1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
6 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
7 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
9 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
14 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
18 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
19 @c the preceding @set.
21 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
23 @dircategory Network Applications
25 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
29 This file documents the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
32 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
33 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
34 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
37 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
38 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
39 are preserved on all copies.
43 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
44 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
45 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
46 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
48 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
49 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
50 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
51 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
52 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
53 Documentation License''.
58 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
59 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
60 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
61 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
65 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
66 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
69 This is @strong{not} the complete manual for GNU Wget.
70 For more complete information, including more detailed explanations of
71 some of the options, and a number of commands available
72 for use with @file{.wgetrc} files and the @samp{-e} option, see the GNU
73 Info entry for @file{wget}.
78 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
85 @node Top, Overview, (dir), (dir)
86 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
92 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
93 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
94 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
95 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
96 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
97 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
98 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
99 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
100 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
101 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of this manual.
102 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
105 @node Overview, Invoking, Top, Top
110 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
111 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
112 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
113 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
116 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
120 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
121 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
122 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
123 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
124 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
125 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
130 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
134 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
135 Wget can follow links in @sc{html}, @sc{xhtml}, and @sc{css} pages, to
136 create local versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the
137 directory structure of the original site. This is sometimes referred to
138 as ``recursive downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot
139 Exclusion Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to
140 convert the links in downloaded files to point at the local files, for
145 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
146 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
147 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
148 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
149 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
150 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
155 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
159 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
160 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
161 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
162 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
163 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
164 download from where it left off.
168 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
169 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. Wget uses the passive
170 @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp} being an option.
173 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
174 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
175 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
176 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
179 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
180 (@pxref{Following Links}).
183 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
184 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
185 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
186 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
187 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
190 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
191 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
192 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
193 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
198 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
199 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
208 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
209 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
210 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
211 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
214 @node Invoking, Recursive Download, Overview, Top
221 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
224 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
225 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
229 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
230 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
232 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
233 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
234 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
240 * Basic Startup Options::
241 * Logging and Input File Options::
243 * Directory Options::
245 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
247 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
248 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
252 @node URL Format, Option Syntax, Invoking, Invoking
257 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
258 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
259 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
260 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
264 http://host[:port]/directory/file
265 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
268 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
271 ftp://user:password@@host/path
272 http://user:password@@host/path
275 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
276 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
277 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
278 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
279 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
280 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
283 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
284 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
285 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
286 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
287 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
288 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
290 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
291 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
292 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
293 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
294 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
297 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
298 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
299 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
300 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
301 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
302 for text files. Here is an example:
305 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
308 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
309 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
311 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
316 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
321 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
322 supported in the future.
324 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
325 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
326 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
330 @node Option Syntax, Basic Startup Options, URL Format, Invoking
331 @section Option Syntax
332 @cindex option syntax
333 @cindex syntax of options
335 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
336 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
337 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
338 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
339 arguments. Thus you may write:
342 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
345 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
346 be omitted. Instead of @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
348 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
355 This is completely equivalent to:
358 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
361 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
362 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
363 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
369 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
370 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
371 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
372 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
373 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
374 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
375 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
378 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
381 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
382 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
383 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
384 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
385 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
386 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
387 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
390 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
391 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
392 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
393 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
395 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
396 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
397 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
398 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
399 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
400 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = on} in
401 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{follow} FTP links by default, and
402 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
403 default from the command line.
405 @node Basic Startup Options, Logging and Input File Options, Option Syntax, Invoking
406 @section Basic Startup Options
411 Display the version of Wget.
415 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
419 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
420 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
422 @cindex execute wgetrc command
423 @item -e @var{command}
424 @itemx --execute @var{command}
425 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
426 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
427 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
428 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
429 instances of @samp{-e}.
433 @node Logging and Input File Options, Download Options, Basic Startup Options, Invoking
434 @section Logging and Input File Options
439 @item -o @var{logfile}
440 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
441 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
444 @cindex append to log
445 @item -a @var{logfile}
446 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
447 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
448 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
449 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
454 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
455 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
456 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
457 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
458 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
459 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
460 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
466 Turn off Wget's output.
471 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
476 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
477 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
482 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
483 Read @sc{url}s from a local or external @var{file}. If @samp{-} is
484 specified as @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input.
485 (Use @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
487 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
488 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
489 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
490 retrieved. If @samp{--force-html} is not specified, then @var{file}
491 should consist of a series of URLs, one per line.
493 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
494 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
495 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
496 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
497 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
499 If the @var{file} is an external one, the document will be automatically
500 treated as @samp{html} if the Content-Type matches @samp{text/html}.
501 Furthermore, the @var{file}'s location will be implicitly used as base
502 href if none was specified.
507 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
508 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
509 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
510 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
513 @cindex base for relative links in input file
515 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
516 Resolves relative links using @var{URL} as the point of reference,
517 when reading links from an HTML file specified via the
518 @samp{-i}/@samp{--input-file} option (together with
519 @samp{--force-html}, or when the input file was fetched remotely from
520 a server describing it as @sc{html}). This is equivalent to the
521 presence of a @code{BASE} tag in the @sc{html} input file, with
522 @var{URL} as the value for the @code{href} attribute.
524 For instance, if you specify @samp{http://foo/bar/a.html} for
525 @var{URL}, and Wget reads @samp{../baz/b.html} from the input file, it
526 would be resolved to @samp{http://foo/baz/b.html}.
529 @node Download Options, Directory Options, Logging and Input File Options, Invoking
530 @section Download Options
534 @cindex client IP address
535 @cindex IP address, client
536 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
537 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
538 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
539 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
544 @cindex number of retries
545 @item -t @var{number}
546 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
547 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
548 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
549 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
550 which are not retried.
553 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
554 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
555 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
556 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
557 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
558 literally named @samp{-}.)
560 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
561 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
562 analogous to shell redirection:
563 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
564 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
565 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
567 For this reason, @samp{-N} (for timestamp-checking) is not supported
568 in combination with @samp{-O}: since @var{file} is always newly
569 created, it will always have a very new timestamp. A warning will be
570 issued if this combination is used.
572 Similarly, using @samp{-r} or @samp{-p} with @samp{-O} may not work as
573 you expect: Wget won't just download the first file to @var{file} and
574 then download the rest to their normal names: @emph{all} downloaded
575 content will be placed in @var{file}. This was disabled in version
576 1.11, but has been reinstated (with a warning) in 1.11.2, as there are
577 some cases where this behavior can actually have some use.
579 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
580 downloading a single document, as in that case it will just convert
581 all relative URIs to external ones; @samp{-k} makes no sense for
582 multiple URIs when they're all being downloaded to a single file.
584 @cindex clobbering, file
585 @cindex downloading multiple times
589 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
590 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
591 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
592 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
594 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or
595 @samp{-p}, downloading the same file in the same directory will result
596 in the original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy
597 being named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet
598 again, the third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on.
599 (This is also the behavior with @samp{-nd}, even if @samp{-r} or
600 @samp{-p} are in effect.) When @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior
601 is suppressed, and Wget will refuse to download newer copies of
602 @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore, ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a
603 misnomer in this mode---it's not clobbering that's prevented (as the
604 numeric suffixes were already preventing clobbering), but rather the
605 multiple version saving that's prevented.
607 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N},
608 @samp{-nd}, or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the
609 new copy simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent
610 this behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved
611 and any newer copies on the server to be ignored.
613 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
614 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
615 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
616 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
617 same time as @samp{-N}.
619 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
620 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
621 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
623 @cindex continue retrieval
624 @cindex incomplete downloads
625 @cindex resume download
628 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
629 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
630 by another program. For instance:
633 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
636 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
637 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
638 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
639 length of the local file.
641 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
642 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
643 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
644 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
645 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
647 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
648 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
651 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
652 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
653 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
654 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
655 start from scratch, remove the file.
657 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
658 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
659 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
660 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
661 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
662 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
664 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
665 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
666 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
667 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
668 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
669 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
670 collection or log file.
672 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
673 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
674 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
675 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
676 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
677 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
679 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
680 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
681 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
682 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
684 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
685 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
687 @cindex progress indicator
689 @item --progress=@var{type}
690 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
691 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
693 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
694 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
695 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
698 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
699 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
700 fixed amount of downloaded data.
702 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
703 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
704 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
705 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
706 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
707 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
708 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
709 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
710 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
712 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
713 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
714 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
715 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
716 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
719 @itemx --timestamping
720 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
722 @item --no-use-server-timestamps
723 Don't set the local file's timestamp by the one on the server.
725 By default, when a file is downloaded, it's timestamps are set to
726 match those from the remote file. This allows the use of
727 @samp{--timestamping} on subsequent invocations of wget. However, it
728 is sometimes useful to base the local file's timestamp on when it was
729 actually downloaded; for that purpose, the
730 @samp{--no-use-server-timestamps} option has been provided.
732 @cindex server response, print
734 @itemx --server-response
735 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
738 @cindex Wget as spider
741 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
742 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
743 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
746 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
749 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
750 functionality of real web spiders.
754 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
755 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
756 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
757 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
759 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
760 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
761 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
762 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
763 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
764 change the default timeout settings.
766 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
767 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
768 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
769 server response times or for testing network latency.
773 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
774 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
775 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
776 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
779 @cindex connect timeout
780 @cindex timeout, connect
781 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
782 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
783 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
784 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
787 @cindex timeout, read
788 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
789 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
790 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
791 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
792 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
793 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
795 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
796 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
799 @cindex bandwidth, limit
801 @cindex limit bandwidth
802 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
803 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
804 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
805 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
806 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
807 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
809 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
810 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
813 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
814 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
815 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
816 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
817 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
818 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
822 @item -w @var{seconds}
823 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
824 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
825 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
826 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
827 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
828 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
830 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
831 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
832 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
833 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
834 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
836 @cindex retries, waiting between
837 @cindex waiting between retries
838 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
839 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
840 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
841 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
842 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
843 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
844 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
847 By default, Wget will assume a value of 10 seconds.
852 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
853 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
854 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
855 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
856 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
857 presence from such analysis.
859 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
860 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
861 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
862 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
865 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
866 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
871 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
875 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
880 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
881 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
882 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
883 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
885 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
886 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
887 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
888 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
889 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
890 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
891 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
893 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
896 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
898 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
899 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
900 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
901 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
904 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
905 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
906 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
907 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
908 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
909 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
910 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
913 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
916 @cindex file names, restrict
917 @cindex Windows file names
918 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{modes}
919 Change which characters found in remote URLs must be escaped during
920 generation of local filenames. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
921 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
922 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
923 character. This option may also be used to force all alphabetical
924 cases to be either lower- or uppercase.
926 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid or safe as
927 part of file names on your operating system, as well as control
928 characters that are typically unprintable. This option is useful for
929 changing these defaults, perhaps because you are downloading to a
930 non-native partition, or because you want to disable escaping of the
931 control characters, or you want to further restrict characters to only
932 those in the @sc{ascii} range of values.
934 The @var{modes} are a comma-separated set of text values. The
935 acceptable values are @samp{unix}, @samp{windows}, @samp{nocontrol},
936 @samp{ascii}, @samp{lowercase}, and @samp{uppercase}. The values
937 @samp{unix} and @samp{windows} are mutually exclusive (one will
938 override the other), as are @samp{lowercase} and
939 @samp{uppercase}. Those last are special cases, as they do not change
940 the set of characters that would be escaped, but rather force local
941 file paths to be converted either to lower- or uppercase.
943 When ``unix'' is specified, Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
944 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
945 default on Unix-like operating systems.
947 When ``windows'' is given, Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
948 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
949 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
950 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
951 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
952 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
953 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
954 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
955 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
956 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
958 If you specify @samp{nocontrol}, then the escaping of the control
959 characters is also switched off. This option may make sense
960 when you are downloading URLs whose names contain UTF-8 characters, on
961 a system which can save and display filenames in UTF-8 (some possible
962 byte values used in UTF-8 byte sequences fall in the range of values
963 designated by Wget as ``controls'').
965 The @samp{ascii} mode is used to specify that any bytes whose values
966 are outside the range of @sc{ascii} characters (that is, greater than
967 127) shall be escaped. This can be useful when saving filenames
968 whose encoding does not match the one used locally.
975 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
976 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
977 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
978 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
979 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
981 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
982 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
983 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
984 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
985 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
987 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
988 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
989 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
990 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
991 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
994 @item --prefer-family=none/IPv4/IPv6
995 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
996 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
997 DNS is used without change by default.
999 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
1000 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
1001 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
1002 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
1003 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
1004 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
1005 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
1006 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
1008 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
1009 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
1010 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
1011 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
1012 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
1013 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
1015 @item --retry-connrefused
1016 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
1017 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
1018 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
1019 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
1020 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
1021 short periods of time.
1025 @cindex authentication
1026 @item --user=@var{user}
1027 @itemx --password=@var{password}
1028 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
1029 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
1030 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
1031 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
1032 options for @sc{http} connections.
1034 @item --ask-password
1035 Prompt for a password for each connection established. Cannot be specified
1036 when @samp{--password} is being used, because they are mutually exclusive.
1042 Turn off internationalized URI (IRI) support. Use @samp{--iri} to
1043 turn it on. IRI support is activated by default.
1045 You can set the default state of IRI support using the @code{iri}
1046 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
1049 @cindex local encoding
1050 @item --local-encoding=@var{encoding}
1052 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default system encoding. That affects
1053 how Wget converts URLs specified as arguments from locale to @sc{utf-8} for
1056 Wget use the function @code{nl_langinfo()} and then the @code{CHARSET}
1057 environment variable to get the locale. If it fails, @sc{ascii} is used.
1059 You can set the default local encoding using the @code{local_encoding}
1060 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
1063 @cindex remote encoding
1064 @item --remote-encoding=@var{encoding}
1066 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default remote server encoding.
1067 That affects how Wget converts URIs found in files from remote encoding
1068 to @sc{utf-8} during a recursive fetch. This options is only useful for
1069 IRI support, for the interpretation of non-@sc{ascii} characters.
1071 For HTTP, remote encoding can be found in HTTP @code{Content-Type}
1072 header and in HTML @code{Content-Type http-equiv} meta tag.
1074 You can set the default encoding using the @code{remoteencoding}
1075 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
1079 @node Directory Options, HTTP Options, Download Options, Invoking
1080 @section Directory Options
1084 @itemx --no-directories
1085 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
1086 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
1087 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
1088 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
1091 @itemx --force-directories
1092 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
1093 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
1094 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1095 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1098 @itemx --no-host-directories
1099 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1100 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1101 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1104 @item --protocol-directories
1105 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1106 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1107 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1109 @cindex cut directories
1110 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1111 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1112 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1115 Take, for example, the directory at
1116 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1117 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1118 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1119 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1120 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1121 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1122 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1126 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1128 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1129 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1131 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1136 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1137 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1138 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1139 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1140 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1142 @cindex directory prefix
1143 @item -P @var{prefix}
1144 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1145 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1146 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1147 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1151 @node HTTP Options, HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options, Directory Options, Invoking
1152 @section HTTP Options
1155 @cindex default page name
1157 @item --default-page=@var{name}
1158 Use @var{name} as the default file name when it isn't known (i.e., for
1159 URLs that end in a slash), instead of @file{index.html}.
1161 @cindex .html extension
1162 @cindex .css extension
1164 @itemx --adjust-extension
1165 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1166 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1167 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1168 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1169 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1170 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1171 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1172 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1173 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1175 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1176 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1177 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1178 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1179 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1180 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1181 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1182 Retrieval Options}).
1184 As of version 1.12, Wget will also ensure that any downloaded files of
1185 type @samp{text/css} end in the suffix @samp{.css}, and the option was
1186 renamed from @samp{--html-extension}, to better reflect its new
1187 behavior. The old option name is still acceptable, but should now be
1188 considered deprecated.
1190 At some point in the future, this option may well be expanded to
1191 include suffixes for other types of content, including content types
1192 that are not parsed by Wget.
1195 @cindex http password
1196 @cindex authentication
1197 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1198 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1199 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1200 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1201 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1202 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1204 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1205 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1206 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1207 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1208 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1209 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1210 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1213 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1217 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1218 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1219 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1220 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1221 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1222 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1223 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1224 the load on the server.
1226 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1227 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1228 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1233 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1234 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1235 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1236 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1237 documents on proxy servers.
1239 Caching is allowed by default.
1243 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1244 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1245 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1246 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1247 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1248 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1249 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1251 @cindex loading cookies
1252 @cindex cookies, loading
1253 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1254 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1255 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1256 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1258 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1259 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1260 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1261 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1262 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1263 proves your identity.
1265 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1266 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1267 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1268 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1269 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1270 cookie files in different locations:
1274 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1276 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1277 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1278 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1279 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1280 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1282 @item Internet Explorer.
1283 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1284 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1285 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1287 @item Other browsers.
1288 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1289 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1290 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1293 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1294 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1295 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1296 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1297 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1300 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1303 @cindex saving cookies
1304 @cindex cookies, saving
1305 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1306 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1307 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1308 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1310 @cindex cookies, session
1311 @cindex session cookies
1312 @item --keep-session-cookies
1313 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1314 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1315 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1316 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1317 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1318 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1319 the site is concerned.
1321 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1322 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1323 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1324 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1325 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1326 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1327 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1329 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1330 @cindex ignore length
1331 @item --ignore-length
1332 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1333 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1334 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1335 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1336 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1339 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1340 if it never existed.
1343 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1344 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1345 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1346 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1349 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1350 @samp{--header} more than once.
1354 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1355 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1356 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1360 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1361 previous user-defined headers.
1363 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1364 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1365 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1368 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1371 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1372 sending of duplicate headers.
1375 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1376 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1377 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1378 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1382 @cindex proxy password
1383 @cindex proxy authentication
1384 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1385 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1386 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1387 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1388 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1390 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1391 pertain here as well.
1393 @cindex http referer
1394 @cindex referer, http
1395 @item --referer=@var{url}
1396 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1397 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1398 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1399 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1401 @cindex server response, save
1402 @item --save-headers
1403 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1404 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1407 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1408 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1409 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1411 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1412 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1413 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1414 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1415 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1418 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1419 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1420 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1421 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1422 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1423 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1424 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1427 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1428 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1431 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1432 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1433 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified
1434 data in the request body. @samp{--post-data} sends @var{string} as
1435 data, whereas @samp{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}.
1436 Other than that, they work in exactly the same way. In particular,
1437 they @emph{both} expect content of the form @code{key1=value1&key2=value2},
1438 with percent-encoding for special characters; the only difference is
1439 that one expects its content as a command-line paramter and the other
1440 accepts its content from a file. In particular, @samp{--post-file} is
1441 @emph{not} for transmitting files as form attachments: those must
1442 appear as @code{key=value} data (with appropriate percent-coding) just
1443 like everything else. Wget does not currently support
1444 @code{multipart/form-data} for transmitting POST data; only
1445 @code{application/x-www-form-urlencoded}. Only one of
1446 @samp{--post-data} and @samp{--post-file} should be specified.
1448 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1449 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1450 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1451 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1452 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1453 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1454 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1455 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1456 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1458 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1459 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1460 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1461 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1462 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1463 be changed in the future.
1465 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1466 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1471 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1472 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1473 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1474 http://server.com/auth.php
1476 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1477 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1478 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1482 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1483 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1484 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1485 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1486 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1488 @cindex Content-Disposition
1489 @item --content-disposition
1491 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
1492 @code{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
1493 extra round-trips to the server for a @code{HEAD} request, and is known
1494 to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by default.
1496 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
1497 @code{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
1498 downloaded file should be.
1500 @cindex authentication
1501 @item --auth-no-challenge
1503 If this option is given, Wget will send Basic HTTP authentication
1504 information (plaintext username and password) for all requests, just
1505 like Wget 1.10.2 and prior did by default.
1507 Use of this option is not recommended, and is intended only to support
1508 some few obscure servers, which never send HTTP authentication
1509 challenges, but accept unsolicited auth info, say, in addition to
1510 form-based authentication.
1514 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options, FTP Options, HTTP Options, Invoking
1515 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1518 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1519 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1520 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1523 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1524 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1525 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1526 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1527 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1528 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1529 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1531 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1532 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1533 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1534 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1537 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1538 @item --no-check-certificate
1539 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1540 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1541 name presented by the certificate.
1543 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1544 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1545 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1546 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1547 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1548 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1549 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1550 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1551 and allows you to proceed.
1553 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1554 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1555 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1556 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1557 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1558 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1559 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1561 @cindex SSL certificate
1562 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1563 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1564 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1565 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1568 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1569 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1570 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1571 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1574 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1575 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1576 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1578 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1579 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1580 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1582 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1583 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1584 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1586 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1587 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1589 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1590 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1591 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1592 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1593 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1594 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1595 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1596 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1597 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1599 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1600 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1602 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1603 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1604 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1605 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1606 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1608 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1609 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1610 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1611 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1612 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1613 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1616 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1617 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1621 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1622 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1623 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1624 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1625 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1626 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1627 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1629 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1630 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1631 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1632 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1634 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1635 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1636 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1639 @node FTP Options, Recursive Retrieval Options, HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options, Invoking
1640 @section FTP Options
1644 @cindex ftp password
1645 @cindex ftp authentication
1646 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1647 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1648 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1649 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1650 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1653 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1654 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1655 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1656 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1657 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1658 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1659 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1662 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1666 @cindex .listing files, removing
1667 @item --no-remove-listing
1668 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1669 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1670 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1671 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1672 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1673 you're running is complete).
1675 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1676 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1677 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1678 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1679 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1680 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1681 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1682 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1683 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1685 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1686 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1687 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1688 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1689 will be overwritten.
1691 @cindex globbing, toggle
1693 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1694 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1695 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1699 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1702 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1703 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1706 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1707 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1708 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1709 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1712 @item --no-passive-ftp
1713 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1714 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1715 connection rather than the other way around.
1717 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1718 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1719 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1720 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1721 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1722 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1724 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1725 @item --retr-symlinks
1726 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1727 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1728 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1729 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1730 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1732 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1733 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1734 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1735 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1738 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1739 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1740 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1744 @node Recursive Retrieval Options, Recursive Accept/Reject Options, FTP Options, Invoking
1745 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1750 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1753 @item -l @var{depth}
1754 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1755 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1756 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1758 @cindex proxy filling
1759 @cindex delete after retrieval
1760 @cindex filling proxy cache
1761 @item --delete-after
1762 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1763 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1764 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1767 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1770 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1773 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1774 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1775 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1776 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1777 created in the first place.
1779 @cindex conversion of links
1780 @cindex link conversion
1782 @itemx --convert-links
1783 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1784 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1785 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1786 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1789 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1793 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1794 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1796 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1797 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1798 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1799 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1802 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1803 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1805 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1806 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1807 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1808 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1811 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1812 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1813 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1814 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1815 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1818 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1819 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1820 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1822 @cindex backing up converted files
1824 @itemx --backup-converted
1825 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1826 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1831 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1832 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1833 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1834 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1836 @cindex page requisites
1837 @cindex required images, downloading
1839 @itemx --page-requisites
1840 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1841 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1842 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1844 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1845 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1846 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1847 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1848 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1851 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1852 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1853 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1854 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1855 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1857 If one executes the command:
1860 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1863 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1864 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1865 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1866 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1867 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1870 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1873 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1874 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1877 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1880 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1881 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1884 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1887 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1888 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1889 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1890 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1891 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1892 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1895 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1898 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1899 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1900 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1901 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1902 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1903 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1906 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1909 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1910 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1911 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1914 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1915 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1916 @item --strict-comments
1917 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1918 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1920 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1921 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1922 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1923 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1924 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1925 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1926 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1928 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1929 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1930 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1931 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1932 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1933 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1934 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1935 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1936 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1938 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1939 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1940 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1941 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1942 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1945 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1946 option to turn it on.
1949 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options, Exit Status, Recursive Retrieval Options, Invoking
1950 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1953 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1954 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1955 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1956 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
1957 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1958 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1959 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1961 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1962 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1963 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1964 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1966 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1967 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1968 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1970 @cindex follow FTP links
1972 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1973 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1975 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1976 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1977 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1978 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1979 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1980 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1981 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1983 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1984 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1985 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1986 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1988 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1989 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1992 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1995 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1996 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1997 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1998 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1999 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
2000 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
2005 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
2006 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
2007 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
2008 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
2009 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
2013 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
2014 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2018 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
2019 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
2020 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
2023 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
2024 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2025 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
2026 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
2029 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
2030 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2031 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
2032 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
2036 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
2037 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
2038 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
2039 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
2044 @node Exit Status, , Recursive Accept/Reject Options, Invoking
2045 @section Exit Status
2047 @c man begin EXITSTATUS
2049 Wget may return one of several error codes if it encounters problems.
2054 No problems occurred.
2060 Parse error---for instance, when parsing command-line options, the
2061 @samp{.wgetrc} or @samp{.netrc}...
2070 SSL verification failure.
2073 Username/password authentication failure.
2079 Server issued an error response.
2083 With the exceptions of 0 and 1, the lower-numbered exit codes take
2084 precedence over higher-numbered ones, when multiple types of errors
2087 In versions of Wget prior to 1.12, Wget's exit status tended to be
2088 unhelpful and inconsistent. Recursive downloads would virtually always
2089 return 0 (success), regardless of any issues encountered, and
2090 non-recursive fetches only returned the status corresponding to the
2091 most recently-attempted download.
2095 @node Recursive Download, Following Links, Invoking, Top
2096 @chapter Recursive Download
2099 @cindex recursive download
2101 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
2102 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
2103 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
2105 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} or
2106 @sc{css} from the given @sc{url}, retrieving the files the document
2107 refers to, through markup like @code{href} or @code{src}, or @sc{css}
2108 @sc{uri} values specified using the @samp{url()} functional notation.
2109 If the freshly downloaded file is also of type @code{text/html},
2110 @code{application/xhtml+xml}, or @code{text/css}, it will be parsed
2111 and followed further.
2113 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html}/@sc{css} content is
2114 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
2115 document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
2116 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
2117 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
2118 until the specified maximum depth.
2120 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
2121 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
2123 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
2124 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
2125 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
2126 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
2127 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
2130 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
2131 the one found on the remote server.
2133 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
2134 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
2135 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
2136 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
2138 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
2139 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
2140 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
2141 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
2142 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
2143 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
2144 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
2146 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
2147 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
2148 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
2149 consume memory and CPU.
2151 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
2152 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
2153 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
2154 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
2155 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
2156 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
2157 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
2160 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
2163 @node Following Links, Time-Stamping, Recursive Download, Top
2164 @chapter Following Links
2166 @cindex following links
2168 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
2169 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
2170 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
2172 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
2173 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
2174 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
2176 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
2177 links it will follow.
2180 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
2181 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
2182 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
2183 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
2184 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
2187 @node Spanning Hosts, Types of Files, Following Links, Following Links
2188 @section Spanning Hosts
2189 @cindex spanning hosts
2190 @cindex hosts, spanning
2192 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
2193 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2194 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2195 your Wget into a small version of google.
2197 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2198 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2199 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2200 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2201 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2204 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2206 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2207 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2208 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2209 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2210 up much more data than you have intended.
2212 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2214 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2215 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2216 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2217 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2218 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2219 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2222 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2225 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2226 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2228 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2230 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2231 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2232 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2233 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2234 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2238 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2244 @node Types of Files, Directory-Based Limits, Spanning Hosts, Following Links
2245 @section Types of Files
2246 @cindex types of files
2248 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2249 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2250 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2251 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2253 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2254 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2257 @cindex accept wildcards
2258 @cindex accept suffixes
2259 @cindex wildcards, accept
2260 @cindex suffixes, accept
2262 @item -A @var{acclist}
2263 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2264 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2265 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2266 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2267 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2268 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2269 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2271 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2272 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2273 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2274 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2275 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2276 a description of how pattern matching works.
2278 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2279 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2281 @cindex reject wildcards
2282 @cindex reject suffixes
2283 @cindex wildcards, reject
2284 @cindex suffixes, reject
2285 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2286 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2287 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2288 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2289 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2290 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2292 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2293 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2294 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2295 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2296 expansion by the shell.
2300 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2301 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2302 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2303 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2305 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2306 files (as determined by a @samp{.htm} or @samp{.html} filename
2307 prefix). This behavior may not be desirable for all users, and may be
2308 changed for future versions of Wget.
2310 Note, too, that query strings (strings at the end of a URL beginning
2311 with a question mark (@samp{?}) are not included as part of the
2312 filename for accept/reject rules, even though these will actually
2313 contribute to the name chosen for the local file. It is expected that
2314 a future version of Wget will provide an option to allow matching
2315 against query strings.
2317 Finally, it's worth noting that the accept/reject lists are matched
2318 @emph{twice} against downloaded files: once against the URL's filename
2319 portion, to determine if the file should be downloaded in the first
2320 place; then, after it has been accepted and successfully downloaded,
2321 the local file's name is also checked against the accept/reject lists
2322 to see if it should be removed. The rationale was that, since
2323 @samp{.htm} and @samp{.html} files are always downloaded regardless of
2324 accept/reject rules, they should be removed @emph{after} being
2325 downloaded and scanned for links, if they did match the accept/reject
2326 lists. However, this can lead to unexpected results, since the local
2327 filenames can differ from the original URL filenames in the following
2328 ways, all of which can change whether an accept/reject rule matches:
2332 If the local file already exists and @samp{--no-directories} was
2333 specified, a numeric suffix will be appended to the original name.
2335 If @samp{--adjust-extension} was specified, the local filename might have
2336 @samp{.html} appended to it. If Wget is invoked with @samp{-E -A.php},
2337 a filename such as @samp{index.php} will match be accepted, but upon
2338 download will be named @samp{index.php.html}, which no longer matches,
2339 and so the file will be deleted.
2341 Query strings do not contribute to URL matching, but are included in
2342 local filenames, and so @emph{do} contribute to filename matching.
2346 This behavior, too, is considered less-than-desirable, and may change
2347 in a future version of Wget.
2349 @node Directory-Based Limits, Relative Links, Types of Files, Following Links
2350 @section Directory-Based Limits
2352 @cindex directory limits
2354 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2355 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2356 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2357 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2358 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2359 @file{/dev} directories.
2361 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2362 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2363 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2365 @cindex directories, include
2366 @cindex include directories
2367 @cindex accept directories
2370 @itemx --include @var{list}
2371 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2372 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2373 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2374 directories are absolute paths.
2376 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2377 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2378 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2381 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2384 @cindex directories, exclude
2385 @cindex exclude directories
2386 @cindex reject directories
2388 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2389 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2390 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2391 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2392 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2393 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2395 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2396 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2397 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2398 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2403 @itemx no_parent = on
2404 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2405 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2406 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2407 parent directory/directories.
2409 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2410 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2411 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2414 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2417 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2418 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2419 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2420 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2421 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2422 intelligent fashion.
2424 @strong{Note} that, for HTTP (and HTTPS), the trailing slash is very
2425 important to @samp{--no-parent}. HTTP has no concept of a ``directory''---Wget
2426 relies on you to indicate what's a directory and what isn't. In
2427 @samp{http://foo/bar/}, Wget will consider @samp{bar} to be a
2428 directory, while in @samp{http://foo/bar} (no trailing slash),
2429 @samp{bar} will be considered a filename (so @samp{--no-parent} would be
2430 meaningless, as its parent is @samp{/}).
2433 @node Relative Links, FTP Links, Directory-Based Limits, Following Links
2434 @section Relative Links
2435 @cindex relative links
2437 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2438 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2439 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2443 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2444 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2447 These links are not relative:
2451 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2452 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2455 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2456 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2457 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2459 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2462 @node FTP Links, , Relative Links, Following Links
2463 @section Following FTP Links
2464 @cindex following ftp links
2466 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2467 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2468 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2471 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2472 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2473 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2474 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2475 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2476 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2477 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2479 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2480 retrieved recursively further.
2482 @node Time-Stamping, Startup File, Following Links, Top
2483 @chapter Time-Stamping
2484 @cindex time-stamping
2485 @cindex timestamping
2486 @cindex updating the archives
2487 @cindex incremental updating
2489 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2490 Internet is updating your archives.
2492 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2493 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2494 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2495 offer the option of incremental updating.
2497 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2498 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2499 the place of the old ones.
2501 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2505 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2508 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2509 recently than the local file.
2512 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2513 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2514 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2516 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2517 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2518 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2519 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2520 does, and the remote file is not newer, Wget will not download it.
2522 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2523 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2527 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2528 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2529 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2532 @node Time-Stamping Usage, HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping, Time-Stamping
2533 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2534 @cindex time-stamping usage
2535 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2537 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2538 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2541 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2544 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2545 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2546 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2547 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2549 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2550 changed, and download it if it has.
2553 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2556 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2557 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2558 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2559 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2561 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2564 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2567 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2568 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2570 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2571 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2572 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2573 since the last download.
2575 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2576 command like the following, weekly:
2579 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2582 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2583 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2584 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2585 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2586 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2588 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping Usage, Time-Stamping
2589 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2590 @cindex http time-stamping
2592 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2593 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2594 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2595 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2596 retrieved unconditionally.
2598 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2599 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2600 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2603 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2604 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2605 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2606 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2607 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2608 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2611 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2612 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2613 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2614 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2615 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2617 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2618 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2620 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals, , HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping
2621 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2622 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2624 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2625 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2628 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2629 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2630 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2631 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2632 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2633 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2634 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2635 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2637 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2638 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2639 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2640 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2641 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2642 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2644 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2645 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2646 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2647 Wget may support this command in the future.
2649 @node Startup File, Examples, Time-Stamping, Top
2650 @chapter Startup File
2651 @cindex startup file
2657 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2658 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2659 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2660 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2662 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2663 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2664 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2665 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2667 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2671 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2672 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2673 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2674 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2677 @node Wgetrc Location, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File, Startup File
2678 @section Wgetrc Location
2679 @cindex wgetrc location
2680 @cindex location of wgetrc
2682 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2683 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2684 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2685 from there, if it exists.
2687 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2688 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2689 further attempts will be made.
2691 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2693 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2694 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2695 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2696 Fascist admins, away!
2698 @node Wgetrc Syntax, Wgetrc Commands, Wgetrc Location, Startup File
2699 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2700 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2701 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2703 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2709 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2710 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2712 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2713 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2714 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2717 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2718 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2719 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2725 @node Wgetrc Commands, Sample Wgetrc, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File
2726 @section Wgetrc Commands
2727 @cindex wgetrc commands
2729 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2730 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2731 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2733 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2734 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2735 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2736 values can be any non-empty string.
2738 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2739 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2740 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2743 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2744 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2746 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2747 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2749 @item ask_password = on/off
2750 Prompt for a password for each connection established. Cannot be specified
2751 when @samp{--password} is being used, because they are mutually
2752 exclusive. Equivalent to @samp{--ask-password}.
2754 @item auth_no_challenge = on/off
2755 If this option is given, Wget will send Basic HTTP authentication
2756 information (plaintext username and password) for all requests. See
2757 @samp{--auth-no-challenge}.
2759 @item background = on/off
2760 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2763 @item backup_converted = on/off
2764 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2765 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2767 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2768 @c #### Document me!
2770 @item base = @var{string}
2771 Consider relative @sc{url}s in input files (specified via the
2772 @samp{input} command or the @samp{--input-file}/@samp{-i} option,
2773 together with @samp{force_html} or @samp{--force-html})
2774 as being relative to @var{string}---the same as @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2776 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2777 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2779 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2780 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2781 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2783 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2784 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2785 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2787 @item cache = on/off
2788 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2791 @item certificate = @var{file}
2792 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2793 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2795 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2796 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2797 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2798 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2800 @item check_certificate = on/off
2801 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2802 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2803 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2805 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2806 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2808 @item content_disposition = on/off
2809 Turn on recognition of the (non-standard) @samp{Content-Disposition}
2810 HTTP header---if set to @samp{on}, the same as @samp{--content-disposition}.
2812 @item continue = on/off
2813 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2814 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2816 @item convert_links = on/off
2817 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2819 @item cookies = on/off
2820 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2822 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2823 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2824 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2826 @item debug = on/off
2827 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2829 @item default_page = @var{string}
2830 Default page name---the same as @samp{--default-page=@var{string}}.
2832 @item delete_after = on/off
2833 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2835 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2836 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2838 @item dirstruct = on/off
2839 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2842 @item dns_cache = on/off
2843 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2844 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2845 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2847 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2848 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2850 @item domains = @var{string}
2851 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2853 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2854 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2855 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2856 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2857 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2858 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2859 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2861 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2862 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2864 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2865 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2866 the retrieval (50 by default).
2868 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2869 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2870 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2872 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2873 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2874 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2877 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2878 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2881 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2882 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2883 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2885 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2886 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2887 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2889 @item force_html = on/off
2890 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2891 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2893 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2894 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2895 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2896 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2898 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2900 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2901 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2904 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2905 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2907 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2910 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2912 @item header = @var{string}
2913 Define a header for HTTP downloads, like using
2914 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2916 @item adjust_extension = on/off
2917 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2918 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files that lack one, or a @samp{.css}
2919 extension to @samp{text/css} files that lack one, like
2920 @samp{-E}. Previously named @samp{html_extension} (still acceptable,
2923 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2924 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2925 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2927 @item http_password = @var{string}
2928 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2929 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2931 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2932 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2935 @item http_user = @var{string}
2936 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2937 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2939 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2940 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2943 @item ignore_case = on/off
2944 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2945 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2947 @item ignore_length = on/off
2948 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2949 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2951 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2952 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2953 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2955 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2956 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2957 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2960 When set to on, enable internationalized URI (IRI) support; the same as
2963 @item inet4_only = on/off
2964 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2965 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2966 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2967 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2969 @item inet6_only = on/off
2970 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2971 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2974 @item input = @var{file}
2975 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2977 @item keep_session_cookies = on/off
2978 When specified, causes @samp{save_cookies = on} to also save session
2979 cookies. See @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
2981 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2982 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2983 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2985 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2986 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2988 @item local_encoding = @var{encoding}
2989 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default system encoding. See
2990 @samp{--local-encoding}.
2992 @item logfile = @var{file}
2993 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2995 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
2996 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
2997 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
2999 @item mirror = on/off
3000 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
3002 @item netrc = on/off
3003 Turn reading netrc on or off.
3005 @item no_clobber = on/off
3008 @item no_parent = on/off
3009 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
3010 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
3012 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
3013 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
3014 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
3016 @item output_document = @var{file}
3017 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
3019 @item page_requisites = on/off
3020 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
3021 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
3023 @item passive_ftp = on/off
3024 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
3025 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
3027 @itemx password = @var{string}
3028 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
3029 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
3030 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
3032 @item post_data = @var{string}
3033 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
3034 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
3036 @item post_file = @var{file}
3037 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
3038 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
3039 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
3041 @item prefer_family = none/IPv4/IPv6
3042 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
3043 with specified address family first. The address order returned by
3044 DNS is used without change by default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family},
3045 which see for a detailed discussion of why this is useful.
3047 @item private_key = @var{file}
3048 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
3049 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
3051 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
3052 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
3053 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
3054 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
3056 @item progress = @var{string}
3057 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
3058 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
3060 @item protocol_directories = on/off
3061 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
3062 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
3064 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
3065 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
3066 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
3068 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
3069 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
3070 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
3072 @item quiet = on/off
3073 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
3075 @item quota = @var{quota}
3076 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
3077 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
3078 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
3079 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
3080 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
3081 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
3084 @item random_file = @var{file}
3085 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
3088 @item random_wait = on/off
3089 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
3090 @samp{--random-wait}.
3092 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
3093 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
3094 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
3096 @item reclevel = @var{n}
3097 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
3099 @item recursive = on/off
3100 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
3102 @item referer = @var{string}
3103 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
3104 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
3105 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
3107 @item relative_only = on/off
3108 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
3111 @item remote_encoding = @var{encoding}
3112 Force Wget to use @var{encoding} as the default remote server encoding.
3113 See @samp{--remote-encoding}.
3115 @item remove_listing = on/off
3116 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
3117 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
3119 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
3120 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
3121 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
3123 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
3124 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
3125 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
3127 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
3128 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
3129 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
3131 @item robots = on/off
3132 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
3133 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
3134 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
3135 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
3138 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
3139 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
3142 @item save_headers = on/off
3143 Same as @samp{--save-headers}.
3145 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
3146 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
3147 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
3148 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
3150 @item server_response = on/off
3151 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
3152 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
3154 @item span_hosts = on/off
3157 @item spider = on/off
3158 Same as @samp{--spider}.
3160 @item strict_comments = on/off
3161 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
3163 @item timeout = @var{n}
3164 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
3167 @item timestamping = on/off
3168 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
3170 @item use_server_timestamps = on/off
3171 If set to @samp{off}, Wget won't set the local file's timestamp by the
3172 one on the server (same as @samp{--no-use-server-timestamps}).
3174 @item tries = @var{n}
3175 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
3177 @item use_proxy = on/off
3178 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
3179 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
3182 @item user = @var{string}
3183 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
3184 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
3185 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
3187 @item user_agent = @var{string}
3188 User agent identification sent to the HTTP Server---the same as
3189 @samp{--user-agent=@var{string}}.
3191 @item verbose = on/off
3192 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
3194 @item wait = @var{n}
3195 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
3198 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
3199 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
3200 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
3201 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
3204 @node Sample Wgetrc, , Wgetrc Commands, Startup File
3205 @section Sample Wgetrc
3206 @cindex sample wgetrc
3208 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
3209 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
3210 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
3211 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
3213 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
3214 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
3218 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
3221 @node Examples, Various, Startup File, Top
3225 @c man begin EXAMPLES
3226 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
3230 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
3231 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
3232 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
3235 @node Simple Usage, Advanced Usage, Examples, Examples
3236 @section Simple Usage
3240 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
3243 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
3247 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
3248 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
3249 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
3250 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
3251 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
3252 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
3255 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
3259 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
3260 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
3261 shall use @samp{-t}.
3264 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
3267 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
3268 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
3271 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
3275 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
3279 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
3280 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
3283 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3288 @node Advanced Usage, Very Advanced Usage, Simple Usage, Examples
3289 @section Advanced Usage
3293 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3300 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3304 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3305 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3306 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3309 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3313 The same as the above, but convert the links in the downloaded files to
3314 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3317 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3321 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3322 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3323 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3324 references the downloaded links.
3327 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3330 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3331 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3332 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3335 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3336 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3337 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3338 subdirectory of the current directory.
3341 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3342 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3346 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3350 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3354 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3357 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3362 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3366 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3370 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3371 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3372 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3376 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3379 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3380 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3381 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3382 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3383 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3387 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3388 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3392 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3396 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3397 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3400 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3403 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3404 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3407 @cindex redirecting output
3409 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3413 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3416 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3417 documents from remote hotlists:
3420 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3424 @node Very Advanced Usage, , Advanced Usage, Examples
3425 @section Very Advanced Usage
3430 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3431 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3432 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3433 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3437 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3441 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3442 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3443 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3444 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3445 would look like this:
3448 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3449 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3453 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3454 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3455 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3456 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3457 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3460 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3461 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3465 Or, with less typing:
3468 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3473 @node Various, Appendices, Examples, Top
3477 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3480 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3481 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3482 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3483 * Mailing Lists:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3484 * Internet Relay Chat:: Wget's presence on IRC.
3485 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3486 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3487 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3490 @node Proxies, Distribution, Various, Various
3494 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3495 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3496 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3497 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3498 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3499 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3500 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3501 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3502 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3503 using an authorized proxy.
3505 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3506 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3507 the following environment variables:
3512 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3513 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3514 connections respectively.
3517 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3518 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3519 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3522 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3523 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3524 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3528 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3529 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3533 @itemx proxy = on/off
3534 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3535 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3537 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3538 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3539 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3540 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3541 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3542 specified by the environment.
3545 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3546 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3547 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3548 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3549 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3551 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3552 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3553 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3554 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3558 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3561 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3562 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3563 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3564 username and password.
3566 @node Distribution, Web Site, Proxies, Various
3567 @section Distribution
3568 @cindex latest version
3570 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3571 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3572 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3573 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3575 @node Web Site, Mailing Lists, Distribution, Various
3579 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3580 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3581 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3582 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3584 @node Mailing Lists, Internet Relay Chat, Web Site, Various
3585 @section Mailing Lists
3586 @cindex mailing list
3589 @unnumberedsubsec Primary List
3591 The primary mailinglist for discussion, bug-reports, or questions
3592 about GNU Wget is at @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}. To subscribe, send an
3593 email to @email{bug-wget-join@@gnu.org}, or visit
3594 @url{http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-wget}.
3596 You do not need to subscribe to send a message to the list; however,
3597 please note that unsubscribed messages are moderated, and may take a
3598 while before they hit the list---@strong{usually around a day}. If
3599 you want your message to show up immediately, please subscribe to the
3600 list before posting. Archives for the list may be found at
3601 @url{http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/bug-wget/}.
3603 An NNTP/Usenettish gateway is also available via
3604 @uref{http://gmane.org/about.php,Gmane}. You can see the Gmane
3606 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}. Note that the
3607 Gmane archives conveniently include messages from both the current
3608 list, and the previous one. Messages also show up in the Gmane
3609 archives sooner than they do at @url{lists.gnu.org}.
3611 @unnumberedsubsec Bug Notices List
3613 Additionally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3614 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives bug report
3615 notifications from the bug-tracker. To subscribe to this list,
3616 send an email to @email{wget-notify-join@@addictivecode.org},
3617 or visit @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3619 @unnumberedsubsec Obsolete Lists
3621 Previously, the mailing list @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} was used as the
3622 main discussion list, and another list,
3623 @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk} was used for submitting and
3624 discussing patches to GNU Wget.
3626 Messages from @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} are archived at
3629 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3631 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general} (which also
3632 continues to archive the current list, @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}).
3635 Messages from @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk} are archived at
3638 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3641 @node Internet Relay Chat, Reporting Bugs, Mailing Lists, Various
3642 @section Internet Relay Chat
3643 @cindex Internet Relay Chat
3647 In addition to the mailinglists, we also have a support channel set up
3648 via IRC at @code{irc.freenode.org}, @code{#wget}. Come check it out!
3650 @node Reporting Bugs, Portability, Internet Relay Chat, Various
3651 @section Reporting Bugs
3653 @cindex reporting bugs
3657 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3658 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3660 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3665 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3666 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3667 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3668 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3669 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3673 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3674 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 --no-proxy
3675 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3676 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3677 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3678 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3680 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3681 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3682 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3683 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3684 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3688 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3689 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3690 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3691 with debug support on.
3693 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3694 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3695 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3696 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3697 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3698 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3699 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3702 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3703 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3704 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3709 @node Portability, Signals, Reporting Bugs, Various
3710 @section Portability
3712 @cindex operating systems
3714 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3715 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3716 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3717 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3719 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3720 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3721 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3722 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3723 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3724 system, we would like to know about it.
3726 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3727 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3728 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3729 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3730 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3731 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3732 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3733 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3734 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3735 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3736 Windows-related features might look at them.
3738 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3739 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3740 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3742 @node Signals, , Portability, Various
3744 @cindex signal handling
3747 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3748 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3749 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3750 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3751 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3754 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3757 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3760 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3761 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3763 @node Appendices, Copying this manual, Various, Top
3766 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3769 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3770 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3771 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3774 @node Robot Exclusion, Security Considerations, Appendices, Appendices
3775 @section Robot Exclusion
3776 @cindex robot exclusion
3778 @cindex server maintenance
3780 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3781 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3782 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3784 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3785 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3786 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3787 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3788 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3789 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3790 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3791 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3792 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3793 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3794 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3795 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3797 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3798 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3799 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3800 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3801 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3802 they will permit access.
3804 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3805 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3806 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3807 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3808 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3809 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3812 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3813 can download large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3814 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3815 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3818 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3821 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3822 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3823 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3824 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3827 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3828 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3829 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3830 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3831 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3832 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3833 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3834 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3836 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3838 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3839 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3840 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3844 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3847 This is explained in some detail at
3848 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3849 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3852 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3853 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3854 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3855 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3857 @node Security Considerations, Contributors, Robot Exclusion, Appendices
3858 @section Security Considerations
3861 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3862 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3863 main issues, and some solutions.
3867 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3868 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3869 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3870 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3871 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3874 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3875 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3878 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3879 solution for this at the moment.
3882 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3883 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3884 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3888 @node Contributors, , Security Considerations, Appendices
3889 @section Contributors
3890 @cindex contributors
3893 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3896 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3898 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3900 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3901 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3902 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3904 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3907 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3908 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3909 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3912 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3913 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3914 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3917 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3918 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3919 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3920 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3924 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3925 bug and build reports for many years.
3928 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3931 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3935 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3939 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3940 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3943 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3944 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3948 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3951 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3956 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3960 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3965 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3968 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3972 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3973 layout and many other things.
3976 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3980 Mauro Tortonesi---improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
3981 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
3982 Wget from 2004--2007.
3985 Christopher G.@: Lewis---maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
3988 Gisle Vanem---many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
3989 Windows and MS-DOS support.
3992 Ralf Wildenhues---contributed patches to convert Wget to use Automake as
3993 part of its build process, and various bugfixes.
3996 Steven Schubiger---Many helpful patches, bugfixes and improvements.
3997 Notably, conversion of Wget to use the Gnulib quotes and quoteargs
3998 modules, and the addition of password prompts at the console, via the
3999 Gnulib getpasswd-gnu module.
4002 Ted Mielczarek---donated support for CSS.
4005 Saint Xavier---Support for IRIs (RFC 3987).
4008 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
4011 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
4012 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
4013 that make maintenance so much fun:
4033 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
4042 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
4043 Alexander Dergachev,
4056 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
4059 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
4083 Madhusudan Hosaagrahara,
4087 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
4106 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
4120 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
4121 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
4122 (Simos KSenitellis),
4131 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
4137 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
4146 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
4182 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
4184 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
4187 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
4189 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
4196 Steven M.@: Schweda,
4207 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
4222 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
4224 Joshua David Williams,
4238 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
4239 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
4241 @node Copying this manual, Concept Index, Appendices, Top
4242 @appendix Copying this manual
4245 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
4248 @node GNU Free Documentation License, , Copying this manual, Copying this manual
4249 @appendixsec GNU Free Documentation License
4250 @cindex FDL, GNU Free Documentation License
4255 @node Concept Index, , Copying this manual, Top
4256 @unnumbered Concept Index