1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
6 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
7 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
9 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
14 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
18 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
19 @c the preceding @set.
21 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
23 @dircategory Network applications
25 * Wget: (wget). Non-interactive network downloader.
29 This file documents the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
32 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
33 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
34 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation,
38 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
39 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
40 are preserved on all copies.
44 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
45 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
46 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
47 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
49 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
50 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
51 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
52 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
53 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled
54 ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
59 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
60 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
61 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
62 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
66 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
69 This is @strong{not} the complete manual for GNU Wget.
70 For more complete information, including more detailed explanations of
71 some of the options, and a number of commands available
72 for use with @file{.wgetrc} files and the @samp{-e} option, see the GNU
73 Info entry for @file{wget}.
78 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
85 @node Top, Overview, (dir), (dir)
86 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
92 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
93 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
94 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
95 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
96 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
97 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
98 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
99 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
100 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
101 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of this manual.
102 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
105 @node Overview, Invoking, Top, Top
110 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
111 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
112 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
113 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
116 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
120 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
121 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
122 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
123 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
124 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
125 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
130 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
134 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
135 Wget can follow links in @sc{html}, @sc{xhtml}, and @sc{css} pages, to
136 create local versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the
137 directory structure of the original site. This is sometimes referred to
138 as ``recursive downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot
139 Exclusion Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to
140 convert the links in downloaded files to point at the local files, for
145 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
146 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
147 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
148 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
149 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
150 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
155 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
159 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
160 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
161 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
162 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
163 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
164 download from where it left off.
168 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
169 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. Wget uses the passive
170 @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp} being an option.
173 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
174 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
175 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
176 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
179 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
180 (@pxref{Following Links}).
183 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
184 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
185 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
186 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
187 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
190 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
191 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
192 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
193 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings. You can also
194 specify the location of a startup file with the --config option.
200 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
201 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
210 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
211 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
212 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
213 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
216 @node Invoking, Recursive Download, Overview, Top
223 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
226 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
227 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
231 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
232 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
234 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
235 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
236 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
242 * Basic Startup Options::
243 * Logging and Input File Options::
245 * Directory Options::
247 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
249 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
250 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
254 @node URL Format, Option Syntax, Invoking, Invoking
259 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
260 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
261 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
262 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
266 http://host[:port]/directory/file
267 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
270 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
273 ftp://user:password@@host/path
274 http://user:password@@host/path
277 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
278 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
279 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
280 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
281 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
282 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
285 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
286 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
287 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
288 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
289 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
290 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
292 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
293 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
294 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
295 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
296 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
299 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
300 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
301 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
302 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
303 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
304 for text files. Here is an example:
307 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
310 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
311 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
313 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
318 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
323 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
324 supported in the future.
326 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
327 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
328 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
332 @node Option Syntax, Basic Startup Options, URL Format, Invoking
333 @section Option Syntax
334 @cindex option syntax
335 @cindex syntax of options
337 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
338 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
339 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
340 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
341 arguments. Thus you may write:
344 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
347 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
348 be omitted. Instead of @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
350 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
357 This is completely equivalent to:
360 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
363 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
364 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
365 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
371 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
372 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
373 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
374 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
375 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
376 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
377 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
380 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
383 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
384 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
385 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
386 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
387 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
388 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
389 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
392 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
393 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
394 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
395 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
397 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
398 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
399 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
400 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
401 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
402 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = on} in
403 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{follow} FTP links by default, and
404 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
405 default from the command line.
407 @node Basic Startup Options, Logging and Input File Options, Option Syntax, Invoking
408 @section Basic Startup Options
413 Display the version of Wget.
417 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
421 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
422 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
424 @cindex execute wgetrc command
425 @item -e @var{command}
426 @itemx --execute @var{command}
427 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
428 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
429 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
430 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
431 instances of @samp{-e}.
435 @node Logging and Input File Options, Download Options, Basic Startup Options, Invoking
436 @section Logging and Input File Options
441 @item -o @var{logfile}
442 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
443 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
446 @cindex append to log
447 @item -a @var{logfile}
448 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
449 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
450 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
451 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
456 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
457 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
458 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
459 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
460 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
461 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
462 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
468 Turn off Wget's output.
473 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
478 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
479 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
482 @item --report-speed=@var{type}
483 Output bandwidth as @var{type}. The only accepted value is @samp{bits}.
487 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
488 Read @sc{url}s from a local or external @var{file}. If @samp{-} is
489 specified as @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input.
490 (Use @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
492 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
493 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
494 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
495 retrieved. If @samp{--force-html} is not specified, then @var{file}
496 should consist of a series of URLs, one per line.
498 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
499 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
500 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
501 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
502 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
504 If the @var{file} is an external one, the document will be automatically
505 treated as @samp{html} if the Content-Type matches @samp{text/html}.
506 Furthermore, the @var{file}'s location will be implicitly used as base
507 href if none was specified.
512 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
513 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
514 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
515 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
518 @cindex base for relative links in input file
520 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
521 Resolves relative links using @var{URL} as the point of reference,
522 when reading links from an HTML file specified via the
523 @samp{-i}/@samp{--input-file} option (together with
524 @samp{--force-html}, or when the input file was fetched remotely from
525 a server describing it as @sc{html}). This is equivalent to the
526 presence of a @code{BASE} tag in the @sc{html} input file, with
527 @var{URL} as the value for the @code{href} attribute.
529 For instance, if you specify @samp{http://foo/bar/a.html} for
530 @var{URL}, and Wget reads @samp{../baz/b.html} from the input file, it
531 would be resolved to @samp{http://foo/baz/b.html}.
533 @cindex specify config
534 @item --config=@var{FILE}
535 Specify the location of a startup file you wish to use.
538 @node Download Options, Directory Options, Logging and Input File Options, Invoking
539 @section Download Options
543 @cindex client IP address
544 @cindex IP address, client
545 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
546 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
547 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
548 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
553 @cindex number of tries
554 @item -t @var{number}
555 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
556 Set number of tries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
557 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
558 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
559 which are not retried.
562 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
563 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
564 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
565 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
566 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
567 literally named @samp{-}.)
569 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
570 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
571 analogous to shell redirection:
572 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
573 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
574 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
576 For this reason, @samp{-N} (for timestamp-checking) is not supported
577 in combination with @samp{-O}: since @var{file} is always newly
578 created, it will always have a very new timestamp. A warning will be
579 issued if this combination is used.
581 Similarly, using @samp{-r} or @samp{-p} with @samp{-O} may not work as
582 you expect: Wget won't just download the first file to @var{file} and
583 then download the rest to their normal names: @emph{all} downloaded
584 content will be placed in @var{file}. This was disabled in version
585 1.11, but has been reinstated (with a warning) in 1.11.2, as there are
586 some cases where this behavior can actually have some use.
588 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
589 downloading a single document, as in that case it will just convert
590 all relative URIs to external ones; @samp{-k} makes no sense for
591 multiple URIs when they're all being downloaded to a single file;
592 @samp{-k} can be used only when the output is a regular file.
594 @cindex clobbering, file
595 @cindex downloading multiple times
599 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
600 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
601 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
602 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
604 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or
605 @samp{-p}, downloading the same file in the same directory will result
606 in the original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy
607 being named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet
608 again, the third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on.
609 (This is also the behavior with @samp{-nd}, even if @samp{-r} or
610 @samp{-p} are in effect.) When @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior
611 is suppressed, and Wget will refuse to download newer copies of
612 @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore, ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a
613 misnomer in this mode---it's not clobbering that's prevented (as the
614 numeric suffixes were already preventing clobbering), but rather the
615 multiple version saving that's prevented.
617 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N},
618 @samp{-nd}, or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the
619 new copy simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent
620 this behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved
621 and any newer copies on the server to be ignored.
623 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
624 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
625 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
626 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
627 same time as @samp{-N}.
629 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
630 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
631 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
633 @cindex backing up files
634 @item --backups=@var{backups}
635 Before (over)writing a file, back up an existing file by adding a
636 @samp{.1} suffix (@samp{_1} on VMS) to the file name. Such backup
637 files are rotated to @samp{.2}, @samp{.3}, and so on, up to
638 @var{backups} (and lost beyond that).
640 @cindex continue retrieval
641 @cindex incomplete downloads
642 @cindex resume download
645 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
646 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
647 by another program. For instance:
650 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
653 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
654 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
655 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
656 length of the local file.
658 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
659 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
660 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
661 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
662 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
664 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
665 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
668 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
669 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
670 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
671 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
672 start from scratch, remove the file.
674 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
675 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
676 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
677 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
678 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
679 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
681 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
682 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
683 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
684 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
685 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
686 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
687 collection or log file.
689 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
690 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
691 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
692 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
693 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
694 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
696 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
697 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
698 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
699 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
701 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
702 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
705 @cindex continue retrieval
706 @cindex incomplete downloads
707 @cindex resume download
708 @cindex start position
709 @item --start-pos=@var{OFFSET}
710 Start downloading at zero-based position @var{OFFSET}. Offset may be expressed
711 in bytes, kilobytes with the `k' suffix, or megabytes with the `m' suffix, etc.
713 @samp{--start-pos} has higher precedence over @samp{--continue}. When
714 @samp{--start-pos} and @samp{--continue} are both specified, wget will emit a
715 warning then proceed as if @samp{--continue} was absent.
717 Server support for continued download is required, otherwise @samp{--start-pos}
718 cannot help. See @samp{-c} for details.
720 @cindex progress indicator
722 @item --progress=@var{type}
723 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
724 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
726 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
727 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
728 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
731 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
732 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
733 fixed amount of downloaded data.
735 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
736 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
737 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
738 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
739 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
740 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
741 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading large
742 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
743 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
744 If @code{mega} is not enough then you can use the @code{giga}
745 style---each dot represents 1M retrieved, there are eight dots in a
746 cluster, and 32 dots on each line (so each line contains 32M).
748 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
749 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
750 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
751 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
752 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
754 @item --show-progress
755 Force wget to display the progress bar in any verbosity.
757 By default, wget only displays the progress bar in verbose mode. One may
758 however want wget to display the progress bar on screen in conjunction with
759 any other verbosity modes like @samp{--no-verbose} or @samp{--quiet}. This
760 is often a desired a property when invoking wget to download several small/large
761 files. In such a case, wget could simply be invoked with this parameter to get
762 a much cleaner output on the screen.
765 @itemx --timestamping
766 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
768 @item --no-use-server-timestamps
769 Don't set the local file's timestamp by the one on the server.
771 By default, when a file is downloaded, its timestamps are set to
772 match those from the remote file. This allows the use of
773 @samp{--timestamping} on subsequent invocations of wget. However, it
774 is sometimes useful to base the local file's timestamp on when it was
775 actually downloaded; for that purpose, the
776 @samp{--no-use-server-timestamps} option has been provided.
778 @cindex server response, print
780 @itemx --server-response
781 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
784 @cindex Wget as spider
787 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
788 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
789 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
792 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
795 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
796 functionality of real web spiders.
800 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
801 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
802 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
803 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
805 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
806 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
807 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
808 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
809 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
810 change the default timeout settings.
812 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
813 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
814 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
815 server response times or for testing network latency.
819 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
820 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
821 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
822 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
825 @cindex connect timeout
826 @cindex timeout, connect
827 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
828 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
829 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
830 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
833 @cindex timeout, read
834 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
835 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
836 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
837 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
838 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
839 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
841 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
842 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
845 @cindex bandwidth, limit
847 @cindex limit bandwidth
848 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
849 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
850 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
851 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
852 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
853 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
855 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
856 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
859 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
860 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
861 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
862 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
863 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
864 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
868 @item -w @var{seconds}
869 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
870 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
871 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
872 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
873 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
874 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
876 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
877 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
878 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
879 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
880 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
882 @cindex retries, waiting between
883 @cindex waiting between retries
884 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
885 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
886 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
887 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
888 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
889 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify.
891 By default, Wget will assume a value of 10 seconds.
896 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
897 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
898 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
899 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
900 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
901 presence from such analysis.
903 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
904 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
905 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
906 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
909 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
910 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
915 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
919 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
924 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
925 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
926 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
927 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
929 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
930 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
931 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
932 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
933 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
934 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
935 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
937 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
940 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
942 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
943 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
944 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
945 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
948 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
949 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
950 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
951 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
952 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
953 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
954 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
957 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
960 @cindex file names, restrict
961 @cindex Windows file names
962 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{modes}
963 Change which characters found in remote URLs must be escaped during
964 generation of local filenames. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
965 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
966 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
967 character. This option may also be used to force all alphabetical
968 cases to be either lower- or uppercase.
970 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid or safe as
971 part of file names on your operating system, as well as control
972 characters that are typically unprintable. This option is useful for
973 changing these defaults, perhaps because you are downloading to a
974 non-native partition, or because you want to disable escaping of the
975 control characters, or you want to further restrict characters to only
976 those in the @sc{ascii} range of values.
978 The @var{modes} are a comma-separated set of text values. The
979 acceptable values are @samp{unix}, @samp{windows}, @samp{nocontrol},
980 @samp{ascii}, @samp{lowercase}, and @samp{uppercase}. The values
981 @samp{unix} and @samp{windows} are mutually exclusive (one will
982 override the other), as are @samp{lowercase} and
983 @samp{uppercase}. Those last are special cases, as they do not change
984 the set of characters that would be escaped, but rather force local
985 file paths to be converted either to lower- or uppercase.
987 When ``unix'' is specified, Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
988 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
989 default on Unix-like operating systems.
991 When ``windows'' is given, Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
992 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
993 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
994 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
995 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
996 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
997 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
998 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
999 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
1000 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
1002 If you specify @samp{nocontrol}, then the escaping of the control
1003 characters is also switched off. This option may make sense
1004 when you are downloading URLs whose names contain UTF-8 characters, on
1005 a system which can save and display filenames in UTF-8 (some possible
1006 byte values used in UTF-8 byte sequences fall in the range of values
1007 designated by Wget as ``controls'').
1009 The @samp{ascii} mode is used to specify that any bytes whose values
1010 are outside the range of @sc{ascii} characters (that is, greater than
1011 127) shall be escaped. This can be useful when saving filenames
1012 whose encoding does not match the one used locally.
1019 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
1020 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
1021 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
1022 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
1023 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
1025 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
1026 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
1027 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
1028 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
1029 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
1031 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
1032 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
1033 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
1034 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
1035 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
1038 @item --prefer-family=none/IPv4/IPv6
1039 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
1040 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
1041 DNS is used without change by default.
1043 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
1044 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
1045 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
1046 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
1047 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
1048 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
1049 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
1050 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
1052 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
1053 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
1054 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
1055 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
1056 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
1057 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
1059 @item --retry-connrefused
1060 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
1061 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
1062 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
1063 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
1064 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
1065 short periods of time.
1069 @cindex authentication
1070 @item --user=@var{user}
1071 @itemx --password=@var{password}
1072 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
1073 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
1074 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
1075 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
1076 options for @sc{http} connections.
1078 @item --ask-password
1079 Prompt for a password for each connection established. Cannot be specified
1080 when @samp{--password} is being used, because they are mutually exclusive.
1086 Turn off internationalized URI (IRI) support. Use @samp{--iri} to
1087 turn it on. IRI support is activated by default.
1089 You can set the default state of IRI support using the @code{iri}
1090 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
1093 @cindex local encoding
1094 @item --local-encoding=@var{encoding}
1096 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default system encoding. That affects
1097 how Wget converts URLs specified as arguments from locale to @sc{utf-8} for
1100 Wget use the function @code{nl_langinfo()} and then the @code{CHARSET}
1101 environment variable to get the locale. If it fails, @sc{ascii} is used.
1103 You can set the default local encoding using the @code{local_encoding}
1104 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
1107 @cindex remote encoding
1108 @item --remote-encoding=@var{encoding}
1110 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default remote server encoding.
1111 That affects how Wget converts URIs found in files from remote encoding
1112 to @sc{utf-8} during a recursive fetch. This options is only useful for
1113 IRI support, for the interpretation of non-@sc{ascii} characters.
1115 For HTTP, remote encoding can be found in HTTP @code{Content-Type}
1116 header and in HTML @code{Content-Type http-equiv} meta tag.
1118 You can set the default encoding using the @code{remoteencoding}
1119 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
1125 Force Wget to unlink file instead of clobbering existing file. This
1126 option is useful for downloading to the directory with hardlinks.
1130 @node Directory Options, HTTP Options, Download Options, Invoking
1131 @section Directory Options
1135 @itemx --no-directories
1136 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
1137 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
1138 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
1139 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
1142 @itemx --force-directories
1143 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
1144 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
1145 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1146 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1149 @itemx --no-host-directories
1150 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1151 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1152 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1155 @item --protocol-directories
1156 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1157 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1158 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1160 @cindex cut directories
1161 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1162 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1163 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1166 Take, for example, the directory at
1167 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1168 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1169 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1170 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1171 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1172 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1173 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1177 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1179 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1180 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1182 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1187 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1188 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1189 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1190 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1191 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1193 @cindex directory prefix
1194 @item -P @var{prefix}
1195 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1196 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1197 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1198 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1202 @node HTTP Options, HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options, Directory Options, Invoking
1203 @section HTTP Options
1206 @cindex default page name
1208 @item --default-page=@var{name}
1209 Use @var{name} as the default file name when it isn't known (i.e., for
1210 URLs that end in a slash), instead of @file{index.html}.
1212 @cindex .html extension
1213 @cindex .css extension
1215 @itemx --adjust-extension
1216 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1217 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1218 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1219 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1220 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1221 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1222 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1223 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1224 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1226 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1227 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1228 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1229 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1230 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}.
1232 As of version 1.12, Wget will also ensure that any downloaded files of
1233 type @samp{text/css} end in the suffix @samp{.css}, and the option was
1234 renamed from @samp{--html-extension}, to better reflect its new
1235 behavior. The old option name is still acceptable, but should now be
1236 considered deprecated.
1238 At some point in the future, this option may well be expanded to
1239 include suffixes for other types of content, including content types
1240 that are not parsed by Wget.
1243 @cindex http password
1244 @cindex authentication
1245 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1246 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1247 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1248 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1249 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1250 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1252 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1253 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1254 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1255 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1256 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1257 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1258 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1261 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1265 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1266 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1267 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1268 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1269 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1270 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1271 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1272 the load on the server.
1274 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1275 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1276 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1281 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1282 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1283 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1284 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1285 documents on proxy servers.
1287 Caching is allowed by default.
1291 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1292 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1293 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1294 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1295 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1296 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1297 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1299 @cindex loading cookies
1300 @cindex cookies, loading
1301 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1302 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1303 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1304 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1306 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1307 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1308 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1309 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1310 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1311 proves your identity.
1313 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1314 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1315 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1316 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1317 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1318 cookie files in different locations:
1322 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1324 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1325 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1326 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1327 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1328 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1330 @item Internet Explorer.
1331 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1332 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1333 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1335 @item Other browsers.
1336 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1337 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1338 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1341 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1342 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1343 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1344 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1345 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1348 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1351 @cindex saving cookies
1352 @cindex cookies, saving
1353 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1354 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1355 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1356 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1358 @cindex cookies, session
1359 @cindex session cookies
1360 @item --keep-session-cookies
1361 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1362 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1363 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1364 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1365 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1366 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1367 the site is concerned.
1369 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1370 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1371 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1372 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1373 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1374 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1375 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1377 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1378 @cindex ignore length
1379 @item --ignore-length
1380 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1381 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1382 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1383 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1384 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1387 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1388 if it never existed.
1391 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1392 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1393 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1394 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1397 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1398 @samp{--header} more than once.
1402 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1403 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1404 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1408 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1409 previous user-defined headers.
1411 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1412 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1413 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1416 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1419 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1420 sending of duplicate headers.
1423 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1424 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1425 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1426 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1430 @cindex proxy password
1431 @cindex proxy authentication
1432 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1433 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1434 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1435 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1436 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1438 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1439 pertain here as well.
1441 @cindex http referer
1442 @cindex referer, http
1443 @item --referer=@var{url}
1444 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1445 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1446 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1447 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1449 @cindex server response, save
1450 @item --save-headers
1451 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1452 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1455 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1456 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1457 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1459 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1460 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1461 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1462 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1463 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1466 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1467 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1468 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1469 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1470 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1471 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1472 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1475 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1476 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1479 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1480 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1481 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified
1482 data in the request body. @samp{--post-data} sends @var{string} as
1483 data, whereas @samp{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}.
1484 Other than that, they work in exactly the same way. In particular,
1485 they @emph{both} expect content of the form @code{key1=value1&key2=value2},
1486 with percent-encoding for special characters; the only difference is
1487 that one expects its content as a command-line parameter and the other
1488 accepts its content from a file. In particular, @samp{--post-file} is
1489 @emph{not} for transmitting files as form attachments: those must
1490 appear as @code{key=value} data (with appropriate percent-coding) just
1491 like everything else. Wget does not currently support
1492 @code{multipart/form-data} for transmitting POST data; only
1493 @code{application/x-www-form-urlencoded}. Only one of
1494 @samp{--post-data} and @samp{--post-file} should be specified.
1496 Please note that wget does not require the content to be of the form
1497 @code{key1=value1&key2=value2}, and neither does it test for it. Wget will
1498 simply transmit whatever data is provided to it. Most servers however expect
1499 the POST data to be in the above format when processing HTML Forms.
1501 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1502 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1503 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1504 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1505 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1506 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1507 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1508 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1509 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1511 Note: As of version 1.15 if Wget is redirected after the POST request is
1512 completed, its behaviour will depend on the response code returned by the
1513 server. In case of a 301 Moved Permanently, 302 Moved Temporarily or
1514 307 Temporary Redirect, Wget will, in accordance with RFC2616, continue
1515 to send a POST request.
1516 In case a server wants the client to change the Request method upon
1517 redirection, it should send a 303 See Other response code.
1519 This example shows how to log in to a server using POST and then proceed to
1520 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1525 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1526 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1527 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1528 http://server.com/auth.php
1530 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1531 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1532 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1536 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1537 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1538 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1539 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1540 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1542 @cindex Other HTTP Methods
1543 @item --method=@var{HTTP-Method}
1544 For the purpose of RESTful scripting, Wget allows sending of other HTTP Methods
1545 without the need to explicitly set them using @samp{--header=Header-Line}.
1546 Wget will use whatever string is passed to it after @samp{--method} as the HTTP
1547 Method to the server.
1549 @item --body-data=@var{Data-String}
1550 @itemx --body-file=@var{Data-File}
1551 Must be set when additional data needs to be sent to the server along with the
1552 Method specified using @samp{--method}. @samp{--body-data} sends @var{string} as
1553 data, whereas @samp{--body-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than that,
1554 they work in exactly the same way.
1556 Currently, @samp{--body-file} is @emph{not} for transmitting files as a whole.
1557 Wget does not currently support @code{multipart/form-data} for transmitting data;
1558 only @code{application/x-www-form-urlencoded}. In the future, this may be changed
1559 so that wget sends the @samp{--body-file} as a complete file instead of sending its
1560 contents to the server. Please be aware that Wget needs to know the contents of
1561 BODY Data in advance, and hence the argument to @samp{--body-file} should be a
1562 regular file. See @samp{--post-file} for a more detailed explanation.
1563 Only one of @samp{--body-data} and @samp{--body-file} should be specified.
1565 If Wget is redirected after the request is completed, Wget will
1566 suspend the current method and send a GET request till the redirection
1567 is completed. This is true for all redirection response codes except
1568 307 Temporary Redirect which is used to explicitly specify that the
1569 request method should @emph{not} change. Another exception is when
1570 the method is set to @code{POST}, in which case the redirection rules
1571 specified under @samp{--post-data} are followed.
1573 @cindex Content-Disposition
1574 @item --content-disposition
1576 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
1577 @code{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
1578 extra round-trips to the server for a @code{HEAD} request, and is known
1579 to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by default.
1581 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
1582 @code{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
1583 downloaded file should be.
1585 @cindex Content On Error
1586 @item --content-on-error
1588 If this is set to on, wget will not skip the content when the server responds
1589 with a http status code that indicates error.
1591 @cindex Trust server names
1592 @item --trust-server-names
1594 If this is set to on, on a redirect the last component of the
1595 redirection URL will be used as the local file name. By default it is
1596 used the last component in the original URL.
1598 @cindex authentication
1599 @item --auth-no-challenge
1601 If this option is given, Wget will send Basic HTTP authentication
1602 information (plaintext username and password) for all requests, just
1603 like Wget 1.10.2 and prior did by default.
1605 Use of this option is not recommended, and is intended only to support
1606 some few obscure servers, which never send HTTP authentication
1607 challenges, but accept unsolicited auth info, say, in addition to
1608 form-based authentication.
1612 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options, FTP Options, HTTP Options, Invoking
1613 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1616 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1617 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1618 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1621 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1622 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1623 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1624 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, @samp{TLSv1} and @samp{PFS}. If @samp{auto}
1625 is used, the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1626 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1627 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1629 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1630 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1631 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for the underlying
1632 SSL library to choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such
1633 servers are quite rare.
1635 Specifying @samp{PFS} enforces the use of the so-called Perfect Forward
1636 Security cipher suites. In short, PFS adds security by creating a one-time
1637 key for each SSL connection. It has a bit more CPU impact on client and server.
1638 We use known to be secure ciphers (e.g. no MD4) and the TLS protocol.
1641 When in recursive mode, only HTTPS links are followed.
1643 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1644 @item --no-check-certificate
1645 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1646 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1647 name presented by the certificate.
1649 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1650 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1651 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1652 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1653 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1654 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1655 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1656 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1657 and allows you to proceed.
1659 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1660 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1661 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1662 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1663 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1664 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1665 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1667 @cindex SSL certificate
1668 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1669 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1670 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1671 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1674 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1675 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1676 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1677 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1680 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1681 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1682 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1684 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1685 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1686 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1688 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1689 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1690 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1692 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1693 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1695 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1696 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1697 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1698 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1699 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1700 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1701 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1702 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1703 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1705 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1706 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1708 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1709 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1710 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1711 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1712 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1714 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1715 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1716 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1717 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1718 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1719 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1722 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1723 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1727 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1728 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1729 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1730 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1731 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1732 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1733 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1735 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1736 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1737 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1738 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1740 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1741 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1742 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1747 @item --warc-file=@var{file}
1748 Use @var{file} as the destination WARC file.
1750 @item --warc-header=@var{string}
1751 Use @var{string} into as the warcinfo record.
1753 @item --warc-max-size=@var{size}
1754 Set the maximum size of the WARC files to @var{size}.
1757 Write CDX index files.
1759 @item --warc-dedup=@var{file}
1760 Do not store records listed in this CDX file.
1762 @item --no-warc-compression
1763 Do not compress WARC files with GZIP.
1765 @item --no-warc-digests
1766 Do not calculate SHA1 digests.
1768 @item --no-warc-keep-log
1769 Do not store the log file in a WARC record.
1771 @item --warc-tempdir=@var{dir}
1772 Specify the location for temporary files created by the WARC writer.
1775 @node FTP Options, Recursive Retrieval Options, HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options, Invoking
1776 @section FTP Options
1780 @cindex ftp password
1781 @cindex ftp authentication
1782 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1783 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1784 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1785 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1786 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1789 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1790 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1791 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1792 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1793 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1794 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1795 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1798 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1802 @cindex .listing files, removing
1803 @item --no-remove-listing
1804 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1805 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1806 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1807 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1808 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1809 you're running is complete).
1811 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1812 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1813 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1814 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1815 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1816 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1817 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1818 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1819 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1821 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1822 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1823 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1824 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1825 will be overwritten.
1827 @cindex globbing, toggle
1829 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1830 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1831 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1835 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1838 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1839 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1842 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1843 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1844 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1845 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1848 @item --no-passive-ftp
1849 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1850 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1851 connection rather than the other way around.
1853 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1854 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1855 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1856 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1857 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1858 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1860 @cindex file permissions
1861 @item --preserve-permissions
1862 Preserve remote file permissions instead of permissions set by umask.
1864 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1865 @item --retr-symlinks
1866 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1867 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1868 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1869 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1870 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1872 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1873 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1874 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1875 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1878 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1879 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1880 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1884 @node Recursive Retrieval Options, Recursive Accept/Reject Options, FTP Options, Invoking
1885 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1890 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1891 details. The default maximum depth is 5.
1893 @item -l @var{depth}
1894 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1895 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1898 @cindex proxy filling
1899 @cindex delete after retrieval
1900 @cindex filling proxy cache
1901 @item --delete-after
1902 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1903 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1904 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1907 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1910 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1913 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1914 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1915 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1916 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1917 created in the first place.
1919 @cindex conversion of links
1920 @cindex link conversion
1922 @itemx --convert-links
1923 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1924 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1925 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1926 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1929 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1933 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1934 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1936 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1937 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1938 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1939 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1942 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1943 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1945 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1946 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1947 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1948 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1951 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1952 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1953 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1954 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1955 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1958 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1959 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1960 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1962 @cindex backing up converted files
1964 @itemx --backup-converted
1965 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1966 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1971 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1972 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1973 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1974 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1976 @cindex page requisites
1977 @cindex required images, downloading
1979 @itemx --page-requisites
1980 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1981 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1982 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1984 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1985 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1986 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1987 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1988 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1991 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1992 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1993 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1994 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1995 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1997 If one executes the command:
2000 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
2003 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
2004 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
2005 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
2006 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
2007 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
2010 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
2013 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
2014 will be downloaded. Similarly,
2017 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
2020 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
2021 to be downloaded. One might think that:
2024 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
2027 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
2028 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
2029 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
2030 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
2031 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
2032 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
2035 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
2038 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
2039 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
2040 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
2041 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
2042 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
2043 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
2046 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
2049 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
2050 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
2051 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
2054 @cindex @sc{html} comments
2055 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
2056 @item --strict-comments
2057 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
2058 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
2060 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
2061 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
2062 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
2063 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
2064 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
2065 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
2066 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
2068 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
2069 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
2070 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
2071 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
2072 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
2073 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
2074 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
2075 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
2076 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
2078 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
2079 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
2080 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
2081 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
2082 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
2085 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
2086 option to turn it on.
2089 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options, Exit Status, Recursive Retrieval Options, Invoking
2090 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
2093 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
2094 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
2095 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
2096 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
2097 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
2098 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
2099 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
2100 In this case, you have to enclose the pattern into quotes to prevent
2101 your shell from expanding it, like in @samp{-A "*.mp3"} or @samp{-A '*.mp3'}.
2103 @item --accept-regex @var{urlregex}
2104 @itemx --reject-regex @var{urlregex}
2105 Specify a regular expression to accept or reject the complete URL.
2107 @item --regex-type @var{regextype}
2108 Specify the regular expression type. Possible types are @samp{posix} or
2109 @samp{pcre}. Note that to be able to use @samp{pcre} type, wget has to be
2110 compiled with libpcre support.
2112 @item -D @var{domain-list}
2113 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
2114 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
2115 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
2117 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
2118 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed
2119 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2121 @cindex follow FTP links
2123 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
2124 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
2126 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
2127 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
2128 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
2129 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
2130 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
2131 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
2132 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
2134 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
2135 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
2136 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
2137 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
2139 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
2140 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
2143 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
2146 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
2147 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
2148 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
2149 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
2150 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
2151 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
2156 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
2157 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
2158 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
2159 option, @samp{-A "*.txt"} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
2160 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
2161 The quotes in the example are to prevent the shell from expanding the
2166 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
2167 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2171 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
2172 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
2173 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
2176 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
2177 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2178 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
2179 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
2182 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
2183 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2184 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
2185 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
2189 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
2190 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
2191 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
2192 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
2197 @node Exit Status, , Recursive Accept/Reject Options, Invoking
2198 @section Exit Status
2200 @c man begin EXITSTATUS
2202 Wget may return one of several error codes if it encounters problems.
2207 No problems occurred.
2213 Parse error---for instance, when parsing command-line options, the
2214 @samp{.wgetrc} or @samp{.netrc}...
2223 SSL verification failure.
2226 Username/password authentication failure.
2232 Server issued an error response.
2236 With the exceptions of 0 and 1, the lower-numbered exit codes take
2237 precedence over higher-numbered ones, when multiple types of errors
2240 In versions of Wget prior to 1.12, Wget's exit status tended to be
2241 unhelpful and inconsistent. Recursive downloads would virtually always
2242 return 0 (success), regardless of any issues encountered, and
2243 non-recursive fetches only returned the status corresponding to the
2244 most recently-attempted download.
2248 @node Recursive Download, Following Links, Invoking, Top
2249 @chapter Recursive Download
2252 @cindex recursive download
2254 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
2255 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
2256 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
2258 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} or
2259 @sc{css} from the given @sc{url}, retrieving the files the document
2260 refers to, through markup like @code{href} or @code{src}, or @sc{css}
2261 @sc{uri} values specified using the @samp{url()} functional notation.
2262 If the freshly downloaded file is also of type @code{text/html},
2263 @code{application/xhtml+xml}, or @code{text/css}, it will be parsed
2264 and followed further.
2266 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html}/@sc{css} content is
2267 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
2268 document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
2269 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
2270 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
2271 until the specified maximum depth.
2273 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
2274 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
2276 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
2277 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
2278 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
2279 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
2280 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
2283 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
2284 the one found on the remote server.
2286 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
2287 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
2288 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
2289 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
2291 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
2292 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
2293 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
2294 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
2295 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
2296 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
2297 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
2299 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
2300 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
2301 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
2302 consume memory and CPU.
2304 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
2305 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
2306 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
2307 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
2308 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
2309 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
2310 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
2313 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
2316 @node Following Links, Time-Stamping, Recursive Download, Top
2317 @chapter Following Links
2319 @cindex following links
2321 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
2322 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
2323 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
2325 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
2326 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
2327 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
2329 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
2330 links it will follow.
2333 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
2334 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
2335 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
2336 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
2337 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
2340 @node Spanning Hosts, Types of Files, Following Links, Following Links
2341 @section Spanning Hosts
2342 @cindex spanning hosts
2343 @cindex hosts, spanning
2345 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
2346 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2347 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2348 your Wget into a small version of google.
2350 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2351 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2352 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2353 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2354 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2357 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2359 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2360 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2361 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2362 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2363 up much more data than you have intended.
2365 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2367 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2368 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2369 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2370 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2371 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2372 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2375 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2378 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2379 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2381 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2383 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2384 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2385 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2386 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2387 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2391 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2397 @node Types of Files, Directory-Based Limits, Spanning Hosts, Following Links
2398 @section Types of Files
2399 @cindex types of files
2401 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2402 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2403 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2404 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2406 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2407 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2410 @cindex accept wildcards
2411 @cindex accept suffixes
2412 @cindex wildcards, accept
2413 @cindex suffixes, accept
2415 @item -A @var{acclist}
2416 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2417 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2418 @itemx --accept-regex @var{urlregex}
2419 @itemx accept-regex = @var{urlregex}
2420 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2421 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2422 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2423 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2424 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2426 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2427 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2428 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2429 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2430 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2431 a description of how pattern matching works.
2433 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2434 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2436 The argument to @samp{--accept-regex} option is a regular expression which
2437 is matched against the complete URL.
2439 @cindex reject wildcards
2440 @cindex reject suffixes
2441 @cindex wildcards, reject
2442 @cindex suffixes, reject
2443 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2444 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2445 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2446 @itemx --reject-regex @var{urlregex}
2447 @itemx reject-regex = @var{urlregex}
2448 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2449 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2450 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2452 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2453 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2454 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2455 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2456 expansion by the shell.
2459 The argument to @samp{--accept-regex} option is a regular expression which
2460 is matched against the complete URL.
2463 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2464 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2465 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2466 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2468 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2469 files (as determined by a @samp{.htm} or @samp{.html} filename
2470 prefix). This behavior may not be desirable for all users, and may be
2471 changed for future versions of Wget.
2473 Note, too, that query strings (strings at the end of a URL beginning
2474 with a question mark (@samp{?}) are not included as part of the
2475 filename for accept/reject rules, even though these will actually
2476 contribute to the name chosen for the local file. It is expected that
2477 a future version of Wget will provide an option to allow matching
2478 against query strings.
2480 Finally, it's worth noting that the accept/reject lists are matched
2481 @emph{twice} against downloaded files: once against the URL's filename
2482 portion, to determine if the file should be downloaded in the first
2483 place; then, after it has been accepted and successfully downloaded,
2484 the local file's name is also checked against the accept/reject lists
2485 to see if it should be removed. The rationale was that, since
2486 @samp{.htm} and @samp{.html} files are always downloaded regardless of
2487 accept/reject rules, they should be removed @emph{after} being
2488 downloaded and scanned for links, if they did match the accept/reject
2489 lists. However, this can lead to unexpected results, since the local
2490 filenames can differ from the original URL filenames in the following
2491 ways, all of which can change whether an accept/reject rule matches:
2495 If the local file already exists and @samp{--no-directories} was
2496 specified, a numeric suffix will be appended to the original name.
2498 If @samp{--adjust-extension} was specified, the local filename might have
2499 @samp{.html} appended to it. If Wget is invoked with @samp{-E -A.php},
2500 a filename such as @samp{index.php} will match be accepted, but upon
2501 download will be named @samp{index.php.html}, which no longer matches,
2502 and so the file will be deleted.
2504 Query strings do not contribute to URL matching, but are included in
2505 local filenames, and so @emph{do} contribute to filename matching.
2509 This behavior, too, is considered less-than-desirable, and may change
2510 in a future version of Wget.
2512 @node Directory-Based Limits, Relative Links, Types of Files, Following Links
2513 @section Directory-Based Limits
2515 @cindex directory limits
2517 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2518 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2519 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2520 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2521 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2522 @file{/dev} directories.
2524 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2525 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2526 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2528 @cindex directories, include
2529 @cindex include directories
2530 @cindex accept directories
2533 @itemx --include @var{list}
2534 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2535 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2536 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2537 directories are absolute paths.
2539 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2540 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2541 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2544 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2547 @cindex directories, exclude
2548 @cindex exclude directories
2549 @cindex reject directories
2551 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2552 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2553 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2554 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2555 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2556 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2558 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2559 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2560 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2561 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2566 @itemx no_parent = on
2567 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2568 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2569 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2570 parent directory/directories.
2572 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2573 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2574 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2577 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2580 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2581 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2582 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2583 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2584 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2585 intelligent fashion.
2587 @strong{Note} that, for HTTP (and HTTPS), the trailing slash is very
2588 important to @samp{--no-parent}. HTTP has no concept of a ``directory''---Wget
2589 relies on you to indicate what's a directory and what isn't. In
2590 @samp{http://foo/bar/}, Wget will consider @samp{bar} to be a
2591 directory, while in @samp{http://foo/bar} (no trailing slash),
2592 @samp{bar} will be considered a filename (so @samp{--no-parent} would be
2593 meaningless, as its parent is @samp{/}).
2596 @node Relative Links, FTP Links, Directory-Based Limits, Following Links
2597 @section Relative Links
2598 @cindex relative links
2600 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2601 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2602 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2606 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2607 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2610 These links are not relative:
2614 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2615 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2618 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2619 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2620 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2622 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2625 @node FTP Links, , Relative Links, Following Links
2626 @section Following FTP Links
2627 @cindex following ftp links
2629 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2630 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2631 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2634 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2635 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2636 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2637 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2638 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2639 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2640 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2642 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2643 retrieved recursively further.
2645 @node Time-Stamping, Startup File, Following Links, Top
2646 @chapter Time-Stamping
2647 @cindex time-stamping
2648 @cindex timestamping
2649 @cindex updating the archives
2650 @cindex incremental updating
2652 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2653 Internet is updating your archives.
2655 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2656 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2657 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2658 offer the option of incremental updating.
2660 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2661 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2662 the place of the old ones.
2664 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2668 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2671 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2672 recently than the local file.
2675 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2676 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2677 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2679 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2680 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2681 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2682 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2683 does, and the remote file is not newer, Wget will not download it.
2685 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2686 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2690 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2691 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2692 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2695 @node Time-Stamping Usage, HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping, Time-Stamping
2696 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2697 @cindex time-stamping usage
2698 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2700 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2701 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2704 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2707 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2708 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2709 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2710 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2712 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2713 changed, and download it if it has.
2716 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2719 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2720 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2721 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2722 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2724 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2727 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2730 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2731 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2733 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2734 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2735 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2736 since the last download.
2738 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2739 command like the following, weekly:
2742 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2745 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2746 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2747 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2748 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2749 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2751 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping Usage, Time-Stamping
2752 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2753 @cindex http time-stamping
2755 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2756 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2757 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2758 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2759 retrieved unconditionally.
2761 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2762 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2763 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2766 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2767 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2768 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2769 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2770 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2771 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2774 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2775 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2776 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2777 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2778 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2780 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2781 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2783 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals, , HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping
2784 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2785 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2787 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2788 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2791 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2792 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2793 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2794 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2795 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2796 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2797 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2798 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2800 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2801 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2802 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2803 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2804 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2805 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2807 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2808 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2809 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2810 Wget may support this command in the future.
2812 @node Startup File, Examples, Time-Stamping, Top
2813 @chapter Startup File
2814 @cindex startup file
2820 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2821 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2822 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2823 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2825 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2826 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2827 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2828 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2830 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2834 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2835 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2836 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2837 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2840 @node Wgetrc Location, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File, Startup File
2841 @section Wgetrc Location
2842 @cindex wgetrc location
2843 @cindex location of wgetrc
2845 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2846 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2847 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2848 from there, if it exists.
2850 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2851 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2852 further attempts will be made.
2854 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2856 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2857 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2858 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2859 Fascist admins, away!
2861 @node Wgetrc Syntax, Wgetrc Commands, Wgetrc Location, Startup File
2862 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2863 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2864 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2866 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2872 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2873 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2875 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2876 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2877 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2880 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2881 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2882 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2888 @node Wgetrc Commands, Sample Wgetrc, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File
2889 @section Wgetrc Commands
2890 @cindex wgetrc commands
2892 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2893 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2894 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2896 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2897 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2898 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2899 values can be any non-empty string.
2901 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2902 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2903 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2906 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2907 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2909 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2910 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2912 @item ask_password = on/off
2913 Prompt for a password for each connection established. Cannot be specified
2914 when @samp{--password} is being used, because they are mutually
2915 exclusive. Equivalent to @samp{--ask-password}.
2917 @item auth_no_challenge = on/off
2918 If this option is given, Wget will send Basic HTTP authentication
2919 information (plaintext username and password) for all requests. See
2920 @samp{--auth-no-challenge}.
2922 @item background = on/off
2923 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2926 @item backup_converted = on/off
2927 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2928 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2930 @item backups = @var{number}
2931 Use up to @var{number} backups for a file. Backups are rotated by
2932 adding an incremental counter that starts at @samp{1}. The default is
2935 @item base = @var{string}
2936 Consider relative @sc{url}s in input files (specified via the
2937 @samp{input} command or the @samp{--input-file}/@samp{-i} option,
2938 together with @samp{force_html} or @samp{--force-html})
2939 as being relative to @var{string}---the same as @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2941 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2942 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2944 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2945 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2946 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2948 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2949 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2950 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2952 @item cache = on/off
2953 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2956 @item certificate = @var{file}
2957 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2958 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2960 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2961 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2962 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2963 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2965 @item check_certificate = on/off
2966 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2967 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2968 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2970 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2971 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2973 @item content_disposition = on/off
2974 Turn on recognition of the (non-standard) @samp{Content-Disposition}
2975 HTTP header---if set to @samp{on}, the same as @samp{--content-disposition}.
2977 @item trust_server_names = on/off
2978 If set to on, use the last component of a redirection URL for the local
2981 @item continue = on/off
2982 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2983 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2985 @item convert_links = on/off
2986 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2988 @item cookies = on/off
2989 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2991 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2992 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2993 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2995 @item debug = on/off
2996 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2998 @item default_page = @var{string}
2999 Default page name---the same as @samp{--default-page=@var{string}}.
3001 @item delete_after = on/off
3002 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
3004 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
3005 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
3007 @item dirstruct = on/off
3008 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
3011 @item dns_cache = on/off
3012 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
3013 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
3014 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
3016 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
3017 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
3019 @item domains = @var{string}
3020 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
3022 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
3023 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
3024 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
3025 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
3026 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
3027 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
3028 (@pxref{Download Options}).
3030 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
3031 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
3033 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
3034 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
3035 the retrieval (50 by default).
3037 @item egd_file = @var{file}
3038 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
3039 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
3041 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
3042 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
3043 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
3046 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
3047 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
3050 @item follow_ftp = on/off
3051 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
3052 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
3054 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
3055 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
3056 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
3058 @item force_html = on/off
3059 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
3060 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
3062 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
3063 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
3064 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
3065 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
3067 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
3069 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
3070 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
3073 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
3074 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
3076 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
3079 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
3081 @item header = @var{string}
3082 Define a header for HTTP downloads, like using
3083 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
3085 @item adjust_extension = on/off
3086 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
3087 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files that lack one, or a @samp{.css}
3088 extension to @samp{text/css} files that lack one, like
3089 @samp{-E}. Previously named @samp{html_extension} (still acceptable,
3092 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
3093 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
3094 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
3096 @item http_password = @var{string}
3097 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
3098 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
3100 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
3101 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
3104 @item http_user = @var{string}
3105 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
3106 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
3108 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
3109 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
3112 @item ignore_case = on/off
3113 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
3114 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
3116 @item ignore_length = on/off
3117 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
3118 @samp{--ignore-length}.
3120 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
3121 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
3122 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
3124 @item include_directories = @var{string}
3125 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
3126 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
3129 When set to on, enable internationalized URI (IRI) support; the same as
3132 @item inet4_only = on/off
3133 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
3134 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
3135 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
3136 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
3138 @item inet6_only = on/off
3139 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
3140 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
3143 @item input = @var{file}
3144 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
3146 @item keep_session_cookies = on/off
3147 When specified, causes @samp{save_cookies = on} to also save session
3148 cookies. See @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
3150 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
3151 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
3152 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
3154 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
3155 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
3157 @item local_encoding = @var{encoding}
3158 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default system encoding. See
3159 @samp{--local-encoding}.
3161 @item logfile = @var{file}
3162 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
3164 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
3165 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
3166 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
3168 @item mirror = on/off
3169 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
3171 @item netrc = on/off
3172 Turn reading netrc on or off.
3174 @item no_clobber = on/off
3177 @item no_parent = on/off
3178 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
3179 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
3181 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
3182 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
3183 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
3185 @item output_document = @var{file}
3186 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
3188 @item page_requisites = on/off
3189 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
3190 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
3192 @item passive_ftp = on/off
3193 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
3194 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
3196 @item password = @var{string}
3197 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
3198 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
3199 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
3201 @item post_data = @var{string}
3202 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
3203 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
3205 @item post_file = @var{file}
3206 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
3207 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
3208 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
3210 @item prefer_family = none/IPv4/IPv6
3211 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
3212 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
3213 DNS is used without change by default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family},
3214 which see for a detailed discussion of why this is useful.
3216 @item private_key = @var{file}
3217 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
3218 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
3220 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
3221 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
3222 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
3223 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
3225 @item progress = @var{string}
3226 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
3227 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
3229 @item protocol_directories = on/off
3230 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
3231 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
3233 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
3234 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
3235 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
3237 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
3238 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
3239 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
3241 @item quiet = on/off
3242 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
3244 @item quota = @var{quota}
3245 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
3246 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
3247 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
3248 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
3249 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
3250 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
3253 @item random_file = @var{file}
3254 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
3257 @item random_wait = on/off
3258 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
3259 @samp{--random-wait}.
3261 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
3262 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
3263 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
3265 @item reclevel = @var{n}
3266 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
3268 @item recursive = on/off
3269 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
3271 @item referer = @var{string}
3272 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
3273 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
3274 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
3276 @item relative_only = on/off
3277 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
3280 @item remote_encoding = @var{encoding}
3281 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default remote server encoding.
3282 See @samp{--remote-encoding}.
3284 @item remove_listing = on/off
3285 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
3286 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
3288 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
3289 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
3290 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
3292 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
3293 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
3294 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
3296 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
3297 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
3298 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
3300 @item robots = on/off
3301 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
3302 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
3303 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
3304 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
3307 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
3308 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
3311 @item save_headers = on/off
3312 Same as @samp{--save-headers}.
3314 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
3315 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
3316 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
3317 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
3319 @item server_response = on/off
3320 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
3321 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
3323 @item show_all_dns_entries = on/off
3324 When a DNS name is resolved, show all the IP addresses, not just the first
3327 @item span_hosts = on/off
3330 @item spider = on/off
3331 Same as @samp{--spider}.
3333 @item strict_comments = on/off
3334 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
3336 @item timeout = @var{n}
3337 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
3340 @item timestamping = on/off
3341 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
3343 @item use_server_timestamps = on/off
3344 If set to @samp{off}, Wget won't set the local file's timestamp by the
3345 one on the server (same as @samp{--no-use-server-timestamps}).
3347 @item tries = @var{n}
3348 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
3350 @item use_proxy = on/off
3351 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
3352 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
3355 @item user = @var{string}
3356 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
3357 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
3358 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
3360 @item user_agent = @var{string}
3361 User agent identification sent to the HTTP Server---the same as
3362 @samp{--user-agent=@var{string}}.
3364 @item verbose = on/off
3365 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
3367 @item wait = @var{n}
3368 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
3371 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
3372 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
3373 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
3374 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
3377 @node Sample Wgetrc, , Wgetrc Commands, Startup File
3378 @section Sample Wgetrc
3379 @cindex sample wgetrc
3381 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
3382 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
3383 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
3384 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
3386 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
3387 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
3391 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
3394 @node Examples, Various, Startup File, Top
3398 @c man begin EXAMPLES
3399 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
3403 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
3404 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
3405 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
3408 @node Simple Usage, Advanced Usage, Examples, Examples
3409 @section Simple Usage
3413 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
3416 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
3420 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
3421 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
3422 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
3423 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
3424 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
3425 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
3428 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
3432 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
3433 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
3434 shall use @samp{-t}.
3437 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
3440 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
3441 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
3444 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
3448 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
3452 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
3453 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
3456 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3461 @node Advanced Usage, Very Advanced Usage, Simple Usage, Examples
3462 @section Advanced Usage
3466 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3473 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3477 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3478 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3479 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3482 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3486 The same as the above, but convert the links in the downloaded files to
3487 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3490 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3494 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3495 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3496 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3497 references the downloaded links.
3500 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3503 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3504 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3505 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3508 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3509 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3510 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3511 subdirectory of the current directory.
3514 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3515 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3519 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3523 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3527 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3530 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3535 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3539 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3543 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3544 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3545 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3549 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3552 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3553 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3554 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3555 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3556 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3560 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3561 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3565 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3569 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3570 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3573 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3576 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3577 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3580 @cindex redirecting output
3582 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3586 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3589 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3590 documents from remote hotlists:
3593 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3597 @node Very Advanced Usage, , Advanced Usage, Examples
3598 @section Very Advanced Usage
3603 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3604 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3605 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3606 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3610 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3614 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3615 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3616 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3617 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3618 would look like this:
3621 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3622 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3626 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3627 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3628 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3629 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3630 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3633 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3634 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3638 Or, with less typing:
3641 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3646 @node Various, Appendices, Examples, Top
3650 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3653 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3654 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3655 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3656 * Mailing Lists:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3657 * Internet Relay Chat:: Wget's presence on IRC.
3658 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3659 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3660 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3663 @node Proxies, Distribution, Various, Various
3667 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3668 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3669 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3670 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3671 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3672 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3673 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3674 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3675 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3676 using an authorized proxy.
3678 @c man begin ENVIRONMENT
3679 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3680 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3681 the following environment variables:
3686 If set, the @env{http_proxy} and @env{https_proxy} variables should
3687 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3688 connections respectively.
3691 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3692 connections. It is quite common that @env{http_proxy} and
3693 @env{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3696 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3697 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3698 @env{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3703 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3704 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3708 @itemx proxy = on/off
3709 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3710 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3712 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3713 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3714 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3715 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3716 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3717 specified by the environment.
3720 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3721 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3722 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3723 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3724 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3726 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3727 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3728 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3729 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3733 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3736 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3737 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3738 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3739 username and password.
3741 @node Distribution, Web Site, Proxies, Various
3742 @section Distribution
3743 @cindex latest version
3745 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3746 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3747 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3748 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3750 @node Web Site, Mailing Lists, Distribution, Various
3754 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3755 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3756 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3757 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3759 @node Mailing Lists, Internet Relay Chat, Web Site, Various
3760 @section Mailing Lists
3761 @cindex mailing list
3764 @unnumberedsubsec Primary List
3766 The primary mailinglist for discussion, bug-reports, or questions
3767 about GNU Wget is at @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}. To subscribe, send an
3768 email to @email{bug-wget-join@@gnu.org}, or visit
3769 @url{http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-wget}.
3771 You do not need to subscribe to send a message to the list; however,
3772 please note that unsubscribed messages are moderated, and may take a
3773 while before they hit the list---@strong{usually around a day}. If
3774 you want your message to show up immediately, please subscribe to the
3775 list before posting. Archives for the list may be found at
3776 @url{http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/bug-wget/}.
3778 An NNTP/Usenettish gateway is also available via
3779 @uref{http://gmane.org/about.php,Gmane}. You can see the Gmane
3781 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}. Note that the
3782 Gmane archives conveniently include messages from both the current
3783 list, and the previous one. Messages also show up in the Gmane
3784 archives sooner than they do at @url{lists.gnu.org}.
3786 @unnumberedsubsec Bug Notices List
3788 Additionally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3789 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives bug report
3790 notifications from the bug-tracker. To subscribe to this list,
3791 send an email to @email{wget-notify-join@@addictivecode.org},
3792 or visit @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3794 @unnumberedsubsec Obsolete Lists
3796 Previously, the mailing list @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} was used as the
3797 main discussion list, and another list,
3798 @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk} was used for submitting and
3799 discussing patches to GNU Wget.
3801 Messages from @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} are archived at
3804 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3806 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general} (which also
3807 continues to archive the current list, @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}).
3810 Messages from @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk} are archived at
3813 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3816 @node Internet Relay Chat, Reporting Bugs, Mailing Lists, Various
3817 @section Internet Relay Chat
3818 @cindex Internet Relay Chat
3822 In addition to the mailinglists, we also have a support channel set up
3823 via IRC at @code{irc.freenode.org}, @code{#wget}. Come check it out!
3825 @node Reporting Bugs, Portability, Internet Relay Chat, Various
3826 @section Reporting Bugs
3828 @cindex reporting bugs
3832 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3833 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3835 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3840 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3841 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3842 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3843 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3844 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3848 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3849 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 --no-proxy
3850 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3851 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3852 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3853 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3855 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3856 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3857 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3858 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3859 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3863 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3864 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3865 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3866 with debug support on.
3868 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3869 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3870 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3871 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3872 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3873 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3874 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3877 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3878 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3879 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3884 @node Portability, Signals, Reporting Bugs, Various
3885 @section Portability
3887 @cindex operating systems
3889 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3890 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3891 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3892 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3894 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3895 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3896 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3897 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3898 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3899 system, we would like to know about it.
3901 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3902 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3903 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3904 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3905 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3906 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3907 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3908 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3909 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3910 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3911 Windows-related features might look at them.
3913 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3914 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3915 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3917 @node Signals, , Portability, Various
3919 @cindex signal handling
3922 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3923 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3924 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3925 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3926 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3929 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3932 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3935 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3936 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3938 @node Appendices, Copying this manual, Various, Top
3941 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3944 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3945 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3946 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3949 @node Robot Exclusion, Security Considerations, Appendices, Appendices
3950 @section Robot Exclusion
3951 @cindex robot exclusion
3953 @cindex server maintenance
3955 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3956 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3957 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3959 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3960 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3961 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3962 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3963 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3964 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3965 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3966 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3967 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3968 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3969 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3970 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3972 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3973 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3974 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3975 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3976 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3977 they will permit access.
3979 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3980 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3981 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3982 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3983 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3984 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3987 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3988 can download large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3989 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3990 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3993 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3996 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3997 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3998 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3999 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
4002 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
4003 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
4004 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
4005 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
4006 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
4007 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
4008 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
4009 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
4011 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
4013 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
4014 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
4015 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
4019 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
4022 This is explained in some detail at
4023 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
4024 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
4027 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
4028 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
4029 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
4030 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
4032 @node Security Considerations, Contributors, Robot Exclusion, Appendices
4033 @section Security Considerations
4036 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
4037 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
4038 main issues, and some solutions.
4042 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
4043 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
4044 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
4045 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
4046 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
4049 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
4050 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
4053 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
4054 solution for this at the moment.
4057 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
4058 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
4059 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
4063 @node Contributors, , Security Considerations, Appendices
4064 @section Contributors
4065 @cindex contributors
4068 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
4071 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
4074 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
4075 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
4076 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
4078 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
4081 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
4082 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
4083 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
4086 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
4087 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
4088 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
4091 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
4092 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
4093 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
4094 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
4098 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
4099 bug and build reports for many years.
4102 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
4105 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
4109 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
4113 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
4114 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
4117 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
4118 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
4122 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
4125 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
4130 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
4134 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
4139 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
4142 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
4146 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
4147 layout and many other things.
4150 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
4154 Mauro Tortonesi---improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
4155 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
4156 Wget from 2004--2007.
4159 Christopher G.@: Lewis---maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
4162 Gisle Vanem---many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
4163 Windows and MS-DOS support.
4166 Ralf Wildenhues---contributed patches to convert Wget to use Automake as
4167 part of its build process, and various bugfixes.
4170 Steven Schubiger---Many helpful patches, bugfixes and improvements.
4171 Notably, conversion of Wget to use the Gnulib quotes and quoteargs
4172 modules, and the addition of password prompts at the console, via the
4173 Gnulib getpasswd-gnu module.
4176 Ted Mielczarek---donated support for CSS.
4179 Saint Xavier---Support for IRIs (RFC 3987).
4182 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
4185 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
4186 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
4187 that make maintenance so much fun:
4207 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
4216 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
4217 Alexander Dergachev,
4230 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
4233 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
4257 Madhusudan Hosaagrahara,
4261 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
4280 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
4294 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
4295 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
4296 (Simos KSenitellis),
4305 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
4311 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
4320 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
4356 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
4358 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
4361 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
4363 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
4370 Steven M.@: Schweda,
4381 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
4396 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
4398 Joshua David Williams,
4412 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
4413 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
4415 @node Copying this manual, Concept Index, Appendices, Top
4416 @appendix Copying this manual
4419 * GNU Free Documentation License:: License for copying this manual.
4422 @node GNU Free Documentation License, , Copying this manual, Copying this manual
4423 @appendixsec GNU Free Documentation License
4424 @cindex FDL, GNU Free Documentation License
4429 @node Concept Index, , Copying this manual, Top
4430 @unnumbered Concept Index