1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
35 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
38 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
39 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
40 are preserved on all copies.
44 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
45 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
46 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
47 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
49 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
50 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
51 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
52 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
53 copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free
54 Documentation License''.
59 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
60 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
61 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
62 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and others
66 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
67 Currently maintained by Micah Cowan <micah@cowan.name>.
70 This is @strong{not} the complete manual for GNU Wget.
71 For more complete information, including more detailed explanations of
72 some of the options, and a number of commands available
73 for use with @file{.wgetrc} files and the @samp{-e} option, see the GNU
74 Info entry for @file{wget}.
79 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
87 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
93 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
94 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
95 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
96 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
97 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
98 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
99 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
100 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
101 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
102 * Copying this manual:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
103 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
111 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
112 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
113 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
114 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
117 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
121 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
122 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
123 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
124 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
125 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
126 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
131 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
135 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
136 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
137 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
138 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
139 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
140 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
141 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
146 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
147 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
148 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
149 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
150 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
151 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
156 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
160 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
161 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
162 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
163 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
164 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
165 download from where it left off.
169 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
170 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
171 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway,
172 you can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks.
173 Wget uses the passive @sc{ftp} downloading by default, active @sc{ftp}
177 Wget supports IP version 6, the next generation of IP. IPv6 is
178 autodetected at compile-time, and can be disabled at either build or
179 run time. Binaries built with IPv6 support work well in both
180 IPv4-only and dual family environments.
183 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
184 (@pxref{Following Links}).
187 The progress of individual downloads is traced using a progress gauge.
188 Interactive downloads are tracked using a ``thermometer''-style gauge,
189 whereas non-interactive ones are traced with dots, each dot
190 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). Either
191 gauge can be customized to your preferences.
194 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
195 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
196 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
197 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
202 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
203 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
212 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
213 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
214 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation (see the
215 file @file{COPYING} that came with GNU Wget, for details).
225 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
228 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
229 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
233 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
234 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
236 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
237 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
238 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
244 * Basic Startup Options::
245 * Logging and Input File Options::
247 * Directory Options::
249 * HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options::
251 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
252 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
260 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
261 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
262 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
263 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
267 http://host[:port]/directory/file
268 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
271 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
274 ftp://user:password@@host/path
275 http://user:password@@host/path
278 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
279 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
280 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
281 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
282 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
283 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
286 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
287 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
288 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
289 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
290 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
291 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
293 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
294 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
295 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
296 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
297 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
300 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
301 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
302 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
303 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
304 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
305 for text files. Here is an example:
308 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
311 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
312 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
314 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
319 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
324 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
325 supported in the future.
327 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
328 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
329 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
334 @section Option Syntax
335 @cindex option syntax
336 @cindex syntax of options
338 Since Wget uses GNU getopt to process command-line arguments, every
339 option has a long form along with the short one. Long options are
340 more convenient to remember, but take time to type. You may freely
341 mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line
342 arguments. Thus you may write:
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 of @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
384 Most options that do not accept arguments are @dfn{boolean} options,
385 so named because their state can be captured with a yes-or-no
386 (``boolean'') variable. For example, @samp{--follow-ftp} tells Wget
387 to follow FTP links from HTML files and, on the other hand,
388 @samp{--no-glob} tells it not to perform file globbing on FTP URLs. A
389 boolean option is either @dfn{affirmative} or @dfn{negative}
390 (beginning with @samp{--no}). All such options share several
393 Unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that the default behavior is
394 the opposite of what the option accomplishes. For example, the
395 documented existence of @samp{--follow-ftp} assumes that the default
396 is to @emph{not} follow FTP links from HTML pages.
398 Affirmative options can be negated by prepending the @samp{--no-} to
399 the option name; negative options can be negated by omitting the
400 @samp{--no-} prefix. This might seem superfluous---if the default for
401 an affirmative option is to not do something, then why provide a way
402 to explicitly turn it off? But the startup file may in fact change
403 the default. For instance, using @code{follow_ftp = off} in
404 @file{.wgetrc} makes Wget @emph{not} follow FTP links by default, and
405 using @samp{--no-follow-ftp} is the only way to restore the factory
406 default from the command line.
408 @node Basic Startup Options
409 @section Basic Startup Options
414 Display the version of Wget.
418 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
422 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
423 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
425 @cindex execute wgetrc command
426 @item -e @var{command}
427 @itemx --execute @var{command}
428 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
429 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
430 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
431 them. If you need to specify more than one wgetrc command, use multiple
432 instances of @samp{-e}.
436 @node Logging and Input File Options
437 @section Logging and Input File Options
442 @item -o @var{logfile}
443 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
444 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
447 @cindex append to log
448 @item -a @var{logfile}
449 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
450 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
451 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
452 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
457 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
458 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
459 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
460 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
461 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
462 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
463 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
469 Turn off Wget's output.
474 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
479 Turn off verbose without being completely quiet (use @samp{-q} for
480 that), which means that error messages and basic information still get
485 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
486 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}. If @samp{-} is specified as
487 @var{file}, @sc{url}s are read from the standard input. (Use
488 @samp{./-} to read from a file literally named @samp{-}.)
490 If this function is used, no @sc{url}s need be present on the command
491 line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and in an input
492 file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to be
493 retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
494 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
497 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
498 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
499 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
500 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
501 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
506 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
507 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
508 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
509 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
512 @cindex base for relative links in input file
514 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
515 Prepends @var{URL} to relative links read from the file specified with
516 the @samp{-i} option.
519 @node Download Options
520 @section Download Options
524 @cindex client IP address
525 @cindex IP address, client
526 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
527 When making client TCP/IP connections, bind to @var{ADDRESS} on
528 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
529 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
534 @cindex number of retries
535 @item -t @var{number}
536 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
537 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
538 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
539 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
540 which are not retried.
543 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
544 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all
545 will be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @samp{-}
546 is used as @var{file}, documents will be printed to standard output,
547 disabling link conversion. (Use @samp{./-} to print to a file
548 literally named @samp{-}.)
550 Use of @samp{-O} is @emph{not} intended to mean simply ``use the name
551 @var{file} instead of the one in the URL;'' rather, it is
552 analogous to shell redirection:
553 @samp{wget -O file http://foo} is intended to work like
554 @samp{wget -O - http://foo > file}; @file{file} will be truncated
555 immediately, and @emph{all} downloaded content will be written there.
557 Note that a combination with @samp{-k} is only permitted when
558 downloading a single document, and combination with any of @samp{-r},
559 @samp{-p}, or @samp{-N} is not allowed.
561 @cindex clobbering, file
562 @cindex downloading multiple times
566 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
567 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
568 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
569 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
571 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, @samp{-r}, or @samp{p},
572 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
573 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
574 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
575 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
576 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
577 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
578 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
579 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
580 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
583 When running Wget with @samp{-r} or @samp{-p}, but without @samp{-N}
584 or @samp{-nc}, re-downloading a file will result in the new copy
585 simply overwriting the old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this
586 behavior, instead causing the original version to be preserved and any
587 newer copies on the server to be ignored.
589 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r} or
590 @samp{-p}, the decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy
591 of a file depends on the local and remote timestamp and size of the
592 file (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the
593 same time as @samp{-N}.
595 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
596 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
597 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
599 @cindex continue retrieval
600 @cindex incomplete downloads
601 @cindex resume download
604 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
605 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
606 by another program. For instance:
609 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
612 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
613 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
614 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
615 length of the local file.
617 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
618 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
619 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
620 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
621 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
623 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
624 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
627 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
628 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
629 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
630 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
631 start from scratch, remove the file.
633 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
634 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
635 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
636 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
637 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
638 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
640 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
641 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
642 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
643 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
644 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
645 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
646 collection or log file.
648 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
649 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
650 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
651 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
652 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
653 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
655 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
656 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
657 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
658 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
660 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
661 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
663 @cindex progress indicator
665 @item --progress=@var{type}
666 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
667 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
669 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
670 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
671 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
674 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
675 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
676 fixed amount of downloaded data.
678 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
679 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
680 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
681 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
682 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
683 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
684 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
685 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
686 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
688 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
689 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
690 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
691 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
692 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
695 @itemx --timestamping
696 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
698 @cindex server response, print
700 @itemx --server-response
701 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
704 @cindex Wget as spider
707 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
708 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
709 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
712 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
715 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
716 functionality of real web spiders.
720 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
721 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
722 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
723 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
725 When interacting with the network, Wget can check for timeout and
726 abort the operation if it takes too long. This prevents anomalies
727 like hanging reads and infinite connects. The only timeout enabled by
728 default is a 900-second read timeout. Setting a timeout to 0 disables
729 it altogether. Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to
730 change the default timeout settings.
732 All timeout-related options accept decimal values, as well as
733 subsecond values. For example, @samp{0.1} seconds is a legal (though
734 unwise) choice of timeout. Subsecond timeouts are useful for checking
735 server response times or for testing network latency.
739 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
740 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
741 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
742 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
745 @cindex connect timeout
746 @cindex timeout, connect
747 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
748 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
749 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
750 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
753 @cindex timeout, read
754 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
755 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. The
756 ``time'' of this timeout refers to @dfn{idle time}: if, at any point in
757 the download, no data is received for more than the specified number
758 of seconds, reading fails and the download is restarted. This option
759 does not directly affect the duration of the entire download.
761 Of course, the remote server may choose to terminate the connection
762 sooner than this option requires. The default read timeout is 900
765 @cindex bandwidth, limit
767 @cindex limit bandwidth
768 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
769 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
770 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
771 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
772 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This is useful when, for whatever
773 reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available bandwidth.
775 This option allows the use of decimal numbers, usually in conjunction
776 with power suffixes; for example, @samp{--limit-rate=2.5k} is a legal
779 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
780 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
781 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
782 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
783 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
784 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
788 @item -w @var{seconds}
789 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
790 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
791 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
792 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
793 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
794 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
796 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
797 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
798 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry. The
799 waiting interval specified by this function is influenced by
800 @code{--random-wait}, which see.
802 @cindex retries, waiting between
803 @cindex waiting between retries
804 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
805 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
806 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
807 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
808 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
809 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
810 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
813 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
819 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
820 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
821 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
822 to vary between 0.5 and 1.5 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
823 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
824 presence from such analysis.
826 A 2001 article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
827 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
828 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
829 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
832 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
833 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
838 Don't use proxies, even if the appropriate @code{*_proxy} environment
842 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
847 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
848 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
849 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
850 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
852 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
853 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
854 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
855 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
856 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
857 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
858 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
860 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
863 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
865 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the IP
866 addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
867 contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of hosts it
868 retrieves from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will
871 However, it has been reported that in some situations it is not
872 desirable to cache host names, even for the duration of a
873 short-running application like Wget. With this option Wget issues a
874 new DNS lookup (more precisely, a new call to @code{gethostbyname} or
875 @code{getaddrinfo}) each time it makes a new connection. Please note
876 that this option will @emph{not} affect caching that might be
877 performed by the resolving library or by an external caching layer,
880 If you don't understand exactly what this option does, you probably
883 @cindex file names, restrict
884 @cindex Windows file names
885 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
886 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
887 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
888 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
889 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
892 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
893 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
894 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
895 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
896 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
898 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
899 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
900 default on Unix-like OS'es.
902 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
903 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
904 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
905 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
906 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
907 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
908 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
909 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
910 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
911 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
913 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
914 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
915 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
916 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
917 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
924 Force connecting to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. With @samp{--inet4-only}
925 or @samp{-4}, Wget will only connect to IPv4 hosts, ignoring AAAA
926 records in DNS, and refusing to connect to IPv6 addresses specified in
927 URLs. Conversely, with @samp{--inet6-only} or @samp{-6}, Wget will
928 only connect to IPv6 hosts and ignore A records and IPv4 addresses.
930 Neither options should be needed normally. By default, an IPv6-aware
931 Wget will use the address family specified by the host's DNS record.
932 If the DNS responds with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Wget will try
933 them in sequence until it finds one it can connect to. (Also see
934 @code{--prefer-family} option described below.)
936 These options can be used to deliberately force the use of IPv4 or
937 IPv6 address families on dual family systems, usually to aid debugging
938 or to deal with broken network configuration. Only one of
939 @samp{--inet6-only} and @samp{--inet4-only} may be specified at the
940 same time. Neither option is available in Wget compiled without IPv6
943 @item --prefer-family=IPv4/IPv6/none
944 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
945 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
948 This avoids spurious errors and connect attempts when accessing hosts
949 that resolve to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses from IPv4 networks. For
950 example, @samp{www.kame.net} resolves to
951 @samp{2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085} and to
952 @samp{203.178.141.194}. When the preferred family is @code{IPv4}, the
953 IPv4 address is used first; when the preferred family is @code{IPv6},
954 the IPv6 address is used first; if the specified value is @code{none},
955 the address order returned by DNS is used without change.
957 Unlike @samp{-4} and @samp{-6}, this option doesn't inhibit access to
958 any address family, it only changes the @emph{order} in which the
959 addresses are accessed. Also note that the reordering performed by
960 this option is @dfn{stable}---it doesn't affect order of addresses of
961 the same family. That is, the relative order of all IPv4 addresses
962 and of all IPv6 addresses remains intact in all cases.
964 @item --retry-connrefused
965 Consider ``connection refused'' a transient error and try again.
966 Normally Wget gives up on a URL when it is unable to connect to the
967 site because failure to connect is taken as a sign that the server is
968 not running at all and that retries would not help. This option is
969 for mirroring unreliable sites whose servers tend to disappear for
970 short periods of time.
974 @cindex authentication
975 @item --user=@var{user}
976 @itemx --password=@var{password}
977 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for both
978 @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden
979 using the @samp{--ftp-user} and @samp{--ftp-password} options for
980 @sc{ftp} connections and the @samp{--http-user} and @samp{--http-password}
981 options for @sc{http} connections.
984 @node Directory Options
985 @section Directory Options
989 @itemx --no-directories
990 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
991 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
992 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
993 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
996 @itemx --force-directories
997 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
998 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
999 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
1000 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
1003 @itemx --no-host-directories
1004 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
1005 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
1006 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
1009 @item --protocol-directories
1010 Use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. For
1011 example, with this option, @samp{wget -r http://@var{host}} will save to
1012 @samp{http/@var{host}/...} rather than just to @samp{@var{host}/...}.
1014 @cindex cut directories
1015 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
1016 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
1017 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
1020 Take, for example, the directory at
1021 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
1022 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
1023 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
1024 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
1025 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
1026 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
1027 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
1031 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
1033 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
1034 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
1036 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
1041 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
1042 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
1043 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
1044 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
1045 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
1047 @cindex directory prefix
1048 @item -P @var{prefix}
1049 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
1050 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
1051 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
1052 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
1057 @section HTTP Options
1060 @cindex .html extension
1062 @itemx --html-extension
1063 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
1064 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
1065 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
1066 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
1067 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
1068 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
1069 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
1070 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
1071 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
1073 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
1074 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
1075 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
1076 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
1077 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
1078 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
1079 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
1080 Retrieval Options}).
1083 @cindex http password
1084 @cindex authentication
1085 @item --http-user=@var{user}
1086 @itemx --http-password=@var{password}
1087 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1088 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
1089 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure),
1090 the @code{digest}, or the Windows @code{NTLM} authentication scheme.
1092 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1093 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1094 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1095 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1096 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1097 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1098 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1101 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1108 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
1109 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
1110 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
1111 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
1112 documents on proxy servers.
1114 Caching is allowed by default.
1118 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
1119 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
1120 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
1121 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1122 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1123 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1124 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1126 @cindex loading cookies
1127 @cindex cookies, loading
1128 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1129 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1130 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1131 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1133 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1134 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1135 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1136 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1137 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1138 proves your identity.
1140 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1141 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1142 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1143 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1144 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1145 cookie files in different locations:
1149 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1151 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1152 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1153 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1154 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1155 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1157 @item Internet Explorer.
1158 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1159 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1160 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1162 @item Other browsers.
1163 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1164 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1165 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1168 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1169 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1170 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1171 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1172 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1175 wget --no-cookies --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1178 @cindex saving cookies
1179 @cindex cookies, saving
1180 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1181 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1182 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1183 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1185 @cindex cookies, session
1186 @cindex session cookies
1187 @item --keep-session-cookies
1188 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1189 cookies. Session cookies are normally not saved because they are
1190 meant to be kept in memory and forgotten when you exit the browser.
1191 Saving them is useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit
1192 the home page before you can access some pages. With this option,
1193 multiple Wget runs are considered a single browser session as far as
1194 the site is concerned.
1196 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1197 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1198 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1199 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1200 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1201 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1202 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1204 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1205 @cindex ignore length
1206 @item --ignore-length
1207 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1208 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1209 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1210 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1211 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1214 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1215 if it never existed.
1218 @item --header=@var{header-line}
1219 Send @var{header-line} along with the rest of the headers in each
1220 @sc{http} request. The supplied header is sent as-is, which means it
1221 must contain name and value separated by colon, and must not contain
1224 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1225 @samp{--header} more than once.
1229 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1230 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1231 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1235 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1236 previous user-defined headers.
1238 As of Wget 1.10, this option can be used to override headers otherwise
1239 generated automatically. This example instructs Wget to connect to
1240 localhost, but to specify @samp{foo.bar} in the @code{Host} header:
1243 wget --header="Host: foo.bar" http://localhost/
1246 In versions of Wget prior to 1.10 such use of @samp{--header} caused
1247 sending of duplicate headers.
1250 @item --max-redirect=@var{number}
1251 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
1252 The default is 20, which is usually far more than necessary. However, on
1253 those occasions where you want to allow more (or fewer), this is the
1257 @cindex proxy password
1258 @cindex proxy authentication
1259 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1260 @itemx --proxy-password=@var{password}
1261 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1262 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1263 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1265 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-password}
1266 pertain here as well.
1268 @cindex http referer
1269 @cindex referer, http
1270 @item --referer=@var{url}
1271 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1272 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1273 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1274 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1276 @cindex server response, save
1277 @item --save-headers
1278 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1279 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1282 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1283 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1284 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1286 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1287 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1288 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1289 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1290 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1293 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1294 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1295 While this is not such a bad idea in theory, it has been abused by
1296 servers denying information to clients other than (historically)
1297 Netscape or, more frequently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
1298 option allows you to change the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget.
1299 Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
1302 Specifying empty user agent with @samp{--user-agent=""} instructs Wget
1303 not to send the @code{User-Agent} header in @sc{http} requests.
1306 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1307 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1308 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1309 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1310 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1311 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1313 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1314 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1315 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1316 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1317 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1318 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1319 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1320 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1321 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1323 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it
1324 will not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because
1325 URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular
1326 page, which does not desire or accept POST. It is not completely
1327 clear that this behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it might
1328 be changed in the future.
1330 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1331 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1336 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1337 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1338 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1339 http://server.com/auth.php
1341 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1342 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1343 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1347 If the server is using session cookies to track user authentication,
1348 the above will not work because @samp{--save-cookies} will not save
1349 them (and neither will browsers) and the @file{cookies.txt} file will
1350 be empty. In that case use @samp{--keep-session-cookies} along with
1351 @samp{--save-cookies} to force saving of session cookies.
1353 @cindex Content-Disposition
1354 @item --content-disposition
1356 If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for
1357 @code{Content-Disposition} headers is enabled. This can currently result in
1358 extra round-trips to the server for a @code{HEAD} request, and is known
1359 to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by default.
1361 This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use
1362 @code{Content-Disposition} headers to describe what the name of a
1363 downloaded file should be.
1367 @node HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1368 @section HTTPS (SSL/TLS) Options
1371 To support encrypted HTTP (HTTPS) downloads, Wget must be compiled
1372 with an external SSL library, currently OpenSSL. If Wget is compiled
1373 without SSL support, none of these options are available.
1376 @cindex SSL protocol, choose
1377 @item --secure-protocol=@var{protocol}
1378 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto},
1379 @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. If @samp{auto} is used,
1380 the SSL library is given the liberty of choosing the appropriate
1381 protocol automatically, which is achieved by sending an SSLv2 greeting
1382 and announcing support for SSLv3 and TLSv1. This is the default.
1384 Specifying @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, or @samp{TLSv1} forces the use
1385 of the corresponding protocol. This is useful when talking to old and
1386 buggy SSL server implementations that make it hard for OpenSSL to
1387 choose the correct protocol version. Fortunately, such servers are
1390 @cindex SSL certificate, check
1391 @item --no-check-certificate
1392 Don't check the server certificate against the available certificate
1393 authorities. Also don't require the URL host name to match the common
1394 name presented by the certificate.
1396 As of Wget 1.10, the default is to verify the server's certificate
1397 against the recognized certificate authorities, breaking the SSL
1398 handshake and aborting the download if the verification fails.
1399 Although this provides more secure downloads, it does break
1400 interoperability with some sites that worked with previous Wget
1401 versions, particularly those using self-signed, expired, or otherwise
1402 invalid certificates. This option forces an ``insecure'' mode of
1403 operation that turns the certificate verification errors into warnings
1404 and allows you to proceed.
1406 If you encounter ``certificate verification'' errors or ones saying
1407 that ``common name doesn't match requested host name'', you can use
1408 this option to bypass the verification and proceed with the download.
1409 @emph{Only use this option if you are otherwise convinced of the
1410 site's authenticity, or if you really don't care about the validity of
1411 its certificate.} It is almost always a bad idea not to check the
1412 certificates when transmitting confidential or important data.
1414 @cindex SSL certificate
1415 @item --certificate=@var{file}
1416 Use the client certificate stored in @var{file}. This is needed for
1417 servers that are configured to require certificates from the clients
1418 that connect to them. Normally a certificate is not required and this
1421 @cindex SSL certificate type, specify
1422 @item --certificate-type=@var{type}
1423 Specify the type of the client certificate. Legal values are
1424 @samp{PEM} (assumed by default) and @samp{DER}, also known as
1427 @item --private-key=@var{file}
1428 Read the private key from @var{file}. This allows you to provide the
1429 private key in a file separate from the certificate.
1431 @item --private-key-type=@var{type}
1432 Specify the type of the private key. Accepted values are @samp{PEM}
1433 (the default) and @samp{DER}.
1435 @item --ca-certificate=@var{file}
1436 Use @var{file} as the file with the bundle of certificate authorities
1437 (``CA'') to verify the peers. The certificates must be in PEM format.
1439 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1440 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1442 @cindex SSL certificate authority
1443 @item --ca-directory=@var{directory}
1444 Specifies directory containing CA certificates in PEM format. Each
1445 file contains one CA certificate, and the file name is based on a hash
1446 value derived from the certificate. This is achieved by processing a
1447 certificate directory with the @code{c_rehash} utility supplied with
1448 OpenSSL. Using @samp{--ca-directory} is more efficient than
1449 @samp{--ca-certificate} when many certificates are installed because
1450 it allows Wget to fetch certificates on demand.
1452 Without this option Wget looks for CA certificates at the
1453 system-specified locations, chosen at OpenSSL installation time.
1455 @cindex entropy, specifying source of
1456 @cindex randomness, specifying source of
1457 @item --random-file=@var{file}
1458 Use @var{file} as the source of random data for seeding the
1459 pseudo-random number generator on systems without @file{/dev/random}.
1461 On such systems the SSL library needs an external source of randomness
1462 to initialize. Randomness may be provided by EGD (see
1463 @samp{--egd-file} below) or read from an external source specified by
1464 the user. If this option is not specified, Wget looks for random data
1465 in @code{$RANDFILE} or, if that is unset, in @file{$HOME/.rnd}. If
1466 none of those are available, it is likely that SSL encryption will not
1469 If you're getting the ``Could not seed OpenSSL PRNG; disabling SSL.''
1470 error, you should provide random data using some of the methods
1474 @item --egd-file=@var{file}
1475 Use @var{file} as the EGD socket. EGD stands for @dfn{Entropy
1476 Gathering Daemon}, a user-space program that collects data from
1477 various unpredictable system sources and makes it available to other
1478 programs that might need it. Encryption software, such as the SSL
1479 library, needs sources of non-repeating randomness to seed the random
1480 number generator used to produce cryptographically strong keys.
1482 OpenSSL allows the user to specify his own source of entropy using the
1483 @code{RAND_FILE} environment variable. If this variable is unset, or
1484 if the specified file does not produce enough randomness, OpenSSL will
1485 read random data from EGD socket specified using this option.
1487 If this option is not specified (and the equivalent startup command is
1488 not used), EGD is never contacted. EGD is not needed on modern Unix
1489 systems that support @file{/dev/random}.
1493 @section FTP Options
1497 @cindex ftp password
1498 @cindex ftp authentication
1499 @item --ftp-user=@var{user}
1500 @itemx --ftp-password=@var{password}
1501 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
1502 @sc{ftp} server. Without this, or the corresponding startup option,
1503 the password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, normally used for anonymous
1506 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
1507 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
1508 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
1509 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
1510 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
1511 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
1512 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
1515 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
1519 @cindex .listing files, removing
1520 @item --no-remove-listing
1521 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1522 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1523 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1524 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1525 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1526 you're running is complete).
1528 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1529 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1530 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1531 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1532 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1533 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1534 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1535 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1536 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1538 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1539 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1540 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1541 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1542 will be overwritten.
1544 @cindex globbing, toggle
1546 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1547 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1548 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1552 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1555 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1556 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1559 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1560 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1561 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1562 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1565 @item --no-passive-ftp
1566 Disable the use of the @dfn{passive} FTP transfer mode. Passive FTP
1567 mandates that the client connect to the server to establish the data
1568 connection rather than the other way around.
1570 If the machine is connected to the Internet directly, both passive and
1571 active FTP should work equally well. Behind most firewall and NAT
1572 configurations passive FTP has a better chance of working. However,
1573 in some rare firewall configurations, active FTP actually works when
1574 passive FTP doesn't. If you suspect this to be the case, use this
1575 option, or set @code{passive_ftp=off} in your init file.
1577 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1578 @item --retr-symlinks
1579 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1580 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1581 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1582 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1583 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1585 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1586 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1587 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1588 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1591 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1592 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1593 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1596 @cindex Keep-Alive, turning off
1597 @cindex Persistent Connections, disabling
1598 @item --no-http-keep-alive
1599 Turn off the ``keep-alive'' feature for HTTP downloads. Normally, Wget
1600 asks the server to keep the connection open so that, when you download
1601 more than one document from the same server, they get transferred over
1602 the same TCP connection. This saves time and at the same time reduces
1603 the load on the server.
1605 This option is useful when, for some reason, persistent (keep-alive)
1606 connections don't work for you, for example due to a server bug or due
1607 to the inability of server-side scripts to cope with the connections.
1610 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1611 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1616 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1619 @item -l @var{depth}
1620 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1621 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1622 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1624 @cindex proxy filling
1625 @cindex delete after retrieval
1626 @cindex filling proxy cache
1627 @item --delete-after
1628 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1629 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1630 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1633 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1636 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1639 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1640 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1641 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1642 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1643 created in the first place.
1645 @cindex conversion of links
1646 @cindex link conversion
1648 @itemx --convert-links
1649 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1650 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1651 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1652 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1655 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1659 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1660 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1662 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1663 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1664 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1665 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1668 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1669 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1671 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1672 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1673 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1674 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1677 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1678 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1679 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1680 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1681 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1684 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1685 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1686 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1688 @cindex backing up converted files
1690 @itemx --backup-converted
1691 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1692 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1697 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1698 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1699 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1700 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1702 @cindex page requisites
1703 @cindex required images, downloading
1705 @itemx --page-requisites
1706 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1707 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1708 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1710 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1711 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1712 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1713 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1714 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1717 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1718 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1719 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1720 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1721 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1723 If one executes the command:
1726 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1729 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1730 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1731 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1732 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1733 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1736 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1739 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1740 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1743 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1746 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1747 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1750 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1753 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1754 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1755 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1756 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1757 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1758 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1761 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1764 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1765 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1766 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1767 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1768 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1769 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1772 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1775 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1776 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1777 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1780 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1781 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1782 @item --strict-comments
1783 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1784 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1786 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1787 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1788 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1789 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1790 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1791 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1792 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1794 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1795 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1796 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1797 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1798 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1799 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1800 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1801 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1802 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1804 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1805 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1806 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1807 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1808 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1811 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1812 option to turn it on.
1815 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1816 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1819 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1820 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1821 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1822 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files}). Note that if
1823 any of the wildcard characters, @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[} or
1824 @samp{]}, appear in an element of @var{acclist} or @var{rejlist},
1825 it will be treated as a pattern, rather than a suffix.
1827 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1828 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1829 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1830 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1832 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1833 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1834 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1836 @cindex follow FTP links
1838 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1839 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1841 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1842 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1843 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1844 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1845 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1846 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1847 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1849 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1850 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1851 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1852 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1854 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1855 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1858 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1861 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1862 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1863 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1864 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1865 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1866 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1871 Ignore case when matching files and directories. This influences the
1872 behavior of -R, -A, -I, and -X options, as well as globbing
1873 implemented when downloading from FTP sites. For example, with this
1874 option, @samp{-A *.txt} will match @samp{file1.txt}, but also
1875 @samp{file2.TXT}, @samp{file3.TxT}, and so on.
1879 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1880 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1884 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1885 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1886 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1889 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1890 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1891 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements
1892 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1895 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1896 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1897 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}). Elements of
1898 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1902 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1903 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1904 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1905 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1910 @node Recursive Download
1911 @chapter Recursive Download
1914 @cindex recursive download
1916 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1917 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1918 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1920 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1921 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1922 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1923 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1924 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1927 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1928 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1929 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1930 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1931 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1932 until the specified maximum depth.
1934 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1935 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1937 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1938 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1939 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1940 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1941 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1944 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1945 the one found on the remote server.
1947 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1948 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1949 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1950 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1952 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1953 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1954 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1955 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1956 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1957 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1958 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1960 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1961 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1962 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1963 consume memory and CPU.
1965 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1966 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1967 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1968 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1969 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1970 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1971 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1974 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1977 @node Following Links
1978 @chapter Following Links
1980 @cindex following links
1982 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1983 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1984 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1986 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1987 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1988 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1990 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1991 links it will follow.
1994 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1995 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1996 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1997 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1998 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
2001 @node Spanning Hosts
2002 @section Spanning Hosts
2003 @cindex spanning hosts
2004 @cindex hosts, spanning
2006 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
2007 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
2008 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
2009 your Wget into a small version of google.
2011 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
2012 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
2013 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
2014 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
2015 pages refer to both interchangeably.
2018 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
2020 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
2021 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
2022 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
2023 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
2024 up much more data than you have intended.
2026 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
2028 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
2029 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
2030 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
2031 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
2032 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
2033 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
2036 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
2039 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
2040 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
2042 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
2044 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
2045 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
2046 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
2047 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
2048 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
2052 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
2058 @node Types of Files
2059 @section Types of Files
2060 @cindex types of files
2062 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
2063 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
2064 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
2065 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
2067 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
2068 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
2071 @cindex accept wildcards
2072 @cindex accept suffixes
2073 @cindex wildcards, accept
2074 @cindex suffixes, accept
2076 @item -A @var{acclist}
2077 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
2078 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
2079 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
2080 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
2081 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
2082 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
2083 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
2085 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
2086 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
2087 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
2088 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
2089 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
2090 a description of how pattern matching works.
2092 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
2093 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
2095 @cindex reject wildcards
2096 @cindex reject suffixes
2097 @cindex wildcards, reject
2098 @cindex suffixes, reject
2099 @item -R @var{rejlist}
2100 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
2101 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
2102 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
2103 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
2104 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
2106 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
2107 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
2108 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
2109 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
2110 expansion by the shell.
2113 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
2114 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
2115 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
2116 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
2118 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
2119 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
2120 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
2122 @node Directory-Based Limits
2123 @section Directory-Based Limits
2125 @cindex directory limits
2127 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
2128 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
2129 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
2130 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
2131 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
2132 @file{/dev} directories.
2134 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
2135 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
2136 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
2138 @cindex directories, include
2139 @cindex include directories
2140 @cindex accept directories
2143 @itemx --include @var{list}
2144 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
2145 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
2146 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
2147 directories are absolute paths.
2149 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
2150 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
2151 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
2154 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
2157 @cindex directories, exclude
2158 @cindex exclude directories
2159 @cindex reject directories
2161 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
2162 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
2163 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
2164 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
2165 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
2166 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
2168 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
2169 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
2170 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
2171 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
2176 @itemx no_parent = on
2177 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
2178 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
2179 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
2180 parent directory/directories.
2182 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
2183 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
2184 Supposing you issue Wget with:
2187 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
2190 You may rest assured that none of the references to
2191 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
2192 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
2193 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
2194 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
2195 intelligent fashion.
2198 @node Relative Links
2199 @section Relative Links
2200 @cindex relative links
2202 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
2203 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
2204 server root. For example, these links are relative:
2208 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
2209 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
2212 These links are not relative:
2216 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
2217 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
2220 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
2221 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
2222 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
2224 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
2228 @section Following FTP Links
2229 @cindex following ftp links
2231 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
2232 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
2233 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
2236 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
2237 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
2238 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
2239 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
2240 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
2241 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
2242 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
2244 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
2245 retrieved recursively further.
2248 @chapter Time-Stamping
2249 @cindex time-stamping
2250 @cindex timestamping
2251 @cindex updating the archives
2252 @cindex incremental updating
2254 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
2255 Internet is updating your archives.
2257 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
2258 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
2259 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
2260 offer the option of incremental updating.
2262 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
2263 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
2264 the place of the old ones.
2266 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
2270 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
2273 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
2274 recently than the local file.
2277 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
2278 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
2279 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
2281 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
2282 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
2283 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
2284 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
2285 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
2287 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
2288 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
2292 * Time-Stamping Usage::
2293 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2294 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
2297 @node Time-Stamping Usage
2298 @section Time-Stamping Usage
2299 @cindex time-stamping usage
2300 @cindex usage, time-stamping
2302 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
2303 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
2306 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2309 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
2310 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
2311 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
2312 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
2314 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
2315 changed, and download it if it has.
2318 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
2321 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
2322 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
2323 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
2324 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
2326 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
2329 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
2332 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
2333 interpret the @samp{*}.)
2335 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
2336 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
2337 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
2338 since the last download.
2340 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
2341 command like the following, weekly:
2344 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2347 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2348 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2349 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2350 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2351 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2353 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2354 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2355 @cindex http time-stamping
2357 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2358 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2359 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2360 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2361 retrieved unconditionally.
2363 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2364 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2365 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2368 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2369 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2370 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2371 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2372 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2373 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2376 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2377 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2378 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2379 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2380 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2382 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2383 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2385 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2386 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2387 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2389 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2390 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2393 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2394 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2395 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2396 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2397 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2398 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2399 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2400 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2402 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2403 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2404 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2405 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2406 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2407 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2409 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2410 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2411 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2412 Wget may support this command in the future.
2415 @chapter Startup File
2416 @cindex startup file
2422 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2423 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2424 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2425 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2427 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2428 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2429 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2430 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2432 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2436 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2437 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2438 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2439 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2442 @node Wgetrc Location
2443 @section Wgetrc Location
2444 @cindex wgetrc location
2445 @cindex location of wgetrc
2447 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2448 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2449 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2450 from there, if it exists.
2452 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2453 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2454 further attempts will be made.
2456 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2458 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2459 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2460 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2461 Fascist admins, away!
2464 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2465 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2466 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2468 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2474 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2475 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2477 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2478 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2479 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2482 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2483 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2484 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2490 @node Wgetrc Commands
2491 @section Wgetrc Commands
2492 @cindex wgetrc commands
2494 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2495 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2496 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}.
2498 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2499 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2500 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2501 values can be any non-empty string.
2503 Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any
2504 wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the
2505 @samp{--execute} switch (@pxref{Basic Startup Options}.)
2508 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2509 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2511 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2512 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2514 @item background = on/off
2515 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2518 @item backup_converted = on/off
2519 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2520 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2522 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2523 @c #### Document me!
2525 @item base = @var{string}
2526 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2527 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2528 @samp{--base=@var{string}}.
2530 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2531 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address=@var{address}}.
2533 @item ca_certificate = @var{file}
2534 Set the certificate authority bundle file to @var{file}. The same
2535 as @samp{--ca-certificate=@var{file}}.
2537 @item ca_directory = @var{directory}
2538 Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as
2539 @samp{--ca-directory=@var{directory}}.
2541 @item cache = on/off
2542 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2545 @item certificate = @var{file}
2546 Set the client certificate file name to @var{file}. The same as
2547 @samp{--certificate=@var{file}}.
2549 @item certificate_type = @var{string}
2550 Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being
2551 @samp{PEM} (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2552 @samp{--certificate-type=@var{string}}.
2554 @item check_certificate = on/off
2555 If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against
2556 the specified client authorities. The default is ``on''. The same as
2557 @samp{--check-certificate}.
2559 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2560 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2562 @item content_disposition = on/off
2563 Turn on recognition of the (non-standard) @samp{Content-Disposition}
2564 HTTP header---if set to @samp{on}, the same as @samp{--content-disposition}.
2566 @item continue = on/off
2567 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2568 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2570 @item convert_links = on/off
2571 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2573 @item cookies = on/off
2574 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2576 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2577 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components. Equivalent to
2578 @samp{--cut-dirs=@var{n}}.
2580 @item debug = on/off
2581 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2583 @item delete_after = on/off
2584 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2586 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2587 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P @var{string}}.
2589 @item dirstruct = on/off
2590 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2593 @item dns_cache = on/off
2594 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2595 option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to
2596 @samp{--no-dns-cache}.
2598 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2599 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2601 @item domains = @var{string}
2602 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2604 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2605 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2606 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2607 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2608 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2609 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2610 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2612 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2613 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2615 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2616 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2617 the retrieval (50 by default).
2619 @item egd_file = @var{file}
2620 Use @var{string} as the EGD socket file name. The same as
2621 @samp{--egd-file=@var{file}}.
2623 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2624 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2625 download---the same as @samp{-X @var{string}} (@pxref{Directory-Based
2628 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2629 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains=@var{string}} (@pxref{Spanning
2632 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2633 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2634 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2636 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2637 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval,
2638 just like @samp{--follow-tags=@var{string}}.
2640 @item force_html = on/off
2641 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2642 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2644 @item ftp_password = @var{string}
2645 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{string}. Without this setting, the
2646 password defaults to @samp{-wget@@}, which is a useful default for
2647 anonymous @sc{ftp} access.
2649 This command used to be named @code{passwd} prior to Wget 1.10.
2651 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2652 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2655 @item ftp_user = @var{string}
2656 Set @sc{ftp} user to @var{string}.
2658 This command used to be named @code{login} prior to Wget 1.10.
2661 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2663 @item header = @var{string}
2664 Define a header for HTTP downloads, like using
2665 @samp{--header=@var{string}}.
2667 @item html_extension = on/off
2668 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2669 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like @samp{-E}.
2671 @item http_keep_alive = on/off
2672 Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it
2673 off is equivalent to @samp{--no-http-keep-alive}.
2675 @item http_password = @var{string}
2676 Set @sc{http} password, equivalent to
2677 @samp{--http-password=@var{string}}.
2679 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2680 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2683 @item http_user = @var{string}
2684 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}, equivalent to
2685 @samp{--http-user=@var{string}}.
2687 @item https_proxy = @var{string}
2688 Use @var{string} as @sc{https} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2691 @item ignore_case = on/off
2692 When set to on, match files and directories case insensitively; the
2693 same as @samp{--ignore-case}.
2695 @item ignore_length = on/off
2696 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2697 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2699 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2700 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like
2701 @samp{--ignore-tags=@var{string}}.
2703 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2704 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2705 downloading---the same as @samp{-I @var{string}}.
2707 @item inet4_only = on/off
2708 Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this
2709 in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and
2710 connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6
2711 support. The same as @samp{--inet4-only} or @samp{-4}.
2713 @item inet6_only = on/off
2714 Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if
2715 Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as @samp{--inet6-only}
2718 @item input = @var{file}
2719 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i @var{file}}.
2721 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2722 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2723 The same as @samp{--limit-rate=@var{rate}}.
2725 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2726 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies @var{file}}.
2728 @item logfile = @var{file}
2729 Set logfile to @var{file}, the same as @samp{-o @var{file}}.
2731 @item max_redirect = @var{number}
2732 Specifies the maximum number of redirections to follow for a resource.
2733 See @samp{--max-redirect=@var{number}}.
2735 @item mirror = on/off
2736 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2738 @item netrc = on/off
2739 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2741 @item no_clobber = on/off
2744 @item no_parent = on/off
2745 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2746 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2748 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2749 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2750 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2752 @item output_document = @var{file}
2753 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O @var{file}}.
2755 @item page_requisites = on/off
2756 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2757 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2759 @item passive_ftp = on/off
2760 Change setting of passive @sc{ftp}, equivalent to the
2761 @samp{--passive-ftp} option.
2763 @itemx password = @var{string}
2764 Specify password @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2765 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_password} and
2766 @samp{http_password} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2768 @item post_data = @var{string}
2769 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2770 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data=@var{string}}.
2772 @item post_file = @var{file}
2773 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2774 @var{file} in the request body. The same as
2775 @samp{--post-file=@var{file}}.
2777 @item prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
2778 When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses
2779 with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by
2780 default. The same as @samp{--prefer-family}, which see for a detailed
2781 discussion of why this is useful.
2783 @item private_key = @var{file}
2784 Set the private key file to @var{file}. The same as
2785 @samp{--private-key=@var{file}}.
2787 @item private_key_type = @var{string}
2788 Specify the type of the private key, legal values being @samp{PEM}
2789 (the default) and @samp{DER} (aka ASN1). The same as
2790 @samp{--private-type=@var{string}}.
2792 @item progress = @var{string}
2793 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are @samp{dot}
2794 and @samp{bar}. Equivalent to @samp{--progress=@var{string}}.
2796 @item protocol_directories = on/off
2797 When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file
2798 names. The same as @samp{--protocol-directories}.
2800 @item proxy_password = @var{string}
2801 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like
2802 @samp{--proxy-password=@var{string}}.
2804 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2805 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like
2806 @samp{--proxy-user=@var{string}}.
2808 @item quiet = on/off
2809 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2811 @item quota = @var{quota}
2812 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2813 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2814 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2815 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2816 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2817 to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2820 @item random_file = @var{file}
2821 Use @var{file} as a source of randomness on systems lacking
2824 @item random_wait = on/off
2825 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2826 @samp{--random-wait}.
2828 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2829 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as
2830 @samp{--read-timeout=@var{n}}.
2832 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2833 Recursion level (depth)---the same as @samp{-l @var{n}}.
2835 @item recursive = on/off
2836 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2838 @item referer = @var{string}
2839 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like
2840 @samp{--referer=@var{string}}. (Note that it was the folks who wrote
2841 the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of ``referrer'' wrong.)
2843 @item relative_only = on/off
2844 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2847 @item remove_listing = on/off
2848 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2849 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2851 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2852 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2853 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2855 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2856 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2857 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2859 @item retry_connrefused = on/off
2860 When set to on, consider ``connection refused'' a transient
2861 error---the same as @samp{--retry-connrefused}.
2863 @item robots = on/off
2864 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2865 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2866 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2867 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2870 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2871 Save cookies to @var{file}. The same as @samp{--save-cookies
2874 @item secure_protocol = @var{string}
2875 Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are @samp{auto}
2876 (the default), @samp{SSLv2}, @samp{SSLv3}, and @samp{TLSv1}. The same
2877 as @samp{--secure-protocol=@var{string}}.
2879 @item server_response = on/off
2880 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2881 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2883 @item span_hosts = on/off
2886 @item strict_comments = on/off
2887 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2889 @item timeout = @var{n}
2890 Set all applicable timeout values to @var{n}, the same as @samp{-T
2893 @item timestamping = on/off
2894 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2896 @item tries = @var{n}
2897 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t @var{n}}.
2899 @item use_proxy = on/off
2900 When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment
2901 variables are set. In that case it is the same as using
2904 @item user = @var{string}
2905 Specify username @var{string} for both @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} file retrieval.
2906 This command can be overridden using the @samp{ftp_user} and
2907 @samp{http_user} command for @sc{ftp} and @sc{http} respectively.
2909 @item verbose = on/off
2910 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2912 @item wait = @var{n}
2913 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w
2916 @item wait_retry = @var{n}
2917 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2918 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry=@var{n}}. Note that this is
2919 turned on by default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2923 @section Sample Wgetrc
2924 @cindex sample wgetrc
2926 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2927 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2928 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2929 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2931 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2932 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2936 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2943 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2944 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2948 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2949 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2950 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2954 @section Simple Usage
2958 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2961 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2965 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2966 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2967 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2968 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2969 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2970 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2973 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2977 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2978 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2979 shall use @samp{-t}.
2982 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2985 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2986 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2989 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2993 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2997 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2998 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
3001 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
3006 @node Advanced Usage
3007 @section Advanced Usage
3011 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
3018 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
3022 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
3023 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
3024 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
3027 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3031 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
3032 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
3035 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
3039 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
3040 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
3041 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
3042 references the downloaded links.
3045 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3048 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
3049 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
3050 depending on where they were on the remote server.
3053 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
3054 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
3055 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
3056 subdirectory of the current directory.
3059 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
3060 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
3064 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
3068 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
3072 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
3075 wget --save-headers http://www.lycos.com/
3080 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
3084 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
3088 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
3089 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
3090 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
3094 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
3097 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
3098 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
3099 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
3100 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
3101 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
3105 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
3106 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
3110 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
3114 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
3115 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
3118 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
3121 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
3122 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
3125 @cindex redirecting output
3127 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
3131 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
3134 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
3135 documents from remote hotlists:
3138 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
3142 @node Very Advanced Usage
3143 @section Very Advanced Usage
3148 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
3149 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
3150 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
3151 to recheck a site each Sunday:
3155 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3159 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
3160 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
3161 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
3162 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
3163 would look like this:
3166 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3167 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3171 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
3172 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
3173 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
3174 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
3175 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
3178 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
3179 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
3183 Or, with less typing:
3186 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
3195 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
3198 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers.
3199 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
3200 * Web Site:: GNU Wget's presence on the World Wide Web.
3201 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
3202 * Internet Relay Chat:: Wget's presence on IRC.
3203 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
3204 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
3205 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
3212 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
3213 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
3214 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
3215 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
3216 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
3217 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
3218 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
3219 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
3220 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
3221 using an authorized proxy.
3223 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
3224 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
3225 the following environment variables:
3230 If set, the @code{http_proxy} and @code{https_proxy} variables should
3231 contain the @sc{url}s of the proxies for @sc{http} and @sc{https}
3232 connections respectively.
3235 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
3236 connections. It is quite common that @code{http_proxy} and
3237 @code{ftp_proxy} are set to the same @sc{url}.
3240 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
3241 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
3242 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
3246 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
3247 may be specified from within Wget itself.
3251 @itemx proxy = on/off
3252 This option and the corresponding command may be used to suppress the
3253 use of proxy, even if the appropriate environment variables are set.
3255 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
3256 @itemx https_proxy = @var{URL}
3257 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
3258 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
3259 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
3260 specified by the environment.
3263 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
3264 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
3265 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
3266 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
3267 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
3269 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
3270 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
3271 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
3272 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
3276 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
3279 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
3280 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
3281 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_password} to set the proxy
3282 username and password.
3285 @section Distribution
3286 @cindex latest version
3288 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
3289 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
3290 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
3291 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
3297 The official web site for GNU Wget is at
3298 @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/}. However, most useful
3299 information resides at ``The Wget Wgiki'',
3300 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/}.
3303 @section Mailing List
3304 @cindex mailing list
3307 There are several Wget-related mailing lists. The general discussion
3308 list is at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}. It is the preferred place for
3309 support requests and suggestions, as well as for discussion of
3310 development. You are invited to subscribe.
3312 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}
3313 and follow the instructions. Unsubscribe by mailing to
3314 @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}. The mailing list is archived at
3315 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.dk/} and at
3316 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.general}.
3318 Another mailing list is at @email{wget-patches@@sunsite.dk}, and is
3319 used to submit patches for review by Wget developers. A ``patch'' is
3320 a textual representation of change to source code, readable by both
3321 humans and programs. The
3322 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/PatchGuidelines} page
3323 covers the creation and submitting of patches in detail. Please don't
3324 send general suggestions or bug reports to @samp{wget-patches}; use it
3325 only for patch submissions.
3327 Subscription is the same as above for @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, except
3328 that you send to @email{wget-patches-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}, instead.
3329 The mailing list is archived at
3330 @url{http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.wget.patches}.
3332 Finally, there is the @email{wget-notify@@addictivecode.org} mailing
3333 list. This is a non-discussion list that receives commit notifications
3334 from the source repository, and also bug report-change notifications.
3335 This is the highest-traffic list for Wget, and is recommended only for
3336 people who are seriously interested in ongoing Wget development.
3337 Subscription is through the @code{mailman} interface at
3338 @url{http://addictivecode.org/mailman/listinfo/wget-notify}.
3340 @node Internet Relay Chat
3341 @section Internet Relay Chat
3342 @cindex Internet Relay Chat
3346 While, at the time of this writing, there is very low activity, we do
3347 have a support channel set up via IRC at @code{irc.freenode.org},
3348 @code{#wget}. Come check it out!
3350 @node Reporting Bugs
3351 @section Reporting Bugs
3353 @cindex reporting bugs
3357 You are welcome to submit bug reports via the GNU Wget bug tracker (see
3358 @url{http://wget.addictivecode.org/BugTracker}).
3360 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
3365 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
3366 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
3367 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
3368 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug, but you might want to
3369 double-check the documentation and the mailing lists (@pxref{Mailing
3373 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
3374 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 --no-proxy
3375 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
3376 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
3377 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
3378 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
3380 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
3381 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
3382 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
3383 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
3384 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
3388 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send us the resulting
3389 output (or relevant parts thereof). If Wget was compiled without
3390 debug support, recompile it---it is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs
3391 with debug support on.
3393 Note: please make sure to remove any potentially sensitive information
3394 from the debug log before sending it to the bug address. The
3395 @code{-d} won't go out of its way to collect sensitive information,
3396 but the log @emph{will} contain a fairly complete transcript of Wget's
3397 communication with the server, which may include passwords and pieces
3398 of downloaded data. Since the bug address is publically archived, you
3399 may assume that all bug reports are visible to the public.
3402 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
3403 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace. This may not
3404 work if the system administrator has disabled core files, but it is
3410 @section Portability
3412 @cindex operating systems
3414 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
3415 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
3416 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
3417 work) on all common Unix flavors.
3419 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
3420 Unix systems, including GNU/Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.x, Mac OS X, OSF
3421 (aka Digital Unix or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others. Some
3422 of those systems are no longer in widespread use and may not be able to
3423 support recent versions of Wget. If Wget fails to compile on your
3424 system, we would like to know about it.
3426 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works
3427 on 32-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. It has been compiled
3428 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, Borland C, and GCC
3429 compilers. Naturally, it is crippled of some features available on
3430 Unix, but it should work as a substitute for people stuck with
3431 Windows. Note that Windows-specific portions of Wget are not
3432 guaranteed to be supported in the future, although this has been the
3433 case in practice for many years now. All questions and problems in
3434 Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
3435 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
3436 Windows-related features might look at them.
3438 Support for building on MS-DOS via DJGPP has been contributed by Gisle
3439 Vanem; a port to VMS is maintained by Steven Schweda, and is available
3440 at @url{http://antinode.org/}.
3444 @cindex signal handling
3447 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
3448 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
3449 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
3450 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
3451 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
3454 $ wget http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz &
3457 SIGHUP received, redirecting output to `wget-log'.
3460 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
3461 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
3466 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
3469 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
3470 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
3471 * Contributors:: People who helped.
3474 @node Robot Exclusion
3475 @section Robot Exclusion
3476 @cindex robot exclusion
3478 @cindex server maintenance
3480 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
3481 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
3482 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
3484 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
3485 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
3486 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
3487 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
3488 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
3489 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
3490 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
3491 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
3492 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
3493 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
3494 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
3495 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
3497 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
3498 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
3499 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
3500 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
3501 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
3502 they will permit access.
3504 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
3505 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
3506 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
3507 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3508 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3509 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3512 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3513 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3514 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3515 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3518 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3521 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3522 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3523 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3524 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3527 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3528 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3529 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3530 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3531 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3532 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3533 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3534 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3536 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3538 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3539 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3540 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3544 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3547 This is explained in some detail at
3548 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3549 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3552 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3553 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3554 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3555 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3557 @node Security Considerations
3558 @section Security Considerations
3561 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3562 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3563 main issues, and some solutions.
3567 The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}. The best
3568 way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s to
3569 Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
3570 Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store passwords; however,
3571 storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a security risk.
3574 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3575 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3578 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3579 solution for this at the moment.
3582 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3583 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3584 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3589 @section Contributors
3590 @cindex contributors
3593 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3596 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org},
3598 and it is currently maintained by Micah Cowan @email{micah@@cowan.name}.
3600 However, the development of Wget could never have gone as far as it has, were
3601 it not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature proposals,
3602 patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3604 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3607 @item Dan Harkless---contributed a lot of code and documentation of
3608 extremely high quality, as well as the @code{--page-requisites} and
3609 related options. He was the principal maintainer for some time and
3612 @item Ian Abbott---contributed bug fixes, Windows-related fixes, and
3613 provided a prototype implementation of the breadth-first recursive
3614 download. Co-maintained Wget during the 1.8 release cycle.
3617 The dotsrc.org crew, in particular Karsten Thygesen---donated system
3618 resources such as the mailing list, web space, @sc{ftp} space, and
3619 version control repositories, along with a lot of time to make these
3620 actually work. Christian Reiniger was of invaluable help with setting
3624 Heiko Herold---provided high-quality Windows builds and contributed
3625 bug and build reports for many years.
3628 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3631 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3635 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3639 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3640 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3643 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3644 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3648 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3651 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the initial Italian
3656 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3660 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3665 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3668 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3672 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization, Makefile
3673 layout and many other things.
3676 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3680 Mauro Tortonesi---Improved IPv6 support, adding support for dual
3681 family systems. Refactored and enhanced FTP IPv6 code. Maintained GNU
3682 Wget from 2004--2007.
3685 Christopher G.@: Lewis---Maintenance of the Windows version of GNU WGet.
3688 Gisle Vanem---Many helpful patches and improvements, especially for
3689 Windows and MS-DOS support.
3692 Ralf Wildenhues---Contributed patches to convert Wget to use Automake as
3693 part of its build process, and various bugfixes.
3696 People who provided donations for development---including Brian Gough.
3699 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3700 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3701 that make maintenance so much fun:
3720 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3729 Bertrand Demiddelaer,
3742 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3745 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3764 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3783 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3796 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3797 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3798 (Simos KSenitellis),
3807 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3813 Alexander V.@: Lukyanov,
3822 Matthew J.@: Mellon,
3854 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3856 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}guez,
3859 Juan Jose Rodriguez,
3861 Maciej W.@: Rozycki,
3867 Steven M.@: Schweda,
3877 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3891 Douglas E.@: Wegscheid,
3893 Joshua David Williams,
3904 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3905 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3907 @node Copying this manual
3908 @appendix Copying this manual
3911 * GNU Free Documentation License:: Licnse for copying this manual.
3918 @unnumbered Concept Index