927 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals only --
1928 the same as @samp{--waitretry}. Note that this is turned on by default
1929 in the global @file{wgetrc}.
1932 @node Sample Wgetrc, , Wgetrc Commands, Startup File
1933 @section Sample Wgetrc
1934 @cindex sample wgetrc
1936 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
1937 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
1938 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
1939 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
1941 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
1942 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
1946 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
1949 @node Examples, Various, Startup File, Top
1953 The examples are classified into three sections, because of clarity.
1954 The first section is a tutorial for beginners. The second section
1955 explains some of the more complex program features. The third section
1956 contains advice for mirror administrators, as well as even more complex
1957 features (that some would call perverted).
1960 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
1961 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced techniques of usage.
1962 * Guru Usage:: Mirroring and the hairy stuff.
1965 @node Simple Usage, Advanced Usage, Examples, Examples
1966 @section Simple Usage
1970 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
1973 wget http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
1976 The response will be something like:
1980 --13:30:45-- http://fly.cc.fer.hr:80/en/
1982 Connecting to fly.cc.fer.hr:80... connected!
1983 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
1984 Length: 4,694 [text/html]
1988 13:30:46 (23.75 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [4694/4694]
1993 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
1994 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
1995 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
1996 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
1997 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
1998 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2001 wget --tries=45 http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2005 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2006 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2007 shall use @samp{-t}.
2010 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2013 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2014 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2017 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2022 $ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2023 --10:08:47-- ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21/welcome.msg
2025 Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr:21... connected!
2026 Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
2027 ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.
2028 ==> PORT ... done. ==> RETR welcome.msg ... done.
2029 Length: 1,340 (unauthoritative)
2033 10:08:48 (1.28 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1340]
2038 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2039 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2042 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
2047 @node Advanced Usage, Guru Usage, Simple Usage, Examples
2048 @section Advanced Usage
2052 You would like to read the list of @sc{url}s from a file? Not a problem
2059 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2063 Create a mirror image of GNU @sc{www} site (with the same directory structure
2064 the original has) with only one try per document, saving the log of the
2065 activities to @file{gnulog}:
2068 wget -r -t1 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ -o gnulog
2072 Retrieve the first layer of yahoo links:
2075 wget -r -l1 http://www.yahoo.com/
2079 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
2083 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
2087 Save the server headers with the file:
2089 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
2094 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
2098 wget -P/tmp -l2 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
2102 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from an @sc{http} directory.
2103 @samp{wget http://host/dir/*.gif} doesn't work, since @sc{http}
2104 retrieval does not support globbing. In that case, use:
2107 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://host/dir/
2110 It is a bit of a kludge, but it works. @samp{-r -l1} means to retrieve
2111 recursively (@xref{Recursive Retrieval}), with maximum depth of 1.
2112 @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory are
2113 ignored (@xref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
2114 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
2118 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
2119 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
2123 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2127 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
2128 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@xref{URL Format}).
2131 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@jagor.srce.hr/.emacs
2135 If you do not like the default retrieval visualization (1K dots with 10
2136 dots per cluster and 50 dots per line), you can customize it through dot
2137 settings (@xref{Wgetrc Commands}). For example, many people like the
2138 ``binary'' style of retrieval, with 8K dots and 512K lines:
2141 wget --dot-style=binary ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/README
2144 You can experiment with other styles, like:
2147 wget --dot-style=mega ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz
2148 wget --dot-style=micro http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
2151 To make these settings permanent, put them in your @file{.wgetrc}, as
2152 described before (@xref{Sample Wgetrc}).
2155 @node Guru Usage, , Advanced Usage, Examples
2161 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
2162 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
2163 for @samp{-r -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it to
2164 recheck a site each Sunday:
2168 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2172 You may wish to do the same with someone's home page. But you do not
2173 want to download all those images---you're only interested in @sc{html}.
2176 wget --mirror -A.html http://www.w3.org/
2180 But what about mirroring the hosts networkologically close to you? It
2181 seems so awfully slow because of all that @sc{dns} resolving. Just use
2182 @samp{-D} (@xref{Domain Acceptance}).
2185 wget -rN -Dsrce.hr http://www.srce.hr/
2188 Now Wget will correctly find out that @samp{regoc.srce.hr} is the same
2189 as @samp{www.srce.hr}, but will not even take into consideration the
2190 link to @samp{www.mit.edu}.
2193 You have a presentation and would like the dumb absolute links to be
2194 converted to relative? Use @samp{-k}:
2197 wget -k -r @var{URL}
2200 @cindex redirecting output
2202 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
2203 to files? OK, but Wget will automatically shut up (turn on
2204 @samp{--quiet}) to prevent mixing of Wget output and the retrieved
2208 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
2211 You can also combine the two options and make weird pipelines to
2212 retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
2215 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
2219 @node Various, Appendices, Examples, Top
2223 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
2226 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
2227 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
2228 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
2229 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
2230 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
2231 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
2234 @node Proxies, Distribution, Various, Various
2238 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
2239 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
2240 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
2241 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
2242 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
2243 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
2244 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
2245 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
2246 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
2247 using an authorized proxy.
2249 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
2250 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
2251 the following environment variables:
2255 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
2259 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
2260 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
2261 are set to the same @sc{url}.
2264 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
2265 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
2266 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
2270 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
2271 may be specified from within Wget itself.
2275 @itemx --proxy=on/off
2276 @itemx proxy = on/off
2277 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
2278 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
2281 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
2282 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
2283 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
2284 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
2285 specified by the environment.
2288 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
2289 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
2290 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
2291 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
2292 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
2294 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
2295 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
2296 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.srce.hr} at port 8001, a proxy
2297 @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like this:
2300 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
2303 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
2304 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
2305 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_passwd} to set the proxy
2306 username and password.
2308 @node Distribution, Mailing List, Proxies, Various
2309 @section Distribution
2310 @cindex latest version
2312 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
2313 master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For example,
2314 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
2315 @url{ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
2317 @node Mailing List, Reporting Bugs, Distribution, Various
2318 @section Mailing List
2319 @cindex mailing list
2322 Wget has its own mailing list at @email{wget@@sunsite.auc.dk}, thanks
2323 to Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget
2324 features and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of
2325 interest to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
2326 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
2328 To subscribe, send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.auc.dk}.
2329 the magic word @samp{subscribe} in the subject line. Unsubscribe by
2330 mailing to @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.auc.dk}.
2332 The mailing list is archived at @url{http://fly.cc.fer.hr/archive/wget}.
2334 @node Reporting Bugs, Portability, Mailing List, Various
2335 @section Reporting Bugs
2337 @cindex reporting bugs
2340 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
2341 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}. The bugs that you think are of the
2342 interest to the public (i.e. more people should be informed about them)
2343 can be Cc-ed to the mailing list at @email{wget@@sunsite.auc.dk}.
2345 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
2350 Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a bug. If
2351 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
2352 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
2353 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
2356 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
2357 Wget crashes on @samp{wget -rLl0 -t5 -Y0 http://yoyodyne.com -o
2358 /tmp/log}, you should try to see if it will crash with a simpler set of
2361 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
2362 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
2363 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
2364 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
2365 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, should you mail me the relevant
2369 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send the log (or the
2370 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
2371 recompile it. It is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs with debug support
2375 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
2376 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace.
2379 Find where the bug is, fix it and send me the patches. :-)
2382 @node Portability, Signals, Reporting Bugs, Various
2383 @section Portability
2385 @cindex operating systems
2387 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
2388 using ``special'' ultra--mega--cool features of any particular Unix, it
2389 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
2391 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
2392 Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital Unix),
2393 Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file @file{MACHINES} in the
2394 distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it on
2395 an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update it.
2397 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
2398 @file{MACHINES}. If it doesn't, please let me know.
2400 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works on
2401 Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
2402 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
2403 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
2404 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
2405 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is
2406 @strong{neither tested nor maintained} by me---all questions and
2407 problems should be reported to Wget mailing list at
2408 @email{wget@@sunsite.auc.dk} where the maintainers will look at them.
2410 @node Signals, , Portability, Various
2412 @cindex signal handling
2415 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
2416 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
2417 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
2418 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
2419 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
2422 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
2423 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
2426 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any
2427 way. @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it
2430 @node Appendices, Copying, Various, Top
2433 This chapter contains some references I consider useful, like the Robots
2434 Exclusion Standard specification, as well as a list of contributors to
2438 * Robots:: Wget as a WWW robot.
2439 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
2440 * Contributors:: People who helped.
2443 @node Robots, Security Considerations, Appendices, Appendices
2447 @cindex server maintenance
2449 Since Wget is able to traverse the web, it counts as one of the Web
2450 @dfn{robots}. Thus Wget understands @dfn{Robots Exclusion Standard}
2451 (@sc{res})---contents of @file{/robots.txt}, used by server
2452 administrators to shield parts of their systems from wanderings of Wget.
2454 Norobots support is turned on only when retrieving recursively, and
2455 @emph{never} for the first page. Thus, you may issue:
2458 wget -r http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
2461 First the index of fly.cc.fer.hr will be downloaded. If Wget finds
2462 anything worth downloading on the same host, only @emph{then} will it
2463 load the robots, and decide whether or not to load the links after all.
2464 @file{/robots.txt} is loaded only once per host. Wget does not support
2465 the robots @code{META} tag.
2467 The description of the norobots standard was written, and is maintained
2468 by Martijn Koster @email{m.koster@@webcrawler.com}. With his
2469 permission, I contribute a (slightly modified) TeXified version of the
2473 * Introduction to RES::
2475 * User-Agent Field::
2477 * Norobots Examples::
2480 @node Introduction to RES, RES Format, Robots, Robots
2481 @subsection Introduction to RES
2482 @cindex norobots introduction
2484 @dfn{WWW Robots} (also called @dfn{wanderers} or @dfn{spiders}) are
2485 programs that traverse many pages in the World Wide Web by recursively
2486 retrieving linked pages. For more information see the robots page.
2488 In 1993 and 1994 there have been occasions where robots have visited
2489 @sc{www} servers where they weren't welcome for various
2490 reasons. Sometimes these reasons were robot specific, e.g. certain
2491 robots swamped servers with rapid-fire requests, or retrieved the same
2492 files repeatedly. In other situations robots traversed parts of @sc{www}
2493 servers that weren't suitable, e.g. very deep virtual trees, duplicated
2494 information, temporary information, or cgi-scripts with side-effects
2497 These incidents indicated the need for established mechanisms for
2498 @sc{www} servers to indicate to robots which parts of their server
2499 should not be accessed. This standard addresses this need with an
2500 operational solution.
2502 This document represents a consensus on 30 June 1994 on the robots
2503 mailing list (@code{robots@@webcrawler.com}), between the majority of
2504 robot authors and other people with an interest in robots. It has also
2505 been open for discussion on the Technical World Wide Web mailing list
2506 (@code{www-talk@@info.cern.ch}). This document is based on a previous
2507 working draft under the same title.
2509 It is not an official standard backed by a standards body, or owned by
2510 any commercial organization. It is not enforced by anybody, and there
2511 no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it. Consider
2512 it a common facility the majority of robot authors offer the @sc{www}
2513 community to protect @sc{www} server against unwanted accesses by their
2516 The latest version of this document can be found at
2517 @url{http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/norobots.html}.
2519 @node RES Format, User-Agent Field, Introduction to RES, Robots
2520 @subsection RES Format
2521 @cindex norobots format
2523 The format and semantics of the @file{/robots.txt} file are as follows:
2525 The file consists of one or more records separated by one or more blank
2526 lines (terminated by @code{CR}, @code{CR/NL}, or @code{NL}). Each
2527 record contains lines of the form:
2530 <field>:<optionalspace><value><optionalspace>
2533 The field name is case insensitive.
2535 Comments can be included in file using UNIX Bourne shell conventions:
2536 the @samp{#} character is used to indicate that preceding space (if any)
2537 and the remainder of the line up to the line termination is discarded.
2538 Lines containing only a comment are discarded completely, and therefore
2539 do not indicate a record boundary.
2541 The record starts with one or more User-agent lines, followed by one or
2542 more Disallow lines, as detailed below. Unrecognized headers are
2545 The presence of an empty @file{/robots.txt} file has no explicit
2546 associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present,
2547 i.e. all robots will consider themselves welcome.
2549 @node User-Agent Field, Disallow Field, RES Format, Robots
2550 @subsection User-Agent Field
2551 @cindex norobots user-agent
2553 The value of this field is the name of the robot the record is
2554 describing access policy for.
2556 If more than one User-agent field is present the record describes an
2557 identical access policy for more than one robot. At least one field
2558 needs to be present per record.
2560 The robot should be liberal in interpreting this field. A case
2561 insensitive substring match of the name without version information is
2564 If the value is @samp{*}, the record describes the default access policy
2565 for any robot that has not matched any of the other records. It is not
2566 allowed to have multiple such records in the @file{/robots.txt} file.
2568 @node Disallow Field, Norobots Examples, User-Agent Field, Robots
2569 @subsection Disallow Field
2570 @cindex norobots disallow
2572 The value of this field specifies a partial @sc{url} that is not to be
2573 visited. This can be a full path, or a partial path; any @sc{url} that
2574 starts with this value will not be retrieved. For example,
2575 @w{@samp{Disallow: /help}} disallows both @samp{/help.html} and
2576 @samp{/help/index.html}, whereas @w{@samp{Disallow: /help/}} would
2577 disallow @samp{/help/index.html} but allow @samp{/help.html}.
2579 Any empty value, indicates that all @sc{url}s can be retrieved. At least
2580 one Disallow field needs to be present in a record.
2582 @node Norobots Examples, , Disallow Field, Robots
2583 @subsection Norobots Examples
2584 @cindex norobots examples
2586 The following example @samp{/robots.txt} file specifies that no robots
2587 should visit any @sc{url} starting with @samp{/cyberworld/map/} or
2591 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
2594 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
2595 Disallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear
2598 This example @samp{/robots.txt} file specifies that no robots should
2599 visit any @sc{url} starting with @samp{/cyberworld/map/}, except the
2600 robot called @samp{cybermapper}:
2603 # robots.txt for http://www.site.com/
2606 Disallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space
2608 # Cybermapper knows where to go.
2609 User-agent: cybermapper
2613 This example indicates that no robots should visit this site further:
2621 @node Security Considerations, Contributors, Robots, Appendices
2622 @section Security Considerations
2625 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
2626 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
2627 main issues, and some solutions.
2631 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. If this
2632 is a problem, avoid putting passwords from the command line---e.g. you
2633 can use @file{.netrc} for this.
2636 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
2637 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
2640 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
2641 solution for this at the moment.
2644 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
2645 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
2646 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
2650 @node Contributors, , Security Considerations, Appendices
2651 @section Contributors
2652 @cindex contributors
2655 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@iskon.hr}.
2658 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@iskon.hr}.
2660 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
2661 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
2662 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
2664 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
2668 Karsten Thygesen---donated the mailing list and the initial @sc{ftp}
2672 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
2675 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization.
2678 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
2682 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
2683 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
2686 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
2687 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
2691 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
2694 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
2698 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
2702 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
2707 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
2710 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
2714 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
2718 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
2722 Brian Gough---a generous donation.
2725 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
2726 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
2727 that make maintenance so much fun:
2732 Roger Beeman and the Gurus at Cisco,
2741 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
2757 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
2760 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
2773 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
2783 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
2793 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
2794 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
2795 (Simos KSenitellis),
2812 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
2814 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}gues,
2817 Juan Jose Rodrigues,
2826 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
2830 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
2840 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
2841 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
2843 @node Copying, Concept Index, Appendices, Top
2844 @unnumbered GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
2847 @center Version 2, June 1991
2850 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2851 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
2853 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
2854 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
2857 @unnumberedsec Preamble
2859 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
2860 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
2861 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
2862 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
2863 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
2864 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
2865 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
2866 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
2869 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
2870 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
2871 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
2872 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
2873 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
2874 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
2876 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
2877 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
2878 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
2879 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
2881 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
2882 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
2883 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
2884 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
2887 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
2888 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
2889 distribute and/or modify the software.
2891 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
2892 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
2893 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
2894 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
2895 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
2896 authors' reputations.
2898 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
2899 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
2900 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
2901 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
2902 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
2904 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
2905 modification follow.
2908 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
2911 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
2916 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
2917 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
2918 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
2919 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
2920 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
2921 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
2922 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
2923 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
2924 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
2926 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
2927 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
2928 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
2929 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
2930 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
2931 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
2934 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
2935 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
2936 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
2937 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
2938 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
2939 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
2940 along with the Program.
2942 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
2943 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2946 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
2947 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
2948 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
2949 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
2953 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
2954 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
2957 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
2958 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
2959 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
2960 parties under the terms of this License.
2963 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
2964 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
2965 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
2966 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
2967 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
2968 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
2969 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
2970 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
2971 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
2972 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
2975 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
2976 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
2977 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
2978 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
2979 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
2980 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
2981 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
2982 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
2983 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
2985 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
2986 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
2987 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
2988 collective works based on the Program.
2990 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
2991 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
2992 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
2993 the scope of this License.
2996 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
2997 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
2998 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3002 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3003 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3004 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
3007 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
3008 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
3009 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
3010 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
3011 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
3012 customarily used for software interchange; or,
3015 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
3016 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
3017 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
3018 received the program in object code or executable form with such
3019 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
3022 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
3023 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
3024 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
3025 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
3026 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
3027 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
3028 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
3029 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
3030 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
3031 itself accompanies the executable.
3033 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
3034 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
3035 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
3036 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
3037 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
3040 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
3041 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
3042 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
3043 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
3044 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
3045 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3046 parties remain in full compliance.
3049 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
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3051 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
3052 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
3053 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
3054 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
3055 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
3056 the Program or works based on it.
3059 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
3060 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
3061 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
3062 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
3063 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
3064 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
3068 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
3069 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
3070 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
3071 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
3072 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
3073 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
3074 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
3075 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
3076 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
3077 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
3078 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
3079 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
3081 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
3082 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
3083 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
3086 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
3087 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
3088 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
3089 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
3090 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
3091 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
3092 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
3093 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
3094 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
3097 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
3098 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
3101 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
3102 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
3103 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
3104 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
3105 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
3106 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
3107 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
3110 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
3111 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
3112 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
3113 address new problems or concerns.
3115 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
3116 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
3117 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
3118 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
3119 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
3120 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
3124 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
3125 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
3126 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
3127 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
3128 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
3129 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
3130 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
3133 @heading NO WARRANTY
3141 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
3142 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
3143 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
3144 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
3145 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
3146 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
3147 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
3148 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
3149 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
3152 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
3153 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
3154 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
3155 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
3156 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
3157 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
3158 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
3159 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
3160 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
3164 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3167 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3171 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
3173 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
3174 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
3175 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
3177 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
3178 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
3179 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
3180 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
3183 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
3184 Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3186 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
3187 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
3188 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
3189 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
3191 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3192 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3193 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3194 GNU General Public License for more details.
3196 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3197 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
3198 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3201 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
3203 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
3204 when it starts in an interactive mode:
3207 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3208 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
3209 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
3210 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
3214 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
3215 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
3216 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
3217 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
3220 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
3221 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
3222 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
3226 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
3227 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
3228 (which makes passes at compilers) written
3231 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
3232 Ty Coon, President of Vice
3236 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
3237 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
3238 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
3239 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
3240 Public License instead of this License.
3242 @node Concept Index, , Copying, Top
3243 @unnumbered Concept Index