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--2005 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 1.1 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
49 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
50 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
51 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
52 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
57 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
58 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
59 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
60 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and the developers
64 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
67 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
72 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
73 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2005, 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 the
78 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
79 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
80 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
81 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
86 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
88 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
89 available utility for network downloads.
91 Copyright @copyright{} 1996--2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
94 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
95 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
96 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
97 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
98 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
99 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
100 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
101 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
102 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
103 * Copying:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
104 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
113 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
114 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
115 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
116 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
119 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
123 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
124 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
125 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
126 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
127 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
128 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
134 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
138 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
139 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
140 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
141 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
142 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
143 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
144 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
150 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
151 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
152 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
153 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
154 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
155 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
161 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
165 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
166 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
167 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
168 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
169 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
170 download from where it left off.
175 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
176 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
177 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
178 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
179 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
184 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
185 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
186 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
187 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
191 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
192 (@pxref{Following Links}).
196 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
197 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
198 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
199 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
200 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
204 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
205 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
206 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
207 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
212 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
213 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
223 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
224 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
225 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
236 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
239 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
240 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
244 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
245 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
247 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
248 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
249 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
255 * Basic Startup Options::
256 * Logging and Input File Options::
258 * Directory Options::
260 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
262 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
263 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
271 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
272 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
273 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
274 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
278 http://host[:port]/directory/file
279 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
282 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
285 ftp://user:password@@host/path
286 http://user:password@@host/path
289 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
290 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
291 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
292 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
293 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
294 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
297 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
298 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
299 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
300 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
301 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
302 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
304 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
305 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
306 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
307 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
308 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
311 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
312 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
313 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
314 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
315 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
316 for text files. Here is an example:
319 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
322 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
323 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
325 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
330 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
335 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
336 supported in the future.
338 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
339 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
340 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
345 @section Option Syntax
346 @cindex option syntax
347 @cindex syntax of options
349 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
350 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
351 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
352 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
353 arguments. Thus you may write:
356 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
359 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
360 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
362 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
369 This is a complete equivalent of:
372 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
375 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
376 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
377 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
383 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
384 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
385 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
386 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
387 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
388 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
389 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
392 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
395 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
396 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
397 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
398 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
399 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
400 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
401 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
404 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
405 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
406 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
407 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
409 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
410 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
411 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
412 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
413 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
414 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
415 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
416 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
417 default from the command line.
419 @node Basic Startup Options
420 @section Basic Startup Options
425 Display the version of Wget.
429 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
433 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
434 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
436 @cindex execute wgetrc command
437 @item -e @var{command}
438 @itemx --execute @var{command}
439 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
440 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
441 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
442 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
443 instances of @samp{-e}.
447 @node Logging and Input File Options
448 @section Logging and Input File Options
453 @item -o @var{logfile}
454 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
455 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
458 @cindex append to log
459 @item -a @var{logfile}
460 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
461 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
462 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
463 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
468 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
469 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
470 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
471 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
472 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
473 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
474 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
480 Turn off Wget's output.
485 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
490 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
491 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
492 information still get printed.
496 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
497 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
498 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
499 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
501 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
502 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
503 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
504 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
505 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
508 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
509 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
510 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
511 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
512 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
517 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
518 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
519 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
520 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
523 @cindex base for relative links in input file
525 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
526 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
527 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
530 @node Download Options
531 @section Download Options
535 @cindex client IP address
536 @cindex IP address, client
537 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
538 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
539 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
540 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
545 @cindex number of retries
546 @item -t @var{number}
547 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
548 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
549 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
550 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
551 which are not retried.
554 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
555 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
556 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
557 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
558 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
559 literally named @samp{-}.)
561 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only well-defined for
562 downloading a single document.
564 @cindex clobbering, file
565 @cindex downloading multiple times
569 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
570 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
571 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
572 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
574 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
575 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
576 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
577 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
578 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
579 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
580 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
581 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
582 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
583 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
586 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
587 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
588 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
589 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
592 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
593 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
594 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
595 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
598 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
599 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
600 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
602 @cindex continue retrieval
603 @cindex incomplete downloads
604 @cindex resume download
607 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
608 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
609 by another program. For instance:
612 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
615 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
616 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
617 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
618 length of the local file.
620 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
621 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
622 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
623 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
624 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
626 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
627 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
630 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
631 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
632 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
633 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
634 start from scratch, remove the file.
636 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
637 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
638 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
639 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
640 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
641 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
643 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
644 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
645 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
646 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
647 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
648 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
649 collection or log file.
651 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
652 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
653 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
654 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
655 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
656 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
658 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
659 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
660 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
661 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
663 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
664 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
666 @cindex progress indicator
668 @item --progress=@var{type}
669 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
670 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
672 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
673 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
674 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
677 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
678 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
679 fixed amount of downloaded data.
681 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
682 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
683 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
684 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
685 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
686 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
687 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
688 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
689 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
691 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
692 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
693 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
694 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
695 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
698 @itemx --timestamping
699 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
701 @cindex server response, print
703 @itemx --server-response
704 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
707 @cindex Wget as spider
710 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
711 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
712 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
715 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
718 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
719 functionality of real web spiders.
723 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
724 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
725 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
726 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
728 Whenever Wget connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks for a
729 timeout and aborts the operation if the time expires. This prevents
730 anomalous occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite connects. The
731 only timeout enabled by default is a 900-second timeout for reading.
732 Setting timeout to 0 disables checking for timeouts.
734 Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to set any of the
735 timeout-related options.
739 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
740 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
741 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
742 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
745 @cindex connect timeout
746 @cindex timeout, connect
747 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
748 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
749 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
750 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
753 @cindex timeout, read
754 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
755 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Reads that
756 take longer will fail. The default value for read timeout is 900
759 @cindex bandwidth, limit
761 @cindex limit bandwidth
762 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
763 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
764 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
765 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
766 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This kind of thing is useful when,
767 for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available
770 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
771 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
772 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
773 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
774 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
775 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
779 @item -w @var{seconds}
780 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
781 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
782 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
783 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
784 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
785 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
787 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
788 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
789 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
791 @cindex retries, waiting between
792 @cindex waiting between retries
793 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
794 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
795 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
796 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
797 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
798 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
799 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
802 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
808 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
809 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
810 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
811 to vary between 0 and 2 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
812 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
813 presence from such analysis.
815 A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
816 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
817 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
818 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
821 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
822 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
829 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
830 appropriate environment variable is defined.
832 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
836 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
837 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
838 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
839 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
841 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
842 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
843 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
844 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
845 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
846 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
847 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
849 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
852 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
854 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
855 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
856 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
857 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
860 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
861 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
862 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
863 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
864 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
865 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
866 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
869 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
872 @cindex file names, restrict
873 @cindex Windows file names
874 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
875 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
876 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
877 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
878 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
881 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
882 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
883 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
884 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
885 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
887 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
888 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
889 default on Unix-like OS'es.
891 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
892 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
893 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
894 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
895 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
896 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
897 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
898 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
899 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
900 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
902 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
903 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
904 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
905 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
906 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
913 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
914 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
915 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
916 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
917 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
919 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
920 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
921 If the DNS specifies both an A record and an AAAA record, Wget will
922 try them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to.
924 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
925 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
926 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
927 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified in the
928 same command. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without
931 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
932 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
933 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
936 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
937 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
938 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
939 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
940 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
941 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
942 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
943 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
945 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
946 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
947 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
948 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
949 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
950 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
952 @item --retry-connrefused
953 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
954 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
955 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
956 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
957 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
958 short periods of time.
962 @cindex authentication
963 @item --user=@var{user}
964 @itemx --password=@var{password}
965 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
966 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
967 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
968 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
969 options for @sc{http} connections.
972 @node Directory Options
973 @section Directory Options
977 @itemx --no-directories
978 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
979 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
980 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
981 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
984 @itemx --force-directories
985 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
986 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
987 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
988 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
991 @itemx --no-host-directories
992 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
993 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
994 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
997 @item --protocol-directories
998 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
999 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1000 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1002 @cindex cut directories
1003 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1004 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1005 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1008 Take, for example, the directory at
1009 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1010 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1011 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1012 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1013 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1014 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1015 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1019 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1021 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1022 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1024 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1029 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1030 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1031 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1032 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1033 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1035 @cindex directory prefix
1036 @item -P @var{prefix}
1037 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1038 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1039 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1040 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1045 @section HTTP Options
1048 @cindex .html extension
1050 @itemx --html-extension
1051 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1052 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1053 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1054 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1055 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1056 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1057 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1058 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1059 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1061 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1062 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1063 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1064 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1065 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1066 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1067 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1068 Retrieval Options}).
1071 @cindex http password
1072 @cindex authentication
1073 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1074 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1075 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1076 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1077 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
1078 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
1080 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1081 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1082 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1083 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1084 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1085 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1086 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1089 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1096 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1097 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1098 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1099 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1100 documents on proxy servers.
1102 Caching is allowed by default.
1106 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1107 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1108 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1109 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1110 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1111 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1112 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1114 @cindex loading cookies
1115 @cindex cookies, loading
1116 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1117 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1118 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1119 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1121 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1122 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1123 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1124 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1125 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1126 proves your identity.
1128 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1129 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1130 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1131 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1132 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1133 cookie files in different locations:
1137 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1139 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1140 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1141 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1142 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1143 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1145 @item Internet Explorer.
1146 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1147 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1148 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1150 @item Other browsers.
1151 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1152 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1153 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1156 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1157 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1158 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1159 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1160 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1163 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1166 @cindex saving cookies
1167 @cindex cookies, saving
1168 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1169 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1170 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1171 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1173 @cindex cookies, session
1174 @cindex session cookies
1175 @item --keep-session-cookies
1176 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1177 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1178 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1179 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1180 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1181 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1182 the site is concerned.
1184 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1185 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1186 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1187 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1188 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1189 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1190 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1192 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1193 @cindex ignore length
1194 @item --ignore-length
1195 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1196 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1197 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1198 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1199 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1202 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1203 if it never existed.
1206 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1207 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1208 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1209 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1212 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1213 @samp{--header} more than once.
1217 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1218 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1219 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1223 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1224 previous user-defined headers.
1226 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1227 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1228 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1231 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1234 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1235 sending of duplicate headers.
1238 @cindex proxy password
1239 @cindex proxy authentication
1240 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1241 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1242 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1243 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1244 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1246 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1247 pertain here as well.
1249 @cindex http referer
1250 @cindex referer, http
1251 @item --referer=@var{url}
1252 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1253 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1254 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1255 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1257 @cindex server response, save
1258 @item --save-headers
1259 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1260 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1263 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1264 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1265 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1267 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1268 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1269 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1270 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1271 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1274 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1275 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1276 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
1277 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
1278 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
1279 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
1280 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
1283 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1284 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1285 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1286 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1287 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1288 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1290 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1291 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1292 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1293 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1294 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1295 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1296 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1297 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1298 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1300 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it will
1301 not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because URLs that
1302 process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular page
1303 (although that's technically disallowed), which does not desire or
1304 accept POST. It is not yet clear that this behavior is optimal; if it
1305 doesn't work out, it will be changed.
1307 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1308 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1313 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1314 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1315 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1316 http://server.com/auth.php
1318 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1319 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1320 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1324 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1325 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1326 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1327 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1328 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1331 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1332 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1335 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1336 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1337 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1340 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1341 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1342 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1343 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1344 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1345 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1346 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1348 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1349 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1350 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1351 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1354 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1355 @item --no-check-certificate
1356 Don't check the server certificate against the available client
1357 authorities. If this is not specified, Wget will break the SSL
1358 handshake if the server certificate is not valid.
1360 @cindex SSL certificate
1361 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1362 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1363 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1364 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1367 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1368 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1369 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1370 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1373 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1374 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1375 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1377 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1378 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1379 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1381 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1382 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1383 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1385 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1386 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1388 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1389 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1390 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1391 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1392 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1393 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1394 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1395 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1396 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1398 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1399 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1401 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1402 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1403 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1404 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1405 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1407 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1408 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1409 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1410 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1411 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1412 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1415 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1416 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1420 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1421 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1422 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1423 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1424 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1425 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1426 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1428 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1429 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1430 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1431 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1433 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1434 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1435 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1439 @section FTP Options
1443 @cindex ftp password
1444 @cindex ftp authentication
1445 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1446 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1447 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1448 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1449 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1452 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1453 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1454 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1455 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1456 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1457 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1458 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1461 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1465 @cindex .listing files, removing
1466 @item --no-remove-listing
1467 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1468 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1469 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1470 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1471 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1472 you're running is complete).
1474 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1475 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1476 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1477 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1478 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1479 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1480 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1481 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1482 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1484 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1485 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1486 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1487 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1488 will be overwritten.
1490 @cindex globbing, toggle
1492 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1493 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1494 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1498 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1501 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1502 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1505 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1506 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1507 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1508 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1511 @item --no-passive-ftp
1512 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1513 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1514 connection rather than the other way around.
1516 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1517 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1518 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1519 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1520 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1521 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1523 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1524 @item --retr-symlinks
1525 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1526 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1527 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1528 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1529 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1531 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1532 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1533 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1534 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1537 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1538 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1539 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1542 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1543 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1544 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1545 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1546 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1547 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1548 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1549 the load on the server.
1551 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1552 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1553 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1556 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1557 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1562 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1565 @item -l @var{depth}
1566 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1567 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1568 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1570 @cindex proxy filling
1571 @cindex delete after retrieval
1572 @cindex filling proxy cache
1573 @item --delete-after
1574 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1575 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1576 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1579 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1582 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1585 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1586 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1587 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1588 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1589 created in the first place.
1591 @cindex conversion of links
1592 @cindex link conversion
1594 @itemx --convert-links
1595 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1596 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1597 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1598 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1601 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1605 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1606 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1608 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1609 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1610 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1611 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1614 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1615 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1617 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1618 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1619 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1620 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1623 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1624 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1625 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1626 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1627 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1630 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1631 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1632 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1634 @cindex backing up converted files
1636 @itemx --backup-converted
1637 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1638 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1643 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1644 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1645 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1646 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1648 @cindex page requisites
1649 @cindex required images, downloading
1651 @itemx --page-requisites
1652 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1653 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1654 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1656 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1657 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1658 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1659 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1660 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1663 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1664 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1665 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1666 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1667 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1669 If one executes the command:
1672 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1675 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1676 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1677 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1678 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1679 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1682 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1685 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1686 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1689 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1692 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1693 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1696 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1699 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1700 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1701 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1702 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1703 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1704 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1707 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1710 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1711 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1712 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1713 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1714 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1715 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1718 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1721 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1722 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1723 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1726 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1727 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1728 @item --strict-comments
1729 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1730 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1732 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1733 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1734 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1735 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1736 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1737 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1738 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1740 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1741 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1742 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1743 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1744 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1745 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1746 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1747 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1748 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1750 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1751 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1752 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1753 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1754 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1757 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1758 option to turn it on.
1761 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1762 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1765 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1766 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1767 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1768 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1770 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1771 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1772 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1773 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1775 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1776 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1777 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1779 @cindex follow FTP links
1781 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1782 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1784 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1785 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1786 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1787 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1788 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1789 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1790 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1792 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1793 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1794 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1795 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1797 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1798 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1801 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1804 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1805 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1806 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1807 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1808 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1809 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1813 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1814 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1818 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1819 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1820 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1823 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1824 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1825 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1826 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1829 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1830 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1831 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1832 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1836 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1837 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1838 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1839 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1844 @node Recursive Download
1845 @chapter Recursive Download
1848 @cindex recursive download
1850 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1851 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1852 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1854 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1855 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1856 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1857 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1858 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1861 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1862 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1863 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1864 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1865 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1866 until the specified maximum depth.
1868 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1869 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1871 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1872 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1873 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1874 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1875 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1878 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1879 the one found on the remote server.
1881 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1882 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1883 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1884 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1886 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1887 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1888 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1889 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1890 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1891 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1892 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1894 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1895 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1896 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1897 consume memory and CPU.
1899 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1900 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1901 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1902 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1903 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1904 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1905 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1908 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1911 @node Following Links
1912 @chapter Following Links
1914 @cindex following links
1916 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1917 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1918 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1920 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1921 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1922 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1924 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1925 links it will follow.
1928 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1929 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1930 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1931 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1932 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1935 @node Spanning Hosts
1936 @section Spanning Hosts
1937 @cindex spanning hosts
1938 @cindex hosts, spanning
1940 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1941 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1942 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1943 your Wget into a small version of google.
1945 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1946 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1947 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1948 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1949 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1952 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1954 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1955 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1956 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1957 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1958 up much more data than you have intended.
1960 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1962 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1963 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1964 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1965 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1966 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
1967 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
1970 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
1973 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
1974 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
1976 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
1978 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1979 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1980 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1981 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1982 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1986 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
1992 @node Types of Files
1993 @section Types of Files
1994 @cindex types of files
1996 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1997 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1998 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1999 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2001 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2002 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2005 @cindex accept wildcards
2006 @cindex accept suffixes
2007 @cindex wildcards, accept
2008 @cindex suffixes, accept
2010 @item -A @var{acclist}
2011 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2012 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2013 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2014 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2015 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2016 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2017 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2019 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2020 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2021 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2022 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2023 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2024 a description of how pattern matching works.
2026 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2027 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2029 @cindex reject wildcards
2030 @cindex reject suffixes
2031 @cindex wildcards, reject
2032 @cindex suffixes, reject
2033 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2034 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2035 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2036 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2037 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2038 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2040 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2041 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2042 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2043 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2044 expansion by the shell.
2047 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2048 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2049 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2050 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2052 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2053 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2054 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2056 @node Directory-Based Limits
2057 @section Directory-Based Limits
2059 @cindex directory limits
2061 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2062 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2063 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2064 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2065 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2066 @file{/dev} directories.
2068 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2069 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2070 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2072 @cindex directories, include
2073 @cindex include directories
2074 @cindex accept directories
2077 @itemx --include @var{list}
2078 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2079 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2080 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2081 directories are absolute paths.
2083 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2084 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2085 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2088 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2091 @cindex directories, exclude
2092 @cindex exclude directories
2093 @cindex reject directories
2095 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2096 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2097 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2098 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2099 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2100 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2102 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2103 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2104 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2105 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2110 @itemx no_parent = on
2111 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2112 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2113 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2114 parent directory/directories.
2116 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2117 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2118 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2121 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2124 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2125 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2126 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2127 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2128 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2129 intelligent fashion.
2132 @node Relative Links
2133 @section Relative Links
2134 @cindex relative links
2136 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2137 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2138 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2142 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2143 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2146 These links are not relative:
2150 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2151 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2154 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2155 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2156 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2158 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2162 @section Following FTP Links
2163 @cindex following ftp links
2165 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2166 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2167 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2170 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2171 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2172 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2173 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2174 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2175 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2176 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2178 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2179 retrieved recursively further.
2182 @chapter Time-Stamping
2183 @cindex time-stamping
2184 @cindex timestamping
2185 @cindex updating the archives
2186 @cindex incremental updating
2188 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2189 Internet is updating your archives.
2191 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2192 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2193 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2194 offer the option of incremental updating.
2196 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2197 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2198 the place of the old ones.
2200 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2204 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2207 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2208 recently than the local file.
2211 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2212 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2213 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2215 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2216 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2217 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2218 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2219 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2221 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2222 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2226 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2227 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2228 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2231 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2232 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2233 @cindex time-stamping usage
2234 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2236 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2237 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2240 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2243 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2244 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2245 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2246 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2248 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2249 changed, and download it if it has.
2252 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2255 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2256 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2257 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2258 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2260 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2263 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2266 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2267 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2269 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2270 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2271 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2272 since the last download.
2274 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2275 command like the following, weekly:
2278 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2281 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2282 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2283 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2284 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2285 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2287 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2288 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2289 @cindex http time-stamping
2291 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2292 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2293 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2294 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2295 retrieved unconditionally.
2297 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2298 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2299 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2302 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2303 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2304 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2305 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2306 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2307 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2310 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2311 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2312 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2313 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2314 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2316 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2317 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2319 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2320 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2321 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2323 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2324 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2327 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2328 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2329 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2330 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2331 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2332 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2333 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2334 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2336 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2337 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2338 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2339 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2340 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2341 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2343 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2344 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2345 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2346 Wget may support this command in the future.
2349 @chapter Startup File
2350 @cindex startup file
2356 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2357 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2358 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2359 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2361 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2362 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2363 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2364 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2366 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2370 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2371 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2372 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2373 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2376 @node Wgetrc Location
2377 @section Wgetrc Location
2378 @cindex wgetrc location
2379 @cindex location of wgetrc
2381 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2382 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2383 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2384 from there, if it exists.
2386 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2387 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2388 further attempts will be made.
2390 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2392 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2393 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2394 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2395 Fascist admins, away!
2398 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2399 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2400 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2402 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2408 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2409 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2411 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2412 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2413 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2416 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2417 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2418 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2424 @node Wgetrc Commands
2425 @section Wgetrc Commands
2426 @cindex wgetrc commands
2428 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2429 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2430 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}. A fancier kind of
2431 Boolean allowed in some cases is the @dfn{lockable Boolean}, which may
2432 be set to @samp{on}, @samp{off}, @samp{always}, or @samp{never}. If an
2433 option is set to @samp{always} or @samp{never}, that value will be
2434 locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation---command-line options
2437 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2438 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2439 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2440 values can be any non-empty string.
2442 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2443 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2444 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2447 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2448 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2450 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2451 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2453 @item continue = on/off
2454 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2455 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2457 @item background = on/off
2458 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2461 @item backup_converted = on/off
2462 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2463 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2465 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2466 @c #### Document me!
2468 @item base = @var{string}
2469 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2470 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2471 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2473 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2474 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2476 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2477 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2478 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2480 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2481 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2482 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2484 @item cache = on/off
2485 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2488 @item certificate = @var{file}
2489 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2490 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2492 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2493 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2494 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2495 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2497 @item check_certificate = on/off
2498 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2499 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2500 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2502 @item convert_links = on/off
2503 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2505 @item cookies = on/off
2506 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2508 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2509 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2511 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2512 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2513 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2515 @item debug = on/off
2516 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2518 @item delete_after = on/off
2519 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2521 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2522 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2524 @item dirstruct = on/off
2525 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2528 @item dns_cache = on/off
2529 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2530 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2531 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2533 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2534 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2536 @item domains = @var{string}
2537 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2539 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2540 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2541 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2542 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2543 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2544 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2545 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2547 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2548 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2549 the retrieval (50 by default).
2551 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2552 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2554 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2555 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2556 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2558 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2559 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2560 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2563 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2564 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2567 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2568 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2569 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2571 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2572 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2573 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2575 @item force_html = on/off
2576 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2577 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2579 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2580 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2581 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2582 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2584 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2586 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2587 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2590 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2591 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2593 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2596 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2598 @item header = @var{string}
2599 Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using
2600 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2602 @item html_extension = on/off
2603 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2604 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2606 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2607 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2608 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2610 @item http_password = @var{string}
2611 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2612 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2614 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2615 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2618 @item http_user = @var{string}
2619 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2620 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2622 @item ignore_length = on/off
2623 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2624 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2626 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2627 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2628 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2630 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2631 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2632 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2634 @item inet4_only = on/off
2635 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2636 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2637 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2638 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2640 @item inet6_only = on/off
2641 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2642 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2645 @item input = @var{file}
2646 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2648 @item kill_longer = on/off
2649 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid
2650 (and retry getting it). The default behavior is to save as much data
2651 as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in
2652 @code{Content-Length}.
2654 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2655 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2656 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2658 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2659 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2661 @item logfile = @var{file}
2662 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2664 @item mirror = on/off
2665 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2667 @item netrc = on/off
2668 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2670 @item noclobber = on/off
2673 @item no_parent = on/off
2674 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2675 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2677 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2678 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2679 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2681 @item output_document = @var{file}
2682 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2684 @item page_requisites = on/off
2685 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2686 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2688 @item passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
2689 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2690 @samp{--passive-ftp} option. Some scripts and @samp{.pm} (Perl
2691 module) files download files using @samp{wget --passive-ftp}. If your
2692 firewall does not allow this, you can set @samp{passive_ftp = never}
2693 to override the command-line.
2695 @itemx password = @var{string}
2696 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2697 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2698 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2700 @item post_data = @var{string}
2701 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2702 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2704 @item post_file = @var{file}
2705 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2706 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2707 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2709 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2710 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2711 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2712 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2713 discussion of why this is useful.
2715 @item private_key = @var{file}
2716 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2717 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2719 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2720 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2721 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2722 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2724 @item progress = @var{string}
2725 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2726 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2728 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2729 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2730 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2732 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2733 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2734 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2736 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2737 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2738 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2740 @item quiet = on/off
2741 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2743 @item quota = @var{quota}
2744 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2745 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2746 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2747 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2748 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2749 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2752 @item random_file = @var{file}
2753 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2756 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2757 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2758 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2760 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2761 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2763 @item recursive = on/off
2764 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2766 @item referer = @var{string}
2767 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2768 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note it was the folks who wrote the
2769 @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2771 @item relative_only = on/off
2772 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2775 @item remove_listing = on/off
2776 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2777 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2779 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2780 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2781 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2783 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2784 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2785 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2787 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2788 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2789 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2791 @item robots = on/off
2792 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2793 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2794 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2795 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2798 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2799 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2802 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2803 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2804 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2805 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2807 @item server_response = on/off
2808 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2809 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2811 @item span_hosts = on/off
2814 @item strict_comments = on/off
2815 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2817 @item timeout = @var{n}
2818 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2821 @item timestamping = on/off
2822 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2824 @item tries = @var{n}
2825 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2827 @item use_proxy = on/off
2828 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2829 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2832 @item user = @var{string}
2833 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2834 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2835 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2837 @item verbose = on/off
2838 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2840 @item wait = @var{n}
2841 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2844 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2845 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2846 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2847 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2849 @item randomwait = on/off
2850 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2851 @samp{--random-wait}.
2855 @section Sample Wgetrc
2856 @cindex sample wgetrc
2858 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2859 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2860 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2861 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2863 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2864 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2868 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2875 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2876 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2880 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2881 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2882 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2886 @section Simple Usage
2890 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2893 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2897 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2898 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2899 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2900 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2901 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2902 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2905 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2909 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2910 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2911 shall use @samp{-t}.
2914 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2917 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2918 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2921 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2925 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2929 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2930 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2933 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2938 @node Advanced Usage
2939 @section Advanced Usage
2943 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2950 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2954 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2955 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2956 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2959 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2963 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2964 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2967 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2971 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2972 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
2973 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
2974 references the downloaded links.
2977 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2980 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
2981 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
2982 depending on where they were on the remote server.
2985 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
2986 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
2987 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
2988 subdirectory of the current directory.
2991 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
2992 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2996 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3000 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3004 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3007 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3012 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3016 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3020 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3021 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3022 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3026 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3029 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3030 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3031 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3032 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3033 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3037 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3038 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3042 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3046 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3047 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3050 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3053 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3054 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3057 @cindex redirecting output
3059 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3063 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3066 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3067 documents from remote hotlists:
3070 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3074 @node Very Advanced Usage
3075 @section Very Advanced Usage
3080 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3081 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3082 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3083 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3087 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3091 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3092 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3093 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3094 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3095 would look like this:
3098 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3099 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3103 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3104 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3105 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3106 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3107 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3110 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3111 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3115 Or, with less typing:
3118 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3127 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3130 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
3131 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3132 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3133 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3134 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3135 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3142 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3143 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3144 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3145 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3146 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3147 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3148 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3149 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3150 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3151 using an authorized proxy.
3153 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3154 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3155 the following environment variables:
3159 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
3163 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3164 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
3165 are set to the same @sc{url}.
3168 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3169 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3170 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3174 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3175 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3181 @itemx proxy = on/off
3182 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
3183 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
3186 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3187 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3188 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3189 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3190 specified by the environment.
3193 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3194 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3195 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3196 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3197 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3199 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3200 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3201 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3202 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3206 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3209 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3210 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3211 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3212 username and password.
3215 @section Distribution
3216 @cindex latest version
3218 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3219 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3220 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3221 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3224 @section Mailing List
3225 @cindex mailing list
3228 There are several Wget-related mailing lists, all hosted by
3229 SunSITE.dk. The general discussion list is at
3230 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for bug reports
3231 and suggestions, as well as for discussion of development. You are
3232 invited to subscribe.
3234 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3235 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3236 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3237 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3238 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3240 The second mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3241 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3242 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3243 humans and programs. The file @file{PATCHES} that comes with Wget
3244 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3245 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3246 only for patch submissions.
3248 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3249 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3250 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3251 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3253 Finally, there is a read-only list at @email{wget-cvs@@sunsite.dk}
3254 that tracks commits to the Wget CVS repository. To subscribe to that
3255 list, send mail to @email{wget-cvs-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The list
3258 @node Reporting Bugs
3259 @section Reporting Bugs
3261 @cindex reporting bugs
3265 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
3266 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
3268 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3273 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3274 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3275 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3276 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
3279 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3280 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
3281 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3282 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3283 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3284 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3286 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3287 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3288 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3289 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3290 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3294 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3295 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3296 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3297 with debug support on.
3299 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3300 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3301 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3302 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3303 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3304 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3305 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3308 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3309 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3310 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3316 @section Portability
3318 @cindex operating systems
3320 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3321 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3322 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3323 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3325 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds
3326 of Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, OSF (aka
3327 Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some of
3328 those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3329 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3330 system, we would like to know about it.
3332 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3333 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3334 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3335 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3336 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3337 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3338 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3339 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3340 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3341 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3342 Windows-related features might look at them.
3346 @cindex signal handling
3349 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3350 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3351 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3352 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3353 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3356 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3359 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3362 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3363 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3368 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3371 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3372 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3373 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3376 @node Robot Exclusion
3377 @section Robot Exclusion
3378 @cindex robot exclusion
3380 @cindex server maintenance
3382 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3383 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3384 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3386 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3387 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3388 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3389 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3390 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3391 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3392 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3393 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3394 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3395 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3396 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3397 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3399 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3400 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3401 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3402 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3403 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3404 they will permit access.
3406 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3407 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3408 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3409 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3410 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3411 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3414 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3415 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3416 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3417 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3420 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3423 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3424 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3425 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3426 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3429 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3430 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3431 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3432 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3433 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3434 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3435 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3436 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3438 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3440 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3441 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3442 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3446 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3449 This is explained in some detail at
3450 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3451 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3454 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3455 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3456 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3457 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3459 @node Security Considerations
3460 @section Security Considerations
3463 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3464 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3465 main issues, and some solutions.
3469 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3470 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3471 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3472 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3473 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3476 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3477 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3480 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3481 solution for this at the moment.
3484 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3485 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3486 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3491 @section Contributors
3492 @cindex contributors
3495 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3498 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3500 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
3501 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
3502 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3504 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3508 Karsten Thygesen---donated system resources such as the mailing list,
3509 web space, and @sc{ftp} space, along with a lot of time to make these
3513 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3516 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3520 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3524 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3525 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3528 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3529 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3533 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3536 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
3540 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3544 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3549 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3552 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3556 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
3560 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3564 The people who provided donations for development, including Brian
3568 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3569 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3570 that make maintenance so much fun:
3590 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3599 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3612 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3615 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3636 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3655 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3668 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3669 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3670 (Simos KSenitellis),
3679 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3685 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3719 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3721 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3724 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3740 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3754 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3765 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3766 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3773 @cindex free software
3775 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL),
3776 which makes it @dfn{free software}. Please note that ``free'' in ``free
3777 software'' refers to liberty, not price. As some people like to point
3778 out, it's the ``free'' of ``free speech'', not the ``free'' of ``free
3781 The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below.
3782 The GPL guarantees that you have the right (freedom) to run and change
3783 GNU Wget and distribute it to others, and even---if you want---charge
3784 money for doing any of those things. With these rights comes the
3785 obligation to distribute the source code along with the software and to
3786 grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
3788 This licensing model is also known as @dfn{open source} because it,
3789 among other things, makes sure that all recipients will receive the
3790 source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU
3791 project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons outlined at
3792 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3794 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3795 General Public License it refers to:
3798 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3799 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3800 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3801 option) any later version.
3803 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3804 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3805 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3808 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3809 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3810 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3813 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3816 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3817 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
3818 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
3819 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
3820 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3821 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3822 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3825 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3826 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3827 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3830 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3831 Documentation License are available below.
3834 * GNU General Public License::
3835 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3838 @node GNU General Public License
3839 @section GNU General Public License
3840 @center Version 2, June 1991
3843 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3844 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3846 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3847 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3850 @unnumberedsec Preamble
3852 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
3853 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
3854 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3855 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
3856 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
3857 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
3858 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
3859 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
3862 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
3863 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
3864 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
3865 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
3866 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
3867 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
3869 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
3870 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
3871 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
3872 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
3874 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
3875 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
3876 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
3877 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
3880 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
3881 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
3882 distribute and/or modify the software.
3884 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
3885 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
3886 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
3887 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
3888 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
3889 authors' reputations.
3891 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
3892 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
3893 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
3894 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
3895 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
3897 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
3898 modification follow.
3901 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3904 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3909 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
3910 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
3911 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
3912 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
3913 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
3914 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
3915 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
3916 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
3917 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
3919 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
3920 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
3921 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
3922 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
3923 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
3924 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
3927 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
3928 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
3929 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
3930 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
3931 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
3932 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
3933 along with the Program.
3935 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
3936 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3939 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
3940 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
3941 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
3942 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
3946 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
3947 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
3950 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
3951 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
3952 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
3953 parties under the terms of this License.
3956 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
3957 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
3958 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
3959 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
3960 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
3961 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
3962 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
3963 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
3964 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
3965 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
3968 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
3969 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
3970 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
3971 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
3972 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
3973 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
3974 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
3975 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
3976 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
3978 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
3979 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
3980 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
3981 collective works based on the Program.
3983 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
3984 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
3985 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
3986 the scope of this License.
3989 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
3990 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
3991 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3995 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3996 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3997 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
4000 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
4001 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
4002 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
4003 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
4004 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
4005 customarily used for software interchange; or,
4008 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
4009 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
4010 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
4011 received the program in object code or executable form with such
4012 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
4015 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
4016 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
4017 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
4018 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
4019 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
4020 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
4021 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
4022 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
4023 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
4024 itself accompanies the executable.
4026 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
4027 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
4028 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
4029 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
4030 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4033 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
4034 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
4035 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
4036 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
4037 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
4038 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
4039 parties remain in full compliance.
4042 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
4043 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
4044 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
4045 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
4046 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
4047 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
4048 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
4049 the Program or works based on it.
4052 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
4053 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
4054 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
4055 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
4056 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
4057 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
4061 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
4062 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
4063 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
4064 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
4065 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
4066 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
4067 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
4068 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
4069 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
4070 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
4071 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
4072 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
4074 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
4075 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
4076 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
4079 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
4080 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
4081 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
4082 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
4083 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
4084 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
4085 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
4086 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
4087 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
4090 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
4091 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
4094 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
4095 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
4096 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
4097 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
4098 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
4099 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
4100 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
4103 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
4104 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
4105 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
4106 address new problems or concerns.
4108 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
4109 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
4110 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
4111 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
4112 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
4113 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
4117 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
4118 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
4119 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
4120 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
4121 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
4122 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
4123 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
4126 @heading NO WARRANTY
4134 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
4135 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
4136 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
4137 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
4138 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
4139 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
4140 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
4141 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
4142 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
4145 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
4146 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
4147 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
4148 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
4149 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
4150 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
4151 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
4152 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
4153 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
4157 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
4160 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
4164 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
4166 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
4167 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
4168 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
4170 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
4171 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
4172 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
4173 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
4176 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
4177 Copyright (C) 20@var{yy} @var{name of author}
4179 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
4180 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
4181 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
4182 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
4184 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
4185 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
4186 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
4187 GNU General Public License for more details.
4189 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
4190 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
4191 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
4194 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
4196 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
4197 when it starts in an interactive mode:
4200 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 20@var{yy} @var{name of author}
4201 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
4202 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
4203 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
4207 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
4208 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
4209 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
4210 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
4213 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
4214 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
4215 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
4219 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
4220 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
4221 (which makes passes at compilers) written
4224 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
4225 Ty Coon, President of Vice
4229 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
4230 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
4231 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
4232 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
4233 Public License instead of this License.
4238 @unnumbered Concept Index