1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
36 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
37 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
38 are preserved on all copies.
41 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
42 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
43 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
44 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
46 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
47 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
49 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
50 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
51 Documentation License''.
56 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
57 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
58 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
59 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
63 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
64 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
67 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
72 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
73 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006, Free Software Foundation, Inc.
75 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
76 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
77 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
78 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
79 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
80 Documentation License''.
85 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
87 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
88 available utility for network downloads.
90 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
93 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
94 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
95 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
96 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
97 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
98 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
99 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
100 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
101 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
102 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
103 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
112 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
113 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
114 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
115 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
118 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
122 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
123 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
124 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
125 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
126 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
127 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
132 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
136 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
137 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
138 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
139 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
140 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
141 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
142 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
147 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
148 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
149 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
150 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
151 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
152 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
157 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
161 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
162 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
163 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
164 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
165 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
166 download from where it left off.
170 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
171 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
172 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
173 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
174 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
178 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
179 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
180 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
181 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
184 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
185 (@pxref{Following Links}).
188 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
189 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
190 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
191 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
192 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
195 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
196 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
197 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
198 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
203 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
204 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
213 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
214 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
215 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
216 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
226 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
229 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
230 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
234 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
235 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
237 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
238 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
239 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
245 * Basic Startup Options::
246 * Logging and Input File Options::
248 * Directory Options::
250 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
252 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
253 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
261 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
262 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
263 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
264 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
268 http://host[:port]/directory/file
269 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
272 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
275 ftp://user:password@@host/path
276 http://user:password@@host/path
279 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
280 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
281 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
282 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
283 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
284 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
287 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
288 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
289 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
290 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
291 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
292 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
294 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
295 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
296 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
297 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
298 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
301 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
302 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
303 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
304 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
305 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
306 for text files. Here is an example:
309 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
312 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
313 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
315 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
320 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
325 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
326 supported in the future.
328 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
329 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
330 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
335 @section Option Syntax
336 @cindex option syntax
337 @cindex syntax of options
339 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
340 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
341 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
342 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
343 arguments. Thus you may write:
346 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
349 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
350 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
352 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
359 This is a complete equivalent of:
362 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
365 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
366 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
367 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
373 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
374 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
375 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
376 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
377 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
378 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
379 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
382 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
385 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
386 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
387 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
388 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
389 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
390 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
391 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
394 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
395 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
396 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
397 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
399 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
400 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
401 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
402 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
403 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
404 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
405 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
406 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
407 default from the command line.
409 @node Basic Startup Options
410 @section Basic Startup Options
415 Display the version of Wget.
419 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
423 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
424 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
426 @cindex execute wgetrc command
427 @item -e @var{command}
428 @itemx --execute @var{command}
429 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
430 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
431 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
432 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
433 instances of @samp{-e}.
437 @node Logging and Input File Options
438 @section Logging and Input File Options
443 @item -o @var{logfile}
444 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
445 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
448 @cindex append to log
449 @item -a @var{logfile}
450 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
451 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
452 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
453 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
458 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
459 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
460 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
461 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
462 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
463 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
464 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
470 Turn off Wget's output.
475 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
480 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
481 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
486 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
487 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
488 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
489 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
491 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
492 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
493 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
494 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
495 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
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.
507 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
508 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
509 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
510 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
513 @cindex base for relative links in input file
515 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
516 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
517 the @samp{-i} option.
520 @node Download Options
521 @section Download Options
525 @cindex client IP address
526 @cindex IP address, client
527 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
528 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
529 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
530 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
535 @cindex number of retries
536 @item -t @var{number}
537 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
538 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
539 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
540 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
541 which are not retried.
544 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
545 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
546 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
547 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
548 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
549 literally named @samp{-}.)
551 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only well-defined for
552 downloading a single document.
554 @cindex clobbering, file
555 @cindex downloading multiple times
559 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
560 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
561 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
562 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
564 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
565 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
566 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
567 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
568 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
569 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
570 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
571 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
572 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
573 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
576 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
577 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
578 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
579 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
582 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
583 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
584 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
585 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
588 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
589 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
590 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
592 @cindex continue retrieval
593 @cindex incomplete downloads
594 @cindex resume download
597 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
598 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
599 by another program. For instance:
602 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
605 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
606 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
607 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
608 length of the local file.
610 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
611 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
612 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
613 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
614 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
616 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
617 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
620 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
621 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
622 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
623 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
624 start from scratch, remove the file.
626 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
627 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
628 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
629 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
630 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
631 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
633 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
634 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
635 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
636 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
637 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
638 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
639 collection or log file.
641 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
642 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
643 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
644 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
645 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
646 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
648 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
649 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
650 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
651 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
653 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
654 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
656 @cindex progress indicator
658 @item --progress=@var{type}
659 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
660 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
662 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
663 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
664 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
667 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
668 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
669 fixed amount of downloaded data.
671 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
672 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
673 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
674 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
675 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
676 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
677 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
678 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
679 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
681 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
682 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
683 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
684 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
685 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
688 @itemx --timestamping
689 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
691 @cindex server response, print
693 @itemx --server-response
694 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
697 @cindex Wget as spider
700 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
701 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
702 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
705 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
708 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
709 functionality of real web spiders.
713 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
714 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
715 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
716 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
718 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
719 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
720 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
721 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
722 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
723 change the default timeout settings.
725 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
726 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
727 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
728 server response times or for testing network latency.
732 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
733 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
734 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
735 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
738 @cindex connect timeout
739 @cindex timeout, connect
740 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
741 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
742 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
743 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
746 @cindex timeout, read
747 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
748 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
749 ``time'' of this timeout refers @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
750 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
751 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
752 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
754 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
755 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
758 @cindex bandwidth, limit
760 @cindex limit bandwidth
761 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
762 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
763 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
764 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
765 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
766 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
768 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
769 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
772 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
773 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
774 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
775 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
776 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
777 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
781 @item -w @var{seconds}
782 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
783 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
784 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
785 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
786 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
787 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
789 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
790 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
791 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
792 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
793 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
795 @cindex retries, waiting between
796 @cindex waiting between retries
797 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
798 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
799 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
800 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
801 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
802 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
803 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
806 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
812 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
813 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
814 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
815 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
816 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
817 presence from such analysis.
819 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
820 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
821 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
822 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
825 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
826 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
831 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
835 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
840 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
841 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
842 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
843 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
845 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
846 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
847 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
848 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
849 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
850 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
851 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
853 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
856 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
858 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
859 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
860 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
861 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
864 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
865 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
866 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
867 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
868 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
869 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
870 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
873 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
876 @cindex file names, restrict
877 @cindex Windows file names
878 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
879 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
880 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
881 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
882 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
885 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
886 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
887 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
888 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
889 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
891 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
892 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
893 default on Unix-like OS'es.
895 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
896 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
897 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
898 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
899 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
900 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
901 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
902 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
903 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
904 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
906 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
907 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
908 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
909 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
910 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
917 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
918 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
919 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
920 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
921 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
923 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
924 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
925 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
926 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
927 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
929 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
930 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
931 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
932 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
933 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
936 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
937 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
938 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
941 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
942 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
943 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
944 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
945 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
946 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
947 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
948 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
950 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
951 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
952 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
953 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
954 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
955 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
957 @item --retry-connrefused
958 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
959 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
960 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
961 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
962 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
963 short periods of time.
967 @cindex authentication
968 @item --user=@var{user}
969 @itemx --password=@var{password}
970 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
971 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
972 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
973 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
974 options for @sc{http} connections.
977 @node Directory Options
978 @section Directory Options
982 @itemx --no-directories
983 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
984 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
985 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
986 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
989 @itemx --force-directories
990 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
991 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
992 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
993 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
996 @itemx --no-host-directories
997 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
998 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
999 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1002 @item --protocol-directories
1003 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1004 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1005 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1007 @cindex cut directories
1008 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1009 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1010 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1013 Take, for example, the directory at
1014 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1015 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1016 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1017 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1018 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1019 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1020 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1024 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1026 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1027 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1029 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1034 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1035 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1036 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1037 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1038 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1040 @cindex directory prefix
1041 @item -P @var{prefix}
1042 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1043 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1044 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1045 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1050 @section HTTP Options
1053 @cindex .html extension
1055 @itemx --html-extension
1056 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1057 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1058 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1059 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1060 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1061 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1062 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1063 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1064 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1066 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1067 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1068 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1069 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1070 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1071 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1072 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1073 Retrieval Options}).
1076 @cindex http password
1077 @cindex authentication
1078 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1079 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1080 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1081 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1082 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1083 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1085 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1086 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1087 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1088 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1089 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1090 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1091 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1094 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1101 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1102 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1103 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1104 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1105 documents on proxy servers.
1107 Caching is allowed by default.
1111 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1112 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1113 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1114 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1115 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1116 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1117 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1119 @cindex loading cookies
1120 @cindex cookies, loading
1121 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1122 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1123 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1124 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1126 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1127 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1128 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1129 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1130 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1131 proves your identity.
1133 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1134 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1135 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1136 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1137 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1138 cookie files in different locations:
1142 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1144 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1145 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1146 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1147 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1148 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1150 @item Internet Explorer.
1151 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1152 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1153 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1155 @item Other browsers.
1156 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1157 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1158 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1161 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1162 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1163 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1164 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1165 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1168 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1171 @cindex saving cookies
1172 @cindex cookies, saving
1173 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1174 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1175 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1176 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1178 @cindex cookies, session
1179 @cindex session cookies
1180 @item --keep-session-cookies
1181 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1182 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1183 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1184 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1185 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1186 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1187 the site is concerned.
1189 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1190 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1191 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1192 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1193 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1194 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1195 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1197 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1198 @cindex ignore length
1199 @item --ignore-length
1200 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1201 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1202 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1203 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1204 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1207 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1208 if it never existed.
1211 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1212 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1213 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1214 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1217 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1218 @samp{--header} more than once.
1222 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1223 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1224 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1228 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1229 previous user-defined headers.
1231 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1232 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1233 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1236 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1239 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1240 sending of duplicate headers.
1243 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1244 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1245 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1246 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1250 @cindex proxy password
1251 @cindex proxy authentication
1252 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1253 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1254 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1255 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1256 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1258 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1259 pertain here as well.
1261 @cindex http referer
1262 @cindex referer, http
1263 @item --referer=@var{url}
1264 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1265 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1266 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1267 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1269 @cindex server response, save
1270 @item --save-headers
1271 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1272 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1275 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1276 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1277 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1279 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1280 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1281 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1282 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1283 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1286 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1287 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1288 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1289 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1290 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1291 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1292 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1295 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1296 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1299 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1300 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1301 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1302 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1303 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1304 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1306 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1307 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1308 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1309 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1310 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1311 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1312 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1313 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1314 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1316 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1317 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1318 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1319 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1320 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1321 be changed in the future.
1323 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1324 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1329 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1330 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1331 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1332 http://server.com/auth.php
1334 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1335 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1336 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1340 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1341 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1342 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1343 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1344 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1347 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1348 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1351 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1352 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1353 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1356 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1357 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1358 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1359 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1360 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1361 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1362 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1364 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1365 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1366 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1367 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1370 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1371 @item --no-check-certificate
1372 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1373 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1374 name presented by the certificate.
1376 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1377 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1378 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1379 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1380 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1381 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1382 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1383 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1384 and allows you to proceed.
1386 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1387 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1388 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1389 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1390 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1391 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1392 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1394 @cindex SSL certificate
1395 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1396 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1397 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1398 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1401 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1402 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1403 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1404 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1407 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1408 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1409 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1411 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1412 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1413 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1415 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1416 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1417 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1419 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1420 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1422 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1423 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1424 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1425 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1426 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1427 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1428 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1429 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1430 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1432 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1433 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1435 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1436 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1437 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1438 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1439 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1441 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1442 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1443 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1444 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1445 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1446 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1449 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1450 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1454 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1455 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1456 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1457 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1458 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1459 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1460 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1462 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1463 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1464 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1465 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1467 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1468 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1469 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1473 @section FTP Options
1477 @cindex ftp password
1478 @cindex ftp authentication
1479 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1480 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1481 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1482 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1483 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1486 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1487 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1488 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1489 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1490 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1491 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1492 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1495 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1499 @cindex .listing files, removing
1500 @item --no-remove-listing
1501 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1502 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1503 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1504 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1505 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1506 you're running is complete).
1508 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1509 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1510 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1511 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1512 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1513 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1514 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1515 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1516 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1518 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1519 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1520 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1521 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1522 will be overwritten.
1524 @cindex globbing, toggle
1526 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1527 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1528 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1532 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1535 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1536 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1539 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1540 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1541 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1542 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1545 @item --no-passive-ftp
1546 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1547 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1548 connection rather than the other way around.
1550 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1551 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1552 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1553 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1554 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1555 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1557 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1558 @item --retr-symlinks
1559 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1560 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1561 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1562 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1563 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1565 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1566 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1567 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1568 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1571 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1572 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1573 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1576 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1577 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1578 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1579 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1580 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1581 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1582 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1583 the load on the server.
1585 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1586 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1587 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1590 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1591 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1596 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1599 @item -l @var{depth}
1600 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1601 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1602 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1604 @cindex proxy filling
1605 @cindex delete after retrieval
1606 @cindex filling proxy cache
1607 @item --delete-after
1608 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1609 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1610 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1613 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1616 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1619 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1620 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1621 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1622 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1623 created in the first place.
1625 @cindex conversion of links
1626 @cindex link conversion
1628 @itemx --convert-links
1629 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1630 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1631 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1632 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1635 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1639 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1640 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1642 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1643 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1644 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1645 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1648 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1649 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1651 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1652 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1653 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1654 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1657 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1658 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1659 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1660 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1661 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1664 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1665 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1666 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1668 @cindex backing up converted files
1670 @itemx --backup-converted
1671 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1672 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1677 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1678 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1679 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1680 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1682 @cindex page requisites
1683 @cindex required images, downloading
1685 @itemx --page-requisites
1686 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1687 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1688 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1690 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1691 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1692 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1693 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1694 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1697 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1698 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1699 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1700 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1701 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1703 If one executes the command:
1706 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1709 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1710 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1711 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1712 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1713 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1716 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1719 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1720 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1723 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1726 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1727 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1730 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1733 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1734 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1735 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1736 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1737 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1738 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1741 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1744 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1745 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1746 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1747 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1748 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1749 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1752 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1755 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1756 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1757 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1760 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1761 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1762 @item --strict-comments
1763 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1764 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1766 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1767 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1768 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1769 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1770 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1771 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1772 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1774 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1775 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1776 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1777 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1778 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1779 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1780 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1781 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1782 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1784 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1785 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1786 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1787 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1788 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1791 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1792 option to turn it on.
1795 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1796 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1799 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1800 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1801 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1802 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1804 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1805 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1806 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1807 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1809 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1810 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1811 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1813 @cindex follow FTP links
1815 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1816 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1818 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1819 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1820 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1821 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1822 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1823 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1824 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1826 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1827 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1828 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1829 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1831 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1832 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1835 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1838 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1839 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1840 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1841 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1842 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1843 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1848 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1849 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1850 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1851 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1852 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1856 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1857 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1861 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1862 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1863 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1866 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1867 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1868 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1869 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1872 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1873 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1874 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1875 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1879 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1880 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1881 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1882 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1887 @node Recursive Download
1888 @chapter Recursive Download
1891 @cindex recursive download
1893 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1894 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1895 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1897 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1898 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1899 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1900 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1901 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1904 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1905 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1906 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1907 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1908 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1909 until the specified maximum depth.
1911 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1912 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1914 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1915 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1916 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1917 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1918 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1921 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1922 the one found on the remote server.
1924 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1925 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1926 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1927 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1929 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1930 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1931 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1932 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1933 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1934 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1935 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1937 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1938 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1939 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1940 consume memory and CPU.
1942 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1943 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1944 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1945 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1946 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1947 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1948 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1951 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1954 @node Following Links
1955 @chapter Following Links
1957 @cindex following links
1959 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1960 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1961 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1963 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1964 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1965 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1967 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1968 links it will follow.
1971 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1972 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1973 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1974 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1975 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1978 @node Spanning Hosts
1979 @section Spanning Hosts
1980 @cindex spanning hosts
1981 @cindex hosts, spanning
1983 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1984 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1985 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1986 your Wget into a small version of google.
1988 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1989 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1990 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1991 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1992 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1995 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1997 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1998 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1999 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2000 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2001 up much more data than you have intended.
2003 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2005 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2006 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2007 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2008 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2009 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2010 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2013 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2016 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2017 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2019 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2021 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2022 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2023 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2024 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2025 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2029 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2035 @node Types of Files
2036 @section Types of Files
2037 @cindex types of files
2039 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2040 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2041 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2042 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2044 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2045 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2048 @cindex accept wildcards
2049 @cindex accept suffixes
2050 @cindex wildcards, accept
2051 @cindex suffixes, accept
2053 @item -A @var{acclist}
2054 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2055 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2056 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2057 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2058 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2059 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2060 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2062 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2063 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2064 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2065 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2066 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2067 a description of how pattern matching works.
2069 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2070 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2072 @cindex reject wildcards
2073 @cindex reject suffixes
2074 @cindex wildcards, reject
2075 @cindex suffixes, reject
2076 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2077 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2078 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2079 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2080 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2081 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2083 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2084 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2085 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2086 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2087 expansion by the shell.
2090 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2091 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2092 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2093 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2095 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2096 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2097 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2099 @node Directory-Based Limits
2100 @section Directory-Based Limits
2102 @cindex directory limits
2104 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2105 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2106 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2107 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2108 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2109 @file{/dev} directories.
2111 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2112 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2113 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2115 @cindex directories, include
2116 @cindex include directories
2117 @cindex accept directories
2120 @itemx --include @var{list}
2121 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2122 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2123 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2124 directories are absolute paths.
2126 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2127 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2128 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2131 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2134 @cindex directories, exclude
2135 @cindex exclude directories
2136 @cindex reject directories
2138 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2139 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2140 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2141 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2142 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2143 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2145 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2146 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2147 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2148 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2153 @itemx no_parent = on
2154 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2155 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2156 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2157 parent directory/directories.
2159 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2160 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2161 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2164 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2167 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2168 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2169 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2170 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2171 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2172 intelligent fashion.
2175 @node Relative Links
2176 @section Relative Links
2177 @cindex relative links
2179 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2180 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2181 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2185 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2186 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2189 These links are not relative:
2193 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2194 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2197 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2198 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2199 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2201 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2205 @section Following FTP Links
2206 @cindex following ftp links
2208 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2209 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2210 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2213 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2214 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2215 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2216 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2217 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2218 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2219 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2221 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2222 retrieved recursively further.
2225 @chapter Time-Stamping
2226 @cindex time-stamping
2227 @cindex timestamping
2228 @cindex updating the archives
2229 @cindex incremental updating
2231 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2232 Internet is updating your archives.
2234 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2235 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2236 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2237 offer the option of incremental updating.
2239 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2240 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2241 the place of the old ones.
2243 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2247 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2250 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2251 recently than the local file.
2254 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2255 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2256 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2258 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2259 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2260 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2261 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2262 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2264 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2265 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2269 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2270 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2271 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2274 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2275 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2276 @cindex time-stamping usage
2277 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2279 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2280 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2283 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2286 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2287 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2288 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2289 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2291 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2292 changed, and download it if it has.
2295 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2298 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2299 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2300 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2301 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2303 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2306 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2309 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2310 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2312 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2313 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2314 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2315 since the last download.
2317 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2318 command like the following, weekly:
2321 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2324 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2325 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2326 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2327 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2328 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2330 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2331 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2332 @cindex http time-stamping
2334 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2335 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2336 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2337 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2338 retrieved unconditionally.
2340 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2341 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2342 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2345 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2346 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2347 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2348 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2349 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2350 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2353 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2354 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2355 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2356 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2357 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2359 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2360 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2362 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2363 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2364 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2366 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2367 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2370 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2371 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2372 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2373 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2374 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2375 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2376 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2377 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2379 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2380 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2381 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2382 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2383 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2384 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2386 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2387 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2388 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2389 Wget may support this command in the future.
2392 @chapter Startup File
2393 @cindex startup file
2399 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2400 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2401 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2402 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2404 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2405 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2406 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2407 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2409 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2413 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2414 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2415 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2416 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2419 @node Wgetrc Location
2420 @section Wgetrc Location
2421 @cindex wgetrc location
2422 @cindex location of wgetrc
2424 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2425 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2426 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2427 from there, if it exists.
2429 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2430 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2431 further attempts will be made.
2433 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2435 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2436 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2437 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2438 Fascist admins, away!
2441 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2442 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2443 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2445 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2451 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2452 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2454 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2455 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2456 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2459 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2460 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2461 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2467 @node Wgetrc Commands
2468 @section Wgetrc Commands
2469 @cindex wgetrc commands
2471 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2472 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2473 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2475 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2476 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2477 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2478 values can be any non-empty string.
2480 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2481 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2482 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2485 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2486 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2488 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2489 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2491 @item continue = on/off
2492 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2493 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2495 @item background = on/off
2496 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2499 @item backup_converted = on/off
2500 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2501 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2503 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2504 @c #### Document me!
2506 @item base = @var{string}
2507 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2508 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2509 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2511 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2512 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2514 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2515 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2516 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2518 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2519 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2520 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2522 @item cache = on/off
2523 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2526 @item certificate = @var{file}
2527 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2528 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2530 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2531 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2532 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2533 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2535 @item check_certificate = on/off
2536 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2537 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2538 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2540 @item convert_links = on/off
2541 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2543 @item cookies = on/off
2544 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2546 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2547 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2549 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2550 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2551 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2553 @item debug = on/off
2554 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2556 @item delete_after = on/off
2557 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2559 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2560 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2562 @item dirstruct = on/off
2563 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2566 @item dns_cache = on/off
2567 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2568 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2569 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2571 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2572 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2574 @item domains = @var{string}
2575 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2577 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2578 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2579 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2580 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2581 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2582 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2583 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2585 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2586 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2587 the retrieval (50 by default).
2589 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2590 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2592 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2593 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2594 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2596 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2597 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2598 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2601 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2602 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2605 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2606 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2607 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2609 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2610 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2611 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2613 @item force_html = on/off
2614 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2615 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2617 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2618 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2619 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2620 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2622 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2624 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2625 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2628 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2629 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2631 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2634 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2636 @item header = @var{string}
2637 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2638 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2640 @item html_extension = on/off
2641 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2642 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2644 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2645 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2646 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2648 @item http_password = @var{string}
2649 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2650 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2652 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2653 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2656 @item http_user = @var{string}
2657 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2658 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2660 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2661 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2664 @item ignore_case = on/off
2665 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2666 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2668 @item ignore_length = on/off
2669 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2670 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2672 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2673 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2674 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2676 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2677 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2678 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2680 @item inet4_only = on/off
2681 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2682 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2683 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2684 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2686 @item inet6_only = on/off
2687 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2688 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2691 @item input = @var{file}
2692 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2694 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2695 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2696 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2698 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2699 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2701 @item logfile = @var{file}
2702 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2704 @item mirror = on/off
2705 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2707 @item netrc = on/off
2708 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2710 @item noclobber = on/off
2713 @item no_parent = on/off
2714 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2715 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2717 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2718 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2719 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2721 @item output_document = @var{file}
2722 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2724 @item page_requisites = on/off
2725 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2726 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2728 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2729 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2730 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2732 @itemx password = @var{string}
2733 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2734 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2735 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2737 @item post_data = @var{string}
2738 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2739 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2741 @item post_file = @var{file}
2742 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2743 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2744 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2746 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2747 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2748 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2749 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2750 discussion of why this is useful.
2752 @item private_key = @var{file}
2753 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2754 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2756 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2757 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2758 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2759 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2761 @item progress = @var{string}
2762 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2763 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2765 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2766 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2767 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2769 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2770 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2771 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2773 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2774 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2775 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2777 @item quiet = on/off
2778 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2780 @item quota = @var{quota}
2781 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2782 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2783 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2784 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2785 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2786 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2789 @item random_file = @var{file}
2790 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2793 @item random_wait = on/off
2794 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2795 @samp{--random-wait}.
2797 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2798 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2799 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2801 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2802 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2804 @item recursive = on/off
2805 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2807 @item referer = @var{string}
2808 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2809 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note it was the folks who wrote the
2810 @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2812 @item relative_only = on/off
2813 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2816 @item remove_listing = on/off
2817 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2818 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2820 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2821 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2822 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2824 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2825 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2826 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2828 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2829 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2830 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2832 @item robots = on/off
2833 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2834 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2835 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2836 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2839 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2840 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2843 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2844 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2845 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2846 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2848 @item server_response = on/off
2849 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2850 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2852 @item span_hosts = on/off
2855 @item strict_comments = on/off
2856 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2858 @item timeout = @var{n}
2859 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2862 @item timestamping = on/off
2863 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2865 @item tries = @var{n}
2866 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2868 @item use_proxy = on/off
2869 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2870 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2873 @item user = @var{string}
2874 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2875 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2876 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2878 @item verbose = on/off
2879 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2881 @item wait = @var{n}
2882 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2885 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2886 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2887 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2888 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2892 @section Sample Wgetrc
2893 @cindex sample wgetrc
2895 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2896 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2897 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2898 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2900 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2901 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2905 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2912 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2913 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2917 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2918 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2919 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2923 @section Simple Usage
2927 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2930 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2934 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2935 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2936 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2937 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2938 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2939 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2942 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2946 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2947 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2948 shall use @samp{-t}.
2951 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2954 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2955 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2958 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2962 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2966 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2967 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2970 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2975 @node Advanced Usage
2976 @section Advanced Usage
2980 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2987 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2991 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2992 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2993 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2996 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3000 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
3001 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3004 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3008 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3009 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3010 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3011 references the downloaded links.
3014 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3017 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3018 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3019 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3022 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3023 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3024 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3025 subdirectory of the current directory.
3028 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3029 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3033 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3037 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3041 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3044 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3049 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3053 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3057 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3058 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3059 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3063 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3066 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3067 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3068 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3069 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3070 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3074 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3075 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3079 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3083 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3084 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3087 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3090 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3091 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3094 @cindex redirecting output
3096 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3100 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3103 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3104 documents from remote hotlists:
3107 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3111 @node Very Advanced Usage
3112 @section Very Advanced Usage
3117 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3118 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3119 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3120 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3124 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3128 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3129 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3130 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3131 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3132 would look like this:
3135 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3136 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3140 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3141 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3142 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3143 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3144 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3147 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3148 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3152 Or, with less typing:
3155 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3164 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3167 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
3168 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3169 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3170 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3171 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3172 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3179 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3180 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3181 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3182 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3183 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3184 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3185 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3186 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3187 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3188 using an authorized proxy.
3190 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3191 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3192 the following environment variables:
3197 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3198 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3199 connections respectively.
3202 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3203 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3204 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3207 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3208 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3209 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3213 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3214 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3218 @itemx proxy = on/off
3219 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3220 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3222 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3223 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3224 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3225 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3226 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3227 specified by the environment.
3230 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3231 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3232 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3233 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3234 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3236 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3237 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3238 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3239 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3243 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3246 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3247 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3248 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3249 username and password.
3252 @section Distribution
3253 @cindex latest version
3255 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3256 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3257 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3258 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3261 @section Mailing List
3262 @cindex mailing list
3265 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3266 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3267 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3268 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3269 invited to subscribe.
3271 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3272 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3273 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3274 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3275 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3277 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3278 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3279 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3280 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3281 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3282 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3283 only for patch submissions.
3285 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3286 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3287 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3288 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3290 @node Reporting Bugs
3291 @section Reporting Bugs
3293 @cindex reporting bugs
3297 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3298 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3300 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3305 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3306 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3307 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3308 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3311 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3312 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3313 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3314 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3315 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3316 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3318 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3319 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3320 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3321 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3322 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3326 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3327 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3328 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3329 with debug support on.
3331 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3332 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3333 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3334 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3335 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3336 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3337 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3340 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3341 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3342 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3348 @section Portability
3350 @cindex operating systems
3352 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3353 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3354 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3355 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3357 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3358 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3359 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3360 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3361 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3362 system, we would like to know about it.
3364 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3365 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3366 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3367 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3368 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3369 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3370 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3371 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3372 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3373 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3374 Windows-related features might look at them.
3378 @cindex signal handling
3381 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3382 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3383 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3384 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3385 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3388 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3391 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3394 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3395 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3400 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3403 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3404 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3405 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3408 @node Robot Exclusion
3409 @section Robot Exclusion
3410 @cindex robot exclusion
3412 @cindex server maintenance
3414 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3415 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3416 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3418 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3419 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3420 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3421 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3422 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3423 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3424 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3425 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3426 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3427 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3428 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3429 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3431 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3432 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3433 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3434 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3435 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3436 they will permit access.
3438 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3439 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3440 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3441 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3442 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3443 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3446 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3447 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3448 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3449 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3452 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3455 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3456 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3457 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3458 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3461 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3462 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3463 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3464 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3465 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3466 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3467 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3468 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3470 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3472 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3473 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3474 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3478 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3481 This is explained in some detail at
3482 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3483 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3486 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3487 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3488 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3489 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3491 @node Security Considerations
3492 @section Security Considerations
3495 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3496 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3497 main issues, and some solutions.
3501 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3502 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3503 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3504 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3505 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3508 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3509 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3512 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3513 solution for this at the moment.
3516 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3517 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3518 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3523 @section Contributors
3524 @cindex contributors
3527 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3530 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3532 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3534 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3535 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3536 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3538 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3541 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3542 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3543 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3546 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3547 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3548 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3551 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3552 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3553 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3554 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3558 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3559 bug and build reports for many years.
3562 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3565 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3569 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3573 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3574 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3577 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3578 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3582 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3585 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3590 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3594 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3599 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3602 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3606 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3607 layout and many other things.
3610 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3614 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3617 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3618 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3619 that make maintenance so much fun:
3638 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3647 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3660 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3663 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3682 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3701 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3714 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3715 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3716 (Simos KSenitellis),
3725 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3731 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3771 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3773 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3776 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3794 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3808 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3819 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3820 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3822 @node Copying this manual
3823 @appendix Copying this manual
3826 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
3833 @unnumbered Concept Index