1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
5 @settitle GNU Wget Manual
6 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
8 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
13 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
17 @c This should really be generated automatically, possibly by including
18 @c an auto-generated file.
20 @set UPDATED September 2003
22 @dircategory Net Utilities
23 @dircategory World Wide Web
25 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
29 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
32 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
33 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 Free Software
36 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
37 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
38 are preserved on all copies.
41 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
42 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
43 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
44 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
46 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
47 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
48 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
49 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
50 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
51 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
52 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
58 @subtitle The noninteractive downloading utility
59 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
60 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and the developers
64 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@arsdigita.com>.
67 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
72 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
73 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 Free Software
76 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
77 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
78 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
79 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
80 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
81 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
82 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
86 @node Top, Overview, (dir), (dir)
87 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
89 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
90 available utility for network download.
92 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 Free Software
96 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
97 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
98 * Recursive Retrieval:: Description of recursive retrieval.
99 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
100 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
101 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
102 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
103 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
104 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
105 * Copying:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
106 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
110 @node Overview, Invoking, Top, Top
115 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
116 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
117 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
118 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
121 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
125 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
126 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
127 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
128 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
129 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
130 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
136 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
140 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
141 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} pages and create local versions of
142 remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of the
143 original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
144 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
145 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
146 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
152 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
153 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
154 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
155 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
156 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
157 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
163 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
167 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
168 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
169 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
170 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
171 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
172 download from where it left off.
177 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
178 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
179 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway, you
180 can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks. Wget
181 also supports the passive @sc{ftp} downloading as an option.
185 Builtin features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
186 (@pxref{Following Links}).
190 The retrieval is conveniently traced with printing dots, each dot
191 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). These
192 representations can be customized to your preferences.
196 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
197 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
198 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
199 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
204 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
205 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
215 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
216 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
217 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
221 @node Invoking, Recursive Retrieval, Overview, Top
228 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
231 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
232 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
236 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
237 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
239 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
240 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
241 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
247 * Basic Startup Options::
248 * Logging and Input File Options::
250 * Directory Options::
253 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
254 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
257 @node URL Format, Option Syntax, Invoking, Invoking
262 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
263 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
264 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
265 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
269 http://host[:port]/directory/file
270 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
273 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
276 ftp://user:password@@host/path
277 http://user:password@@host/path
280 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
281 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
282 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
283 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
284 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
285 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
288 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
289 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
290 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
291 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
292 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
293 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
295 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
296 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
297 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
298 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
299 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
302 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
303 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
304 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
305 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
306 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
307 for text files. Here is an example:
310 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
313 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
314 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
316 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
321 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
326 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
327 supported in the future.
329 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
330 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
331 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
333 @node Option Syntax, Basic Startup Options, URL Format, Invoking
334 @section Option Syntax
335 @cindex option syntax
336 @cindex syntax of options
338 Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option has a
339 short form and a long form. Long options are more convenient to
340 remember, but take time to type. You may freely mix different option
341 styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you
345 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
348 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
349 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
351 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
358 This is a complete equivalent of:
361 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
364 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
365 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
366 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
372 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
373 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
374 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
375 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
376 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
377 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
378 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
381 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
386 @node Basic Startup Options, Logging and Input File Options, Option Syntax, Invoking
387 @section Basic Startup Options
392 Display the version of Wget.
396 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
400 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
401 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
403 @cindex execute wgetrc command
404 @item -e @var{command}
405 @itemx --execute @var{command}
406 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
407 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
408 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
412 @node Logging and Input File Options, Download Options, Basic Startup Options, Invoking
413 @section Logging and Input File Options
418 @item -o @var{logfile}
419 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
420 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
423 @cindex append to log
424 @item -a @var{logfile}
425 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
426 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
427 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
428 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
433 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
434 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
435 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
436 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
437 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
438 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
439 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
445 Turn off Wget's output.
450 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
455 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
456 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
457 information still get printed.
461 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
462 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}, in which case no @sc{url}s need to be on
463 the command line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and
464 in an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
465 be retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
466 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
469 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
470 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
471 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
472 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
473 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
478 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
479 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
480 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
481 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
484 @cindex base for relative links in input file
486 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
487 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
488 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
491 @node Download Options, Directory Options, Logging and Input File Options, Invoking
492 @section Download Options
495 @cindex bind() address
496 @cindex client IP address
497 @cindex IP address, client
498 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
499 When making client TCP/IP connections, @code{bind()} to @var{ADDRESS} on
500 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
501 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
506 @cindex number of retries
507 @item -t @var{number}
508 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
509 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
513 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
514 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all will
515 be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @var{file}
516 already exists, it will be overwritten. If the @var{file} is @samp{-},
517 the documents will be written to standard output. Including this option
518 automatically sets the number of tries to 1.
520 @cindex clobbering, file
521 @cindex downloading multiple times
525 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
526 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
527 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
528 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
530 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
531 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
532 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
533 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
534 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
535 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
536 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
537 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
538 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
539 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
542 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
543 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
544 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
545 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
548 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
549 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
550 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
551 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
554 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
555 @samp{.html} or (yuck) @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk
556 and parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
558 @cindex continue retrieval
559 @cindex incomplete downloads
560 @cindex resume download
563 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
564 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
565 by another program. For instance:
568 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
571 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
572 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
573 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
574 length of the local file.
576 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
577 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
578 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
579 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
580 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
582 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
583 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
586 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
587 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
588 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
589 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
590 start from scratch, remove the file.
592 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
593 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
594 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
595 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
596 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
597 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
599 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
600 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
601 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
602 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
603 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
604 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
605 collection or log file.
607 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
608 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
609 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
610 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
611 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
612 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
614 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
615 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
616 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
617 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
619 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
620 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
622 @cindex progress indicator
624 @item --progress=@var{type}
625 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
626 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
628 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an ASCII progress
629 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
630 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
633 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
634 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
635 fixed amount of downloaded data.
637 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
638 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
639 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
640 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
641 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
642 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
643 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
644 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
645 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
647 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
648 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
649 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
650 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
651 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
654 @itemx --timestamping
655 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
657 @cindex server response, print
659 @itemx --server-response
660 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
663 @cindex Wget as spider
666 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
667 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
668 are there. You can use it to check your bookmarks, e.g. with:
671 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
674 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
675 functionality of real @sc{www} spiders.
679 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
680 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Whenever Wget
681 connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks for a timeout and
682 aborts the operation if the time expires. This prevents anomalous
683 occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite connects. The default
684 timeout is 900 seconds (fifteen minutes). Setting timeout to 0 will
685 disable checking for timeouts.
687 Please do not lower the default timeout value with this option unless
688 you know what you are doing.
690 @cindex bandwidth, limit
692 @cindex limit bandwidth
693 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
694 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
695 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
696 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
697 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This kind of thing is useful when,
698 for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire evailable
701 Note that Wget implementeds the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
702 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
703 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
704 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it takes some time
705 for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting the
706 rate doesn't work with very small files. Also, the "sleeping" strategy
707 will misfire when an extremely small bandwidth, say less than 1.5KB/s,
712 @item -w @var{seconds}
713 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
714 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
715 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
716 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
717 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
718 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
720 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
721 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
722 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
724 @cindex retries, waiting between
725 @cindex waiting between retries
726 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
727 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
728 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
729 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
730 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
731 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
732 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
735 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
741 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
742 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
743 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
744 to vary between 0 and 2 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
745 specified using the @samp{-w} or @samp{--wait} options, in order to mask
746 Wget's presence from such analysis.
748 A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
749 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
750 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
751 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
754 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
755 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
760 @itemx --proxy=on/off
761 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
762 appropriate environmental variable is defined.
764 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
768 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
769 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
770 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
771 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
773 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
774 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
775 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
776 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
777 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
778 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
779 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
781 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
784 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
785 @itemx --dns-cache=off
786 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the addresses
787 it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly contact the DNS
788 server for the same (typically small) set of addresses it retrieves
789 from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will contact DNS
792 However, in some cases it is not desirable to cache host names, even for
793 the duration of a short-running application like Wget. For example,
794 some HTTP servers are hosted on machines with dynamically allocated IP
795 addresses that change from time to time. Their DNS entries are updated
796 along with each change. When Wget's download from such a host gets
797 interrupted by IP address change, Wget retries the download, but (due to
798 DNS caching) it contacts the old address. With the DNS cache turned
799 off, Wget will repeat the DNS lookup for every connect and will thus get
800 the correct dynamic address every time---at the cost of additional DNS
801 lookups where they're probably not needed.
803 If you don't understand the above description, you probably won't need
806 @cindex file names, restrict
807 @cindex Windows file names
808 @itemx --restrict-file-names=none|unix|windows
809 Restrict characters that may occur in local file names created by Wget
810 from remote URLs. Characters that are considered @dfn{unsafe} under a
811 set of restrictions are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%XX}, where
812 @samp{XX} is the hexadecimal code of the character.
814 The default for this option depends on the operating system: on Unix and
815 Unix-like OS'es, it defaults to ``unix''. Under Windows and Cygwin, it
816 defaults to ``windows''. Changing the default is useful when you are
817 using a non-native partition, e.g. when downloading files to a Windows
818 partition mounted from Linux, or when using NFS-mounted or SMB-mounted
821 When set to ``none'', the only characters that are quoted are those that
822 are impossible to get into a file name---the NUL character and @samp{/}.
823 The control characters, newline, etc. are all placed into file names.
825 When set to ``unix'', additional unsafe characters are those in the
826 0--31 range and in the 128--159 range. This is because those characters
827 are typically not printable.
829 When set to ``windows'', all of the above are quoted, along with
830 @samp{\}, @samp{|}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
831 and @samp{>}. Additionally, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead
832 of @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
833 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
834 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
835 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
836 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
840 @node Directory Options, HTTP Options, Download Options, Invoking
841 @section Directory Options
845 @itemx --no-directories
846 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
847 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
848 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
849 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
852 @itemx --force-directories
853 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
854 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
855 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
856 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
859 @itemx --no-host-directories
860 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
861 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
862 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
865 @cindex cut directories
866 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
867 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
868 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
871 Take, for example, the directory at
872 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
873 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
874 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
875 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
876 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
877 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
878 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
882 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
884 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
885 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
887 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
892 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
893 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
894 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
895 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
896 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
898 @cindex directory prefix
899 @item -P @var{prefix}
900 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
901 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
902 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
903 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
907 @node HTTP Options, FTP Options, Directory Options, Invoking
908 @section HTTP Options
911 @cindex .html extension
913 @itemx --html-extension
914 If a file of type @samp{text/html} is downloaded and the URL does not
915 end with the regexp @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause
916 the suffix @samp{.html} to be appended to the local filename. This is
917 useful, for instance, when you're mirroring a remote site that uses
918 @samp{.asp} pages, but you want the mirrored pages to be viewable on
919 your stock Apache server. Another good use for this is when you're
920 downloading the output of CGIs. A URL like
921 @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
922 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
924 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
925 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
926 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
927 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
928 @samp{text/html}. To prevent this re-downloading, you must use
929 @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original version of the file will be
930 saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive Retrieval Options}).
933 @cindex http password
934 @cindex authentication
935 @item --http-user=@var{user}
936 @itemx --http-passwd=@var{password}
937 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
938 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
939 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
940 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
942 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
943 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
944 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
945 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
946 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
947 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
948 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
950 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
956 @itemx --cache=on/off
957 When set to off, disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will
958 send the remote server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma:
959 no-cache}) to get the file from the remote service, rather than
960 returning the cached version. This is especially useful for retrieving
961 and flushing out-of-date documents on proxy servers.
963 Caching is allowed by default.
966 @item --cookies=on/off
967 When set to off, disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism
968 for maintaining server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie
969 using the @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the
970 same cookie upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server
971 owners to keep track of visitors and for sites to exchange this
972 information, some consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to
973 use cookies; however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
975 @cindex loading cookies
976 @cindex cookies, loading
977 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
978 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
979 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
980 @file{cookies.txt} file.
982 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
983 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
984 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
985 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
986 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
987 proves your identity.
989 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
990 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
991 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
992 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
993 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
994 cookie files in different locations:
998 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1000 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1001 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1002 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1003 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1004 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1006 @item Internet Explorer.
1007 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1008 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1009 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1011 @item Other browsers.
1012 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1013 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1014 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1017 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1018 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1019 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1020 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1021 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1024 wget --cookies=off --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1027 @cindex saving cookies
1028 @cindex cookies, saving
1029 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1030 Save cookies from @var{file} at the end of session. Cookies whose
1031 expiry time is not specified, or those that have already expired, are
1034 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1035 @cindex ignore length
1036 @item --ignore-length
1037 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1038 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1039 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1040 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1041 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1044 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1045 if it never existed.
1048 @item --header=@var{additional-header}
1049 Define an @var{additional-header} to be passed to the @sc{http} servers.
1050 Headers must contain a @samp{:} preceded by one or more non-blank
1051 characters, and must not contain newlines.
1053 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1054 @samp{--header} more than once.
1058 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1059 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1060 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1064 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1065 previous user-defined headers.
1068 @cindex proxy password
1069 @cindex proxy authentication
1070 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1071 @itemx --proxy-passwd=@var{password}
1072 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1073 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1074 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1076 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-passwd}
1077 pertain here as well.
1079 @cindex http referer
1080 @cindex referer, http
1081 @item --referer=@var{url}
1082 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1083 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1084 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1085 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1087 @cindex server response, save
1089 @itemx --save-headers
1090 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1091 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1094 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1095 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1096 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1098 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1099 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1100 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1101 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1102 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1105 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1106 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1107 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
1108 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
1109 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
1110 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
1111 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
1114 @node FTP Options, Recursive Retrieval Options, HTTP Options, Invoking
1115 @section FTP Options
1118 @cindex .listing files, removing
1120 @itemx --dont-remove-listing
1121 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1122 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1123 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1124 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1125 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1126 you're running is complete).
1128 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1129 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1130 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1131 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1132 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1133 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1134 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1135 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1136 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1138 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1139 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1140 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1141 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1142 will be overwritten.
1144 @cindex globbing, toggle
1146 @itemx --glob=on/off
1147 Turn @sc{ftp} globbing on or off. Globbing means you may use the
1148 shell-like special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*},
1149 @samp{?}, @samp{[} and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the
1150 same directory at once, like:
1153 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1156 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1157 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1160 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1161 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1162 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1163 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1167 Use the @dfn{passive} @sc{ftp} retrieval scheme, in which the client
1168 initiates the data connection. This is sometimes required for @sc{ftp}
1169 to work behind firewalls.
1171 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1172 @item --retr-symlinks
1173 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1174 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1175 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1176 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1177 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1179 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1180 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1181 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1182 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1185 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1186 specified on the commandline, rather than because it was recursed to,
1187 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1191 @node Recursive Retrieval Options, Recursive Accept/Reject Options, FTP Options, Invoking
1192 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1197 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Retrieval}, for more
1200 @item -l @var{depth}
1201 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1202 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1203 Retrieval}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1205 @cindex proxy filling
1206 @cindex delete after retrieval
1207 @cindex filling proxy cache
1208 @item --delete-after
1209 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1210 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1211 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1214 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1217 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1220 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1221 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1222 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1223 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1224 created in the first place.
1226 @cindex conversion of links
1227 @cindex link conversion
1229 @itemx --convert-links
1230 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1231 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1232 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1233 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-HTML
1236 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1240 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1241 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1243 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1244 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1245 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1246 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1249 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1250 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1252 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1253 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1254 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1255 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1258 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1259 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1260 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1261 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1262 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1265 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1266 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1267 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1269 @cindex backing up converted files
1271 @itemx --backup-converted
1272 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1273 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1278 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1279 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1280 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1281 @samp{-r -N -l inf -nr}.
1283 @cindex page requisites
1284 @cindex required images, downloading
1286 @itemx --page-requisites
1287 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1288 properly display a given HTML page. This includes such things as
1289 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1291 Ordinarily, when downloading a single HTML page, any requisite documents
1292 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1293 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1294 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1295 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1298 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1299 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1300 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1301 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1302 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1304 If one executes the command:
1307 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1310 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1311 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1312 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1313 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1314 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1317 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1320 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1321 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1324 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1327 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1328 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1331 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1334 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1335 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1336 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single HTML
1337 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the commandline or in a
1338 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1339 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1342 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1345 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1346 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1347 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1348 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1349 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1350 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1353 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1356 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1357 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1358 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1362 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options, , Recursive Retrieval Options, Invoking
1363 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1366 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1367 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1368 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1369 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1371 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1372 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1373 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1374 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1376 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1377 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1378 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1380 @cindex follow FTP links
1382 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1383 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1385 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1386 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1387 Wget has an internal table of HTML tag / attribute pairs that it
1388 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1389 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1390 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1391 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1394 @itemx --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1395 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1396 certain HTML tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1397 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1399 In the past, the @samp{-G} option was the best bet for downloading a
1400 single page and its requisites, using a commandline like:
1403 wget -Ga,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1406 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1407 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1408 @samp{-G} was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to ignore
1409 @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded. Now the
1410 best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1411 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1415 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1416 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1420 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1421 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1422 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1425 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1426 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1427 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1428 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1431 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1432 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1433 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1434 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1438 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1439 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1440 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1441 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1446 @node Recursive Retrieval, Following Links, Invoking, Top
1447 @chapter Recursive Retrieval
1450 @cindex recursive retrieval
1452 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1453 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1454 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieving}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1456 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1457 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1458 document was referring to, through markups like @code{href}, or
1459 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1460 @code{text/html}, it will be parsed and followed further.
1462 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1463 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1464 HTML document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1465 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1466 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1467 until the specified maximum depth.
1469 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1470 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1472 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1473 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1474 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1475 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1476 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1479 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1480 the one found on the remote server.
1482 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1483 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1484 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1485 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1487 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1488 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1489 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1490 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1491 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1492 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1493 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1495 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1496 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1497 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1498 consume memory and CPU.
1500 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1501 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1502 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1503 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1504 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1505 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1506 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1509 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1512 @node Following Links, Time-Stamping, Recursive Retrieval, Top
1513 @chapter Following Links
1515 @cindex following links
1517 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1518 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1519 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1521 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1522 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1523 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1525 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1526 links it will follow.
1529 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1530 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1531 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1532 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1533 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1536 @node Spanning Hosts, Types of Files, Following Links, Following Links
1537 @section Spanning Hosts
1538 @cindex spanning hosts
1539 @cindex hosts, spanning
1541 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1542 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1543 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1544 your Wget into a small version of google.
1546 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1547 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1548 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1549 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the HTML
1550 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1553 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1555 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1556 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1557 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1558 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1559 up much more data than you have intended.
1561 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1563 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1564 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1565 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1566 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1567 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
1568 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
1571 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
1574 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
1575 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
1577 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
1579 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1580 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1581 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1582 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1583 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1587 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
1593 @node Types of Files, Directory-Based Limits, Spanning Hosts, Following Links
1594 @section Types of Files
1595 @cindex types of files
1597 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1598 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1599 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1600 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
1602 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
1603 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
1606 @cindex accept wildcards
1607 @cindex accept suffixes
1608 @cindex wildcards, accept
1609 @cindex suffixes, accept
1611 @item -A @var{acclist}
1612 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
1613 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
1614 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
1615 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
1616 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
1617 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
1618 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
1620 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
1621 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
1622 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
1623 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
1624 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
1625 a description of how pattern matching works.
1627 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
1628 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
1630 @cindex reject wildcards
1631 @cindex reject suffixes
1632 @cindex wildcards, reject
1633 @cindex suffixes, reject
1634 @item -R @var{rejlist}
1635 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
1636 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
1637 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
1638 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
1639 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
1641 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
1642 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
1643 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
1644 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
1645 expansion by the shell.
1648 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
1649 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
1650 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
1651 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
1653 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
1654 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
1655 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
1657 @node Directory-Based Limits, Relative Links, Types of Files, Following Links
1658 @section Directory-Based Limits
1660 @cindex directory limits
1662 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
1663 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
1664 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
1665 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
1666 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
1667 @file{/dev} directories.
1669 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
1670 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
1671 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
1673 @cindex directories, include
1674 @cindex include directories
1675 @cindex accept directories
1678 @itemx --include @var{list}
1679 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
1680 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
1681 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
1682 directories are absolute paths.
1684 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
1685 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
1686 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
1689 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
1692 @cindex directories, exclude
1693 @cindex exclude directories
1694 @cindex reject directories
1696 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
1697 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
1698 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
1699 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
1700 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
1701 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
1703 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
1704 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
1705 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
1706 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
1711 @itemx no_parent = on
1712 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
1713 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
1714 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
1715 parent directory/directories.
1717 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
1718 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
1719 Supposing you issue Wget with:
1722 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
1725 You may rest assured that none of the references to
1726 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
1727 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
1728 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
1729 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
1730 intelligent fashion.
1733 @node Relative Links, FTP Links, Directory-Based Limits, Following Links
1734 @section Relative Links
1735 @cindex relative links
1737 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
1738 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
1739 server root. For example, these links are relative:
1743 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
1744 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
1747 These links are not relative:
1751 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
1752 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
1755 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
1756 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
1757 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
1759 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
1762 @node FTP Links, , Relative Links, Following Links
1763 @section Following FTP Links
1764 @cindex following ftp links
1766 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
1767 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
1768 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
1771 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
1772 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
1773 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
1774 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
1775 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
1776 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
1777 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
1779 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
1780 retrieved recursively further.
1782 @node Time-Stamping, Startup File, Following Links, Top
1783 @chapter Time-Stamping
1784 @cindex time-stamping
1785 @cindex timestamping
1786 @cindex updating the archives
1787 @cindex incremental updating
1789 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
1790 Internet is updating your archives.
1792 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
1793 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
1794 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
1795 offer the option of incremental updating.
1797 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
1798 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
1799 the place of the old ones.
1801 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
1805 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
1808 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
1809 recently than the local file.
1812 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
1813 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
1814 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
1816 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
1817 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
1818 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
1819 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
1820 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
1822 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
1823 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
1827 * Time-Stamping Usage::
1828 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1829 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1832 @node Time-Stamping Usage, HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping, Time-Stamping
1833 @section Time-Stamping Usage
1834 @cindex time-stamping usage
1835 @cindex usage, time-stamping
1837 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
1838 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
1841 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1844 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
1845 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
1846 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
1847 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
1849 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
1850 changed, and download it if it has.
1853 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1856 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
1857 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
1858 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
1859 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
1861 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
1864 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
1867 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
1868 interpret the @samp{*}.)
1870 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
1871 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
1872 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
1873 since the last download.
1875 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
1876 command like the following, weekly:
1879 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
1882 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
1883 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
1884 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
1885 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
1886 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
1888 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, FTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping Usage, Time-Stamping
1889 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
1890 @cindex http time-stamping
1892 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
1893 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
1894 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
1895 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
1896 retrieved unconditionally.
1898 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
1899 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
1900 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
1903 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
1904 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
1905 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
1906 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
1907 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
1908 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
1911 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
1912 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
1913 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
1914 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
1915 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
1917 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
1918 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
1920 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals, , HTTP Time-Stamping Internals, Time-Stamping
1921 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
1922 @cindex ftp time-stamping
1924 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
1925 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
1928 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
1929 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
1930 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
1931 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
1932 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
1933 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
1934 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
1935 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
1937 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
1938 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
1939 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
1940 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
1941 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
1942 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
1944 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
1945 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
1946 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
1947 Wget may support this command in the future.
1949 @node Startup File, Examples, Time-Stamping, Top
1950 @chapter Startup File
1951 @cindex startup file
1957 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
1958 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
1959 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
1960 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
1962 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
1963 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
1964 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
1965 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
1967 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
1971 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
1972 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
1973 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
1974 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
1977 @node Wgetrc Location, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File, Startup File
1978 @section Wgetrc Location
1979 @cindex wgetrc location
1980 @cindex location of wgetrc
1982 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
1983 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
1984 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
1985 from there, if it exists.
1987 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
1988 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
1989 further attempts will be made.
1991 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
1993 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
1994 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
1995 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
1996 Fascist admins, away!
1998 @node Wgetrc Syntax, Wgetrc Commands, Wgetrc Location, Startup File
1999 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2000 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2001 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2003 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2009 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2010 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2012 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2013 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2014 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2017 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2018 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2019 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2025 @node Wgetrc Commands, Sample Wgetrc, Wgetrc Syntax, Startup File
2026 @section Wgetrc Commands
2027 @cindex wgetrc commands
2029 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2030 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2031 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}. A fancier kind of
2032 Boolean allowed in some cases is the @dfn{lockable Boolean}, which may
2033 be set to @samp{on}, @samp{off}, @samp{always}, or @samp{never}. If an
2034 option is set to @samp{always} or @samp{never}, that value will be
2035 locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation---commandline options
2038 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2039 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2040 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2041 values can be any non-empty string.
2043 Most of these commands have commandline equivalents (@pxref{Invoking}),
2044 though some of the more obscure or rarely used ones do not.
2047 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2048 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2050 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2051 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2053 @item continue = on/off
2054 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2055 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2057 @item background = on/off
2058 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2061 @item backup_converted = on/off
2062 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2063 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2065 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2066 @c #### Document me!
2068 @item base = @var{string}
2069 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2070 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2073 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2074 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address} option.
2076 @item cache = on/off
2077 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{-C} option.
2079 @item convert links = on/off
2080 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2082 @item cookies = on/off
2083 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2085 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2086 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies}.
2088 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2089 Save cookies to @var{file}. See @samp{--save-cookies}.
2091 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2092 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components.
2094 @item debug = on/off
2095 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2097 @item delete_after = on/off
2098 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2100 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2101 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P}.
2103 @item dirstruct = on/off
2104 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2107 @item dns_cache = on/off
2108 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2109 option is normally used to turn it off. Same as @samp{--dns-cache}.
2111 @item domains = @var{string}
2112 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2114 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2115 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2116 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2117 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2118 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2119 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2120 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2122 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2123 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2124 the retrieval (50 by default).
2126 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2127 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2129 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2130 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2131 download---the same as @samp{-X} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2133 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2134 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2136 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2137 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2138 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2140 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2141 Only follow certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2142 @samp{--follow-tags}.
2144 @item force_html = on/off
2145 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2146 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2148 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2149 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2153 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{-g}.
2155 @item header = @var{string}
2156 Define an additional header, like @samp{--header}.
2158 @item html_extension = on/off
2159 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} files without it, like
2162 @item http_passwd = @var{string}
2163 Set @sc{http} password.
2165 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2166 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2169 @item http_user = @var{string}
2170 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}.
2172 @item ignore_length = on/off
2173 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2174 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2176 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2177 Ignore certain HTML tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2178 @samp{-G} / @samp{--ignore-tags}.
2180 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2181 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2182 downloading---the same as @samp{-I}.
2184 @item input = @var{string}
2185 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i}.
2187 @item kill_longer = on/off
2188 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid
2189 (and retry getting it). The default behaviour is to save as much data
2190 as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in
2191 @code{Content-Length}.
2193 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2194 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2195 The same as @samp{--limit-rate}.
2197 @item logfile = @var{string}
2198 Set logfile---the same as @samp{-o}.
2200 @item login = @var{string}
2201 Your user name on the remote machine, for @sc{ftp}. Defaults to
2204 @item mirror = on/off
2205 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2207 @item netrc = on/off
2208 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2210 @item noclobber = on/off
2213 @item no_parent = on/off
2214 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2215 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2217 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2218 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2219 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2221 @item output_document = @var{string}
2222 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O}.
2224 @item page_requisites = on/off
2225 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single HTML page to
2226 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2228 @item passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
2229 Set passive @sc{ftp}---the same as @samp{--passive-ftp}. Some scripts
2230 and @samp{.pm} (Perl module) files download files using @samp{wget
2231 --passive-ftp}. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set
2232 @samp{passive_ftp = never} to override the commandline.
2234 @item passwd = @var{string}
2235 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{password}. Without this setting, the
2236 password defaults to @samp{username@@hostname.domainname}.
2238 @item progress = @var{string}
2239 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are ``dot'' and
2242 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2243 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-user}.
2245 @item proxy_passwd = @var{string}
2246 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-passwd}.
2248 @item referer = @var{string}
2249 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like @samp{--referer}. (Note it
2250 was the folks who wrote the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of
2251 ``referrer'' wrong.)
2253 @item quiet = on/off
2254 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2256 @item quota = @var{quota}
2257 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2258 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2259 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2260 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2261 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2262 to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2265 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2266 Recursion level---the same as @samp{-l}.
2268 @item recursive = on/off
2269 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2271 @item relative_only = on/off
2272 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2275 @item remove_listing = on/off
2276 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2277 to off is the same as @samp{-nr}.
2279 @item restrict_file_names = off/unix/windows
2280 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2281 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2283 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2284 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2285 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2287 @item robots = on/off
2288 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2289 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2290 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2291 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2294 @item server_response = on/off
2295 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2296 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2298 @item span_hosts = on/off
2301 @item timeout = @var{n}
2302 Set timeout value---the same as @samp{-T}.
2304 @item timestamping = on/off
2305 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2307 @item tries = @var{n}
2308 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t}.
2310 @item use_proxy = on/off
2311 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as @samp{-Y}.
2313 @item verbose = on/off
2314 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2316 @item wait = @var{n}
2317 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w}.
2319 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2320 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2321 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry}. Note that this is turned on by
2322 default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2324 @item randomwait = on/off
2325 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2326 @samp{--random-wait}.
2329 @node Sample Wgetrc, , Wgetrc Commands, Startup File
2330 @section Sample Wgetrc
2331 @cindex sample wgetrc
2333 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2334 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2335 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2336 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2338 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2339 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2343 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2346 @node Examples, Various, Startup File, Top
2350 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2351 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2355 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2356 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2357 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2360 @node Simple Usage, Advanced Usage, Examples, Examples
2361 @section Simple Usage
2365 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2368 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2372 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2373 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2374 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2375 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2376 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2377 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2380 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2384 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2385 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2386 shall use @samp{-t}.
2389 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2392 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2393 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2396 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2400 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2404 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2405 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2408 wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
2413 @node Advanced Usage, Very Advanced Usage, Simple Usage, Examples
2414 @section Advanced Usage
2418 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2425 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2429 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2430 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2431 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2434 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2438 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2439 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2442 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2446 Retrieve only one HTML page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2447 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
2448 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
2449 references the downloaded links.
2452 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2455 The HTML page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
2456 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
2457 depending on where they were on the remote server.
2460 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
2461 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
2462 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
2463 subdirectory of the current directory.
2466 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
2467 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2471 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
2475 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
2479 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
2482 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
2487 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
2491 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
2495 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
2496 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
2497 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
2501 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
2504 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
2505 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Retrieval}), with maximum depth
2506 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
2507 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
2508 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
2512 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
2513 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
2517 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
2521 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
2522 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
2525 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
2528 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
2529 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
2532 @cindex redirecting output
2534 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
2538 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
2541 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
2542 documents from remote hotlists:
2545 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
2549 @node Very Advanced Usage, , Advanced Usage, Examples
2550 @section Very Advanced Usage
2555 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
2556 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
2557 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
2558 to recheck a site each Sunday:
2562 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2566 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
2567 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
2568 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
2569 back up the original HTML files before the conversion. Wget invocation
2570 would look like this:
2573 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2574 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2578 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
2579 when HTML files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
2580 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
2581 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
2582 to @file{@var{name}.html}.
2585 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2586 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
2590 Or, with less typing:
2593 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2598 @node Various, Appendices, Examples, Top
2602 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
2605 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
2606 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
2607 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
2608 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
2609 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
2610 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
2613 @node Proxies, Distribution, Various, Various
2617 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
2618 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
2619 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
2620 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
2621 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
2622 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
2623 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
2624 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
2625 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
2626 using an authorized proxy.
2628 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
2629 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
2630 the following environment variables:
2634 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
2638 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
2639 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
2640 are set to the same @sc{url}.
2643 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
2644 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
2645 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
2649 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
2650 may be specified from within Wget itself.
2654 @itemx --proxy=on/off
2655 @itemx proxy = on/off
2656 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
2657 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
2660 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
2661 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
2662 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
2663 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
2664 specified by the environment.
2667 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
2668 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
2669 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
2670 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
2671 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
2673 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
2674 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
2675 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
2676 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
2680 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
2683 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
2684 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
2685 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_passwd} to set the proxy
2686 username and password.
2688 @node Distribution, Mailing List, Proxies, Various
2689 @section Distribution
2690 @cindex latest version
2692 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
2693 master GNU archive site prep.ai.mit.edu, and its mirrors. For example,
2694 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
2695 @url{ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
2697 @node Mailing List, Reporting Bugs, Distribution, Various
2698 @section Mailing List
2699 @cindex mailing list
2702 Wget has its own mailing list at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, thanks
2703 to Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget
2704 features and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of
2705 interest to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
2706 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
2708 To subscribe, send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2709 the magic word @samp{subscribe} in the subject line. Unsubscribe by
2710 mailing to @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2712 The mailing list is archived at @url{http://fly.srk.fer.hr/archive/wget}.
2713 Alternative archive is available at
2714 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.auc.dk/}.
2716 @node Reporting Bugs, Portability, Mailing List, Various
2717 @section Reporting Bugs
2719 @cindex reporting bugs
2723 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
2724 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
2726 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
2731 Please try to ascertain that the behaviour you see really is a bug. If
2732 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
2733 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
2734 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
2737 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
2738 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
2739 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
2740 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
2741 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
2742 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
2744 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
2745 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
2746 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
2747 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
2748 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
2752 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send the log (or the
2753 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
2754 recompile it. It is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs with debug support
2758 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
2759 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace.
2763 @node Portability, Signals, Reporting Bugs, Various
2764 @section Portability
2766 @cindex operating systems
2768 Since Wget uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and avoids
2769 using ``special'' ultra--mega--cool features of any particular Unix, it
2770 should compile (and work) on all common Unix flavors.
2772 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
2773 Unix systems, including Solaris, Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital Unix),
2774 Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, and others; refer to the file @file{MACHINES} in the
2775 distribution directory for a comprehensive list. If you compile it on
2776 an architecture not listed there, please let me know so I can update it.
2778 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
2779 @file{MACHINES}. If it doesn't, please let me know.
2781 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works on
2782 Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
2783 successfully using MS Visual C++ 4.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
2784 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
2785 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
2786 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is
2787 @strong{neither tested nor maintained} by me---all questions and
2788 problems should be reported to Wget mailing list at
2789 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the maintainers will look at them.
2791 @node Signals, , Portability, Various
2793 @cindex signal handling
2796 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
2797 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
2798 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
2799 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
2800 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
2803 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
2804 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
2807 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
2808 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
2810 @node Appendices, Copying, Various, Top
2813 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
2816 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
2817 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
2818 * Contributors:: People who helped.
2821 @node Robot Exclusion, Security Considerations, Appendices, Appendices
2822 @section Robot Exclusion
2823 @cindex robot exclusion
2825 @cindex server maintenance
2827 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
2828 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
2829 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
2831 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
2832 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
2833 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
2834 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
2835 section handled by an, uh, @dfn{bitchin'} CGI Perl script that converts
2836 Info files to HTML on the fly. The script is slow, but works well
2837 enough for human users viewing an occasional Info file. However, when
2838 someone's recursive Wget download stumbles upon the index page that
2839 links to all the Info files through the script, the system is brought to
2840 its knees without providing anything useful to the downloader.
2842 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
2843 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
2844 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} has been invented. The idea is that
2845 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
2846 portions of the site they wish to protect from the robots.
2848 The most popular mechanism, and the de facto standard supported by all
2849 the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written by
2850 Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text file
2851 containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to avoid.
2852 To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
2853 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are supposed to
2856 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
2857 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
2858 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
2859 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
2862 wget -r http://www.server.com/
2865 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
2866 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
2867 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
2868 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
2871 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
2872 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
2873 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
2874 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
2875 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
2876 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
2877 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
2878 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
2880 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
2882 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
2883 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
2884 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
2888 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
2891 This is explained in some detail at
2892 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
2893 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
2896 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
2897 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
2898 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
2899 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
2901 @node Security Considerations, Contributors, Robot Exclusion, Appendices
2902 @section Security Considerations
2905 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
2906 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
2907 main issues, and some solutions.
2910 @item The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}.
2911 The best way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s
2912 to Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by
2913 @kbd{C-d}. Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store
2914 passwords; however, storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a
2918 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
2919 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
2922 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
2923 solution for this at the moment.
2926 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
2927 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
2928 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
2932 @node Contributors, , Security Considerations, Appendices
2933 @section Contributors
2934 @cindex contributors
2937 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@arsdigita.com}.
2940 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@arsdigita.com}.
2942 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
2943 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
2944 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
2946 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
2950 Karsten Thygesen---donated system resources such as the mailing list,
2951 web space, and @sc{ftp} space, along with a lot of time to make these
2955 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
2958 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
2962 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
2966 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
2967 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
2970 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
2971 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
2975 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
2978 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
2982 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
2986 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
2991 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
2994 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
2998 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
3002 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3006 The people who provided donations for development, including Brian
3010 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3011 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3012 that make maintenance so much fun:
3031 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3049 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3052 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3068 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3086 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3097 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3098 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3099 (Simos KSenitellis),
3107 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3113 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3138 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3140 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}gues,
3143 Juan Jose Rodrigues,
3155 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3161 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3171 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3172 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3174 @node Copying, Concept Index, Appendices, Top
3179 @cindex free software
3181 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU GPL, which makes it @dfn{free
3184 Please note that ``free'' in ``free software'' refers to liberty, not
3185 price. As some GNU project advocates like to point out, think of ``free
3186 speech'' rather than ``free beer''. The exact and legally binding
3187 distribution terms are spelled out below; in short, you have the right
3188 (freedom) to run and change Wget and distribute it to other people, and
3189 even---if you want---charge money for doing either. The important
3190 restriction is that you have to grant your recipients the same rights
3191 and impose the same restrictions.
3193 This method of licensing software is also known as @dfn{open source}
3194 because, among other things, it makes sure that all recipients will
3195 receive the source code along with the program, and be able to improve
3196 it. The GNU project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons
3198 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3200 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3201 General Public License it refers to:
3204 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3205 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3206 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3207 option) any later version.
3209 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3210 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3211 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3214 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3215 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3216 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3219 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3222 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3223 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
3224 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
3225 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
3226 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3227 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3228 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3231 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3232 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3233 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3236 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3237 Documentation License are available below.
3240 * GNU General Public License::
3241 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3244 @node GNU General Public License, GNU Free Documentation License, Copying, Copying
3245 @section GNU General Public License
3246 @center Version 2, June 1991
3249 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3250 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3252 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3253 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3256 @unnumberedsec Preamble
3258 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
3259 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
3260 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3261 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
3262 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
3263 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
3264 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
3265 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
3268 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
3269 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
3270 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
3271 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
3272 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
3273 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
3275 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
3276 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
3277 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
3278 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
3280 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
3281 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
3282 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
3283 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
3286 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
3287 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
3288 distribute and/or modify the software.
3290 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
3291 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
3292 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
3293 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
3294 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
3295 authors' reputations.
3297 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
3298 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
3299 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
3300 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
3301 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
3303 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
3304 modification follow.
3307 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3310 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3315 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
3316 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
3317 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
3318 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
3319 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
3320 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
3321 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
3322 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
3323 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
3325 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
3326 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
3327 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
3328 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
3329 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
3330 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
3333 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
3334 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
3335 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
3336 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
3337 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
3338 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
3339 along with the Program.
3341 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
3342 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3345 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
3346 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
3347 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
3348 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
3352 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
3353 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
3356 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
3357 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
3358 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
3359 parties under the terms of this License.
3362 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
3363 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
3364 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
3365 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
3366 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
3367 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
3368 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
3369 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
3370 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
3371 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
3374 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
3375 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
3376 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
3377 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
3378 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
3379 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
3380 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
3381 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
3382 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
3384 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
3385 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
3386 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
3387 collective works based on the Program.
3389 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
3390 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
3391 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
3392 the scope of this License.
3395 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
3396 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
3397 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3401 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3402 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3403 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
3406 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
3407 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
3408 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
3409 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
3410 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
3411 customarily used for software interchange; or,
3414 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
3415 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
3416 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
3417 received the program in object code or executable form with such
3418 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
3421 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
3422 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
3423 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
3424 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
3425 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
3426 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
3427 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
3428 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
3429 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
3430 itself accompanies the executable.
3432 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
3433 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
3434 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
3435 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
3436 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
3439 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
3440 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
3441 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
3442 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
3443 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
3444 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3445 parties remain in full compliance.
3448 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
3449 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
3450 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
3451 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
3452 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
3453 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
3454 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
3455 the Program or works based on it.
3458 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
3459 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
3460 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
3461 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
3462 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
3463 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
3467 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
3468 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
3469 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
3470 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
3471 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
3472 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
3473 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
3474 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
3475 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
3476 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
3477 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
3478 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
3480 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
3481 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
3482 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
3485 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
3486 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
3487 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
3488 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
3489 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
3490 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
3491 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
3492 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
3493 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
3496 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
3497 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
3500 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
3501 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
3502 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
3503 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
3504 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
3505 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
3506 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
3509 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
3510 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
3511 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
3512 address new problems or concerns.
3514 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
3515 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
3516 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
3517 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
3518 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
3519 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
3523 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
3524 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
3525 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
3526 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
3527 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
3528 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
3529 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
3532 @heading NO WARRANTY
3540 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
3541 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
3542 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
3543 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
3544 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
3545 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
3546 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
3547 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
3548 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
3551 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
3552 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
3553 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
3554 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
3555 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
3556 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
3557 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
3558 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
3559 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
3563 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3566 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3570 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
3572 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
3573 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
3574 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
3576 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
3577 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
3578 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
3579 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
3582 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
3583 Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3585 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
3586 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
3587 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
3588 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
3590 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3591 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3592 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3593 GNU General Public License for more details.
3595 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3596 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
3597 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3600 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
3602 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
3603 when it starts in an interactive mode:
3606 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3607 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
3608 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
3609 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
3613 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
3614 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
3615 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
3616 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
3619 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
3620 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
3621 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
3625 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
3626 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
3627 (which makes passes at compilers) written
3630 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
3631 Ty Coon, President of Vice
3635 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
3636 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
3637 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
3638 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
3639 Public License instead of this License.
3641 @node GNU Free Documentation License, , GNU General Public License, Copying
3642 @section GNU Free Documentation License
3643 @center Version 1.1, March 2000
3646 Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3647 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
3649 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3650 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3657 The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other
3658 written document ``free'' in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone
3659 the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without
3660 modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily,
3661 this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get
3662 credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for
3663 modifications made by others.
3665 This License is a kind of ``copyleft'', which means that derivative
3666 works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It
3667 complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft
3668 license designed for free software.
3670 We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
3671 software, because free software needs free documentation: a free
3672 program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the
3673 software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals;
3674 it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
3675 whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License
3676 principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
3680 APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
3682 This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a
3683 notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed
3684 under the terms of this License. The ``Document'', below, refers to any
3685 such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is
3686 addressed as ``you''.
3688 A ``Modified Version'' of the Document means any work containing the
3689 Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with
3690 modifications and/or translated into another language.
3692 A ``Secondary Section'' is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
3693 the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
3694 publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject
3695 (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly
3696 within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a
3697 textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any
3698 mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical
3699 connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
3700 commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding
3703 The ``Invariant Sections'' are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
3704 are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice
3705 that says that the Document is released under this License.
3707 The ``Cover Texts'' are certain short passages of text that are listed,
3708 as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that
3709 the Document is released under this License.
3711 A ``Transparent'' copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy,
3712 represented in a format whose specification is available to the
3713 general public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and
3714 straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of
3715 pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available
3716 drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or
3717 for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input
3718 to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file
3719 format whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage
3720 subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is
3721 not ``Transparent'' is called ``Opaque''.
3723 Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain
3724 ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML
3725 or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple
3726 HTML designed for human modification. Opaque formats include
3727 PostScript, PDF, proprietary formats that can be read and edited only
3728 by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or
3729 processing tools are not generally available, and the
3730 machine-generated HTML produced by some word processors for output
3733 The ``Title Page'' means, for a printed book, the title page itself,
3734 plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material
3735 this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in
3736 formats which do not have any title page as such, ``Title Page'' means
3737 the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title,
3738 preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
3743 You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
3744 commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
3745 copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
3746 to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other
3747 conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use
3748 technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further
3749 copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
3750 compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough
3751 number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
3753 You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and
3754 you may publicly display copies.
3759 If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100,
3760 and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose
3761 the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover
3762 Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on
3763 the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify
3764 you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present
3765 the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and
3766 visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition.
3767 Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve
3768 the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated
3769 as verbatim copying in other respects.
3771 If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit
3772 legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit
3773 reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent
3776 If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering
3777 more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent
3778 copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy
3779 a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete
3780 Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material, which the
3781 general network-using public has access to download anonymously at no
3782 charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter
3783 option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin
3784 distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this
3785 Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location
3786 until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque
3787 copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to
3790 It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
3791 Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give
3792 them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
3797 You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
3798 the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
3799 the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified
3800 Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution
3801 and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy
3802 of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
3804 A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct
3805 from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions
3806 (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section
3807 of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version
3808 if the original publisher of that version gives permission.@*
3809 B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
3810 responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
3811 Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
3812 Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less than five).@*
3813 C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the
3814 Modified Version, as the publisher.@*
3815 D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.@*
3816 E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications
3817 adjacent to the other copyright notices.@*
3818 F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice
3819 giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the
3820 terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.@*
3821 G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections
3822 and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.@*
3823 H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.@*
3824 I. Preserve the section entitled ``History'', and its title, and add to
3825 it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and
3826 publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If
3827 there is no section entitled ``History'' in the Document, create one
3828 stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as
3829 given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified
3830 Version as stated in the previous sentence.@*
3831 J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for
3832 public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise
3833 the network locations given in the Document for previous versions
3834 it was based on. These may be placed in the ``History'' section.
3835 You may omit a network location for a work that was published at
3836 least four years before the Document itself, or if the original
3837 publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.@*
3838 K. In any section entitled ``Acknowledgements'' or ``Dedications'',
3839 preserve the section's title, and preserve in the section all the
3840 substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements
3841 and/or dedications given therein.@*
3842 L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document,
3843 unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers
3844 or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.@*
3845 M. Delete any section entitled ``Endorsements''. Such a section
3846 may not be included in the Modified Version.@*
3847 N. Do not retitle any existing section as ``Endorsements''
3848 or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.@*
3850 If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or
3851 appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material
3852 copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all
3853 of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the
3854 list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice.
3855 These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
3857 You may add a section entitled ``Endorsements'', provided it contains
3858 nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various
3859 parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has
3860 been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a
3863 You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a
3864 passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list
3865 of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of
3866 Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or
3867 through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already
3868 includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or
3869 by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of,
3870 you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit
3871 permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
3873 The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License
3874 give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or
3875 imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
3880 You may combine the Document with other documents released under this
3881 License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified
3882 versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the
3883 Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and
3884 list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its
3887 The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and
3888 multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single
3889 copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but
3890 different contents, make the title of each such section unique by
3891 adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original
3892 author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number.
3893 Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of
3894 Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
3896 In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled ``History''
3897 in the various original documents, forming one section entitled
3898 ``History''; likewise combine any sections entitled ``Acknowledgements'',
3899 and any sections entitled ``Dedications''. You must delete all sections
3900 entitled ``Endorsements.''
3903 COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
3905 You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents
3906 released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this
3907 License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in
3908 the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for
3909 verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.
3911 You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute
3912 it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this
3913 License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all
3914 other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
3917 AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
3919 A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
3920 and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
3921 distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version
3922 of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the
3923 compilation. Such a compilation is called an ``aggregate'', and this
3924 License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled
3925 with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they
3926 are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
3928 If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these
3929 copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter
3930 of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on
3931 covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate.
3932 Otherwise they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.
3937 Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
3938 distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4.
3939 Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special
3940 permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
3941 translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the
3942 original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a
3943 translation of this License provided that you also include the
3944 original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement
3945 between the translation and the original English version of this
3946 License, the original English version will prevail.
3951 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except
3952 as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to
3953 copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will
3954 automatically terminate your rights under this License. However,
3955 parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this
3956 License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3957 parties remain in full compliance.
3960 FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
3962 The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions
3963 of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new
3964 versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
3965 differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See
3966 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
3968 Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.
3969 If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this
3970 License ``or any later version'' applies to it, you have the option of
3971 following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or
3972 of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the
3973 Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version
3974 number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not
3975 as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
3979 @unnumberedsec ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents
3981 To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
3982 the License in the document and put the following copyright and
3983 license notices just after the title page:
3988 Copyright (C) @var{year} @var{your name}.
3989 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3990 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
3991 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
3992 with the Invariant Sections being @var{list their titles}, with the
3993 Front-Cover Texts being @var{list}, and with the Back-Cover Texts being @var{list}.
3994 A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU
3995 Free Documentation License''.
3998 If you have no Invariant Sections, write ``with no Invariant Sections''
3999 instead of saying which ones are invariant. If you have no
4000 Front-Cover Texts, write ``no Front-Cover Texts'' instead of
4001 ``Front-Cover Texts being @var{list}''; likewise for Back-Cover Texts.
4003 If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
4004 recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of
4005 free software license, such as the GNU General Public License,
4006 to permit their use in free software.
4009 @node Concept Index, , Copying, Top
4010 @unnumbered Concept Index