1 \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
7 @settitle GNU Wget @value{VERSION} Manual
8 @c Disable the monstrous rectangles beside overfull hbox-es.
10 @c Use `odd' to print double-sided.
15 @c Remove this if you don't use A4 paper.
19 @c Title for man page. The weird way texi2pod.pl is written requires
20 @c the preceding @set.
22 @c man title Wget The non-interactive network downloader.
24 @dircategory Network Applications
26 * Wget: (wget). The non-interactive network downloader.
30 This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
33 @c man begin COPYRIGHT
34 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free
35 Software Foundation, Inc.
37 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
38 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
39 are preserved on all copies.
42 Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
43 results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
44 notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
45 (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
47 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
48 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
49 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
50 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
51 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
52 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
53 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
58 @title GNU Wget @value{VERSION}
59 @subtitle The non-interactive download utility
60 @subtitle Updated for Wget @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
61 @author by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} and the developers
65 Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
68 GNU Info entry for @file{wget}.
73 @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
74 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003 Free Software
77 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
78 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
79 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
80 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
81 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
82 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
83 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
88 @top Wget @value{VERSION}
90 This manual documents version @value{VERSION} of GNU Wget, the freely
91 available utility for network downloads.
93 Copyright @copyright{} 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003 Free Software
97 * Overview:: Features of Wget.
98 * Invoking:: Wget command-line arguments.
99 * Recursive Download:: Downloading interlinked pages.
100 * Following Links:: The available methods of chasing links.
101 * Time-Stamping:: Mirroring according to time-stamps.
102 * Startup File:: Wget's initialization file.
103 * Examples:: Examples of usage.
104 * Various:: The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
105 * Appendices:: Some useful references.
106 * Copying:: You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
107 * Concept Index:: Topics covered by this manual.
116 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
117 GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
118 the Web. It supports @sc{http}, @sc{https}, and @sc{ftp} protocols, as
119 well as retrieval through @sc{http} proxies.
122 This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.
126 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
127 Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background,
128 while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval
129 and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By
130 contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user's presence,
131 which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.
137 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
141 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
142 Wget can follow links in @sc{html} and @sc{xhtml} pages and create local
143 versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory structure of
144 the original site. This is sometimes referred to as ``recursive
145 downloading.'' While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion
146 Standard (@file{/robots.txt}). Wget can be instructed to convert the
147 links in downloaded @sc{html} files to the local files for offline
153 File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories are
154 available when retrieving via @sc{ftp}. Wget can read the time-stamp
155 information given by both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} servers, and store it
156 locally. Thus Wget can see if the remote file has changed since last
157 retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new version if it has. This
158 makes Wget suitable for mirroring of @sc{ftp} sites, as well as home
164 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
168 @c man begin DESCRIPTION
169 Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
170 connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
171 keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server
172 supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the
173 download from where it left off.
178 Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load, speed
179 up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls. However, if you are
180 behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks style gateway, you
181 can get the socks library and build Wget with support for socks. Wget
182 also supports the passive @sc{ftp} downloading as an option.
186 Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to follow
187 (@pxref{Following Links}).
191 The retrieval is conveniently traced with printing dots, each dot
192 representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default). These
193 representations can be customized to your preferences.
197 Most of the features are fully configurable, either through command line
198 options, or via the initialization file @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup
199 File}). Wget allows you to define @dfn{global} startup files
200 (@file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default) for site settings.
205 @item /usr/local/etc/wgetrc
206 Default location of the @dfn{global} startup file.
216 Finally, GNU Wget is free software. This means that everyone may use
217 it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
218 Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation
229 By default, Wget is very simple to invoke. The basic syntax is:
232 @c man begin SYNOPSIS
233 wget [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{URL}]@dots{}
237 Wget will simply download all the @sc{url}s specified on the command
238 line. @var{URL} is a @dfn{Uniform Resource Locator}, as defined below.
240 However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
241 Wget. You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
242 command to @file{.wgetrc} (@pxref{Startup File}), or specifying it on
248 * Basic Startup Options::
249 * Logging and Input File Options::
251 * Directory Options::
254 * Recursive Retrieval Options::
255 * Recursive Accept/Reject Options::
263 @dfn{URL} is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. A uniform
264 resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
265 available via the Internet. Wget recognizes the @sc{url} syntax as per
266 @sc{rfc1738}. This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
270 http://host[:port]/directory/file
271 ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
274 You can also encode your username and password within a @sc{url}:
277 ftp://user:password@@host/path
278 http://user:password@@host/path
281 Either @var{user} or @var{password}, or both, may be left out. If you
282 leave out either the @sc{http} username or password, no authentication
283 will be sent. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} username, @samp{anonymous}
284 will be used. If you leave out the @sc{ftp} password, your email
285 address will be supplied as a default password.@footnote{If you have a
286 @file{.netrc} file in your home directory, password will also be
289 @strong{Important Note}: if you specify a password-containing @sc{url}
290 on the command line, the username and password will be plainly visible
291 to all users on the system, by way of @code{ps}. On multi-user systems,
292 this is a big security risk. To work around it, use @code{wget -i -}
293 and feed the @sc{url}s to Wget's standard input, each on a separate
294 line, terminated by @kbd{C-d}.
296 You can encode unsafe characters in a @sc{url} as @samp{%xy}, @code{xy}
297 being the hexadecimal representation of the character's @sc{ascii}
298 value. Some common unsafe characters include @samp{%} (quoted as
299 @samp{%25}), @samp{:} (quoted as @samp{%3A}), and @samp{@@} (quoted as
300 @samp{%40}). Refer to @sc{rfc1738} for a comprehensive list of unsafe
303 Wget also supports the @code{type} feature for @sc{ftp} @sc{url}s. By
304 default, @sc{ftp} documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type
305 @samp{i}), which means that they are downloaded unchanged. Another
306 useful mode is the @samp{a} (@dfn{ASCII}) mode, which converts the line
307 delimiters between the different operating systems, and is thus useful
308 for text files. Here is an example:
311 ftp://host/directory/file;type=a
314 Two alternative variants of @sc{url} specification are also supported,
315 because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.
317 @sc{ftp}-only syntax (supported by @code{NcFTP}):
322 @sc{http}-only syntax (introduced by @code{Netscape}):
327 These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
328 supported in the future.
330 If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or do
331 not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
332 with your favorite browser, like @code{Lynx} or @code{Netscape}.
335 @section Option Syntax
336 @cindex option syntax
337 @cindex syntax of options
339 Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option has a
340 short form and a long form. Long options are more convenient to
341 remember, but take time to type. You may freely mix different option
342 styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you
346 wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
349 The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may
350 be omitted. Instead @samp{-o log} you can write @samp{-olog}.
352 You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
359 This is a complete equivalent of:
362 wget -d -r -c @var{URL}
365 Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
366 terminate them with @samp{--}. So the following will try to download
367 @sc{url} @samp{-x}, reporting failure to @file{log}:
373 The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the convention
374 that specifying an empty list clears its value. This can be useful to
375 clear the @file{.wgetrc} settings. For instance, if your @file{.wgetrc}
376 sets @code{exclude_directories} to @file{/cgi-bin}, the following
377 example will first reset it, and then set it to exclude @file{/~nobody}
378 and @file{/~somebody}. You can also clear the lists in @file{.wgetrc}
379 (@pxref{Wgetrc Syntax}).
382 wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody
387 @node Basic Startup Options
388 @section Basic Startup Options
393 Display the version of Wget.
397 Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.
401 Go to background immediately after startup. If no output file is
402 specified via the @samp{-o}, output is redirected to @file{wget-log}.
404 @cindex execute wgetrc command
405 @item -e @var{command}
406 @itemx --execute @var{command}
407 Execute @var{command} as if it were a part of @file{.wgetrc}
408 (@pxref{Startup File}). A command thus invoked will be executed
409 @emph{after} the commands in @file{.wgetrc}, thus taking precedence over
413 @node Logging and Input File Options
414 @section Logging and Input File Options
419 @item -o @var{logfile}
420 @itemx --output-file=@var{logfile}
421 Log all messages to @var{logfile}. The messages are normally reported
424 @cindex append to log
425 @item -a @var{logfile}
426 @itemx --append-output=@var{logfile}
427 Append to @var{logfile}. This is the same as @samp{-o}, only it appends
428 to @var{logfile} instead of overwriting the old log file. If
429 @var{logfile} does not exist, a new file is created.
434 Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
435 developers of Wget if it does not work properly. Your system
436 administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug support, in
437 which case @samp{-d} will not work. Please note that compiling with
438 debug support is always safe---Wget compiled with the debug support will
439 @emph{not} print any debug info unless requested with @samp{-d}.
440 @xref{Reporting Bugs}, for more information on how to use @samp{-d} for
446 Turn off Wget's output.
451 Turn on verbose output, with all the available data. The default output
456 Non-verbose output---turn off verbose without being completely quiet
457 (use @samp{-q} for that), which means that error messages and basic
458 information still get printed.
462 @itemx --input-file=@var{file}
463 Read @sc{url}s from @var{file}, in which case no @sc{url}s need to be on
464 the command line. If there are @sc{url}s both on the command line and
465 in an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
466 be retrieved. The @var{file} need not be an @sc{html} document (but no
467 harm if it is)---it is enough if the @sc{url}s are just listed
470 However, if you specify @samp{--force-html}, the document will be
471 regarded as @samp{html}. In that case you may have problems with
472 relative links, which you can solve either by adding @code{<base
473 href="@var{url}">} to the documents or by specifying
474 @samp{--base=@var{url}} on the command line.
479 When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an @sc{html}
480 file. This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
481 @sc{html} files on your local disk, by adding @code{<base
482 href="@var{url}">} to @sc{html}, or using the @samp{--base} command-line
485 @cindex base for relative links in input file
487 @itemx --base=@var{URL}
488 When used in conjunction with @samp{-F}, prepends @var{URL} to relative
489 links in the file specified by @samp{-i}.
492 @node Download Options
493 @section Download Options
496 @cindex bind() address
497 @cindex client IP address
498 @cindex IP address, client
499 @item --bind-address=@var{ADDRESS}
500 When making client TCP/IP connections, @code{bind()} to @var{ADDRESS} on
501 the local machine. @var{ADDRESS} may be specified as a hostname or IP
502 address. This option can be useful if your machine is bound to multiple
507 @cindex number of retries
508 @item -t @var{number}
509 @itemx --tries=@var{number}
510 Set number of retries to @var{number}. Specify 0 or @samp{inf} for
511 infinite retrying. The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception
512 of fatal errors like ``connection refused'' or ``not found'' (404),
513 which are not retried.
516 @itemx --output-document=@var{file}
517 The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but all will
518 be concatenated together and written to @var{file}. If @var{file}
519 already exists, it will be overwritten. If the @var{file} is @samp{-},
520 the documents will be written to standard output. Including this option
521 automatically sets the number of tries to 1.
523 @cindex clobbering, file
524 @cindex downloading multiple times
528 If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory, Wget's
529 behavior depends on a few options, including @samp{-nc}. In certain
530 cases, the local file will be @dfn{clobbered}, or overwritten, upon
531 repeated download. In other cases it will be preserved.
533 When running Wget without @samp{-N}, @samp{-nc}, or @samp{-r},
534 downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the
535 original copy of @var{file} being preserved and the second copy being
536 named @samp{@var{file}.1}. If that file is downloaded yet again, the
537 third copy will be named @samp{@var{file}.2}, and so on. When
538 @samp{-nc} is specified, this behavior is suppressed, and Wget will
539 refuse to download newer copies of @samp{@var{file}}. Therefore,
540 ``@code{no-clobber}'' is actually a misnomer in this mode---it's not
541 clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric suffixes were already
542 preventing clobbering), but rather the multiple version saving that's
545 When running Wget with @samp{-r}, but without @samp{-N} or @samp{-nc},
546 re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply overwriting the
547 old. Adding @samp{-nc} will prevent this behavior, instead causing the
548 original version to be preserved and any newer copies on the server to
551 When running Wget with @samp{-N}, with or without @samp{-r}, the
552 decision as to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends
553 on the local and remote timestamp and size of the file
554 (@pxref{Time-Stamping}). @samp{-nc} may not be specified at the same
557 Note that when @samp{-nc} is specified, files with the suffixes
558 @samp{.html} or @samp{.htm} will be loaded from the local disk and
559 parsed as if they had been retrieved from the Web.
561 @cindex continue retrieval
562 @cindex incomplete downloads
563 @cindex resume download
566 Continue getting a partially-downloaded file. This is useful when you
567 want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of Wget, or
568 by another program. For instance:
571 wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z
574 If there is a file named @file{ls-lR.Z} in the current directory, Wget
575 will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and will
576 ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal to the
577 length of the local file.
579 Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want the
580 current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should the
581 connection be lost midway through. This is the default behavior.
582 @samp{-c} only affects resumption of downloads started @emph{prior} to
583 this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are still sitting around.
585 Without @samp{-c}, the previous example would just download the remote
586 file to @file{ls-lR.Z.1}, leaving the truncated @file{ls-lR.Z} file
589 Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a non-empty file, and
590 it turns out that the server does not support continued downloading,
591 Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch, which would
592 effectively ruin existing contents. If you really want the download to
593 start from scratch, remove the file.
595 Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use @samp{-c} on a file which is of
596 equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download the
597 file and print an explanatory message. The same happens when the file
598 is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because it was changed
599 on the server since your last download attempt)---because ``continuing''
600 is not meaningful, no download occurs.
602 On the other side of the coin, while using @samp{-c}, any file that's
603 bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
604 download and only @code{(length(remote) - length(local))} bytes will be
605 downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file. This behavior can
606 be desirable in certain cases---for instance, you can use @samp{wget -c}
607 to download just the new portion that's been appended to a data
608 collection or log file.
610 However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
611 @emph{changed}, as opposed to just @emph{appended} to, you'll end up
612 with a garbled file. Wget has no way of verifying that the local file
613 is really a valid prefix of the remote file. You need to be especially
614 careful of this when using @samp{-c} in conjunction with @samp{-r},
615 since every file will be considered as an "incomplete download" candidate.
617 Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
618 @samp{-c} is if you have a lame @sc{http} proxy that inserts a
619 ``transfer interrupted'' string into the local file. In the future a
620 ``rollback'' option may be added to deal with this case.
622 Note that @samp{-c} only works with @sc{ftp} servers and with @sc{http}
623 servers that support the @code{Range} header.
625 @cindex progress indicator
627 @item --progress=@var{type}
628 Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use. Legal
629 indicators are ``dot'' and ``bar''.
631 The ``bar'' indicator is used by default. It draws an @sc{ascii} progress
632 bar graphics (a.k.a ``thermometer'' display) indicating the status of
633 retrieval. If the output is not a TTY, the ``dot'' bar will be used by
636 Use @samp{--progress=dot} to switch to the ``dot'' display. It traces
637 the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot representing a
638 fixed amount of downloaded data.
640 When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the @dfn{style} by
641 specifying the type as @samp{dot:@var{style}}. Different styles assign
642 different meaning to one dot. With the @code{default} style each dot
643 represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a line.
644 The @code{binary} style has a more ``computer''-like orientation---8K
645 dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which makes for 384K
646 lines). The @code{mega} style is suitable for downloading very large
647 files---each dot represents 64K retrieved, there are eight dots in a
648 cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so each line contains 3M).
650 Note that you can set the default style using the @code{progress}
651 command in @file{.wgetrc}. That setting may be overridden from the
652 command line. The exception is that, when the output is not a TTY, the
653 ``dot'' progress will be favored over ``bar''. To force the bar output,
654 use @samp{--progress=bar:force}.
657 @itemx --timestamping
658 Turn on time-stamping. @xref{Time-Stamping}, for details.
660 @cindex server response, print
662 @itemx --server-response
663 Print the headers sent by @sc{http} servers and responses sent by
666 @cindex Wget as spider
669 When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web @dfn{spider},
670 which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they
671 are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:
674 wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html
677 This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
678 functionality of real web spiders.
682 @itemx --timeout=@var{seconds}
683 Set the network timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. This is equivalent
684 to specifying @samp{--dns-timeout}, @samp{--connect-timeout}, and
685 @samp{--read-timeout}, all at the same time.
687 Whenever Wget connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks for a
688 timeout and aborts the operation if the time expires. This prevents
689 anomalous occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite connects. The
690 only timeout enabled by default is a 900-second timeout for reading.
691 Setting timeout to 0 disables checking for timeouts.
693 Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to set any of the
694 timeout-related options.
698 @item --dns-timeout=@var{seconds}
699 Set the DNS lookup timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. DNS lookups that
700 don't complete within the specified time will fail. By default, there
701 is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by system
704 @cindex connect timeout
705 @cindex timeout, connect
706 @item --connect-timeout=@var{seconds}
707 Set the connect timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. TCP connections that
708 take longer to establish will be aborted. By default, there is no
709 connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.
712 @cindex timeout, read
713 @item --read-timeout=@var{seconds}
714 Set the read (and write) timeout to @var{seconds} seconds. Reads that
715 take longer will fail. The default value for read timeout is 900
718 @cindex bandwidth, limit
720 @cindex limit bandwidth
721 @item --limit-rate=@var{amount}
722 Limit the download speed to @var{amount} bytes per second. Amount may
723 be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the @samp{k} suffix, or megabytes
724 with the @samp{m} suffix. For example, @samp{--limit-rate=20k} will
725 limit the retrieval rate to 20KB/s. This kind of thing is useful when,
726 for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire available
729 Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
730 amount of time after a network read that took less time than specified
731 by the rate. Eventually this strategy causes the TCP transfer to slow
732 down to approximately the specified rate. However, it may take some
733 time for this balance to be achieved, so don't be surprised if limiting
734 the rate doesn't work well with very small files.
738 @item -w @var{seconds}
739 @itemx --wait=@var{seconds}
740 Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of
741 this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
742 requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be
743 specified in minutes using the @code{m} suffix, in hours using @code{h}
744 suffix, or in days using @code{d} suffix.
746 Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the
747 destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to
748 reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
750 @cindex retries, waiting between
751 @cindex waiting between retries
752 @item --waitretry=@var{seconds}
753 If you don't want Wget to wait between @emph{every} retrieval, but only
754 between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option. Wget will
755 use @dfn{linear backoff}, waiting 1 second after the first failure on a
756 given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second failure on that
757 file, up to the maximum number of @var{seconds} you specify. Therefore,
758 a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55
761 Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
767 Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
768 such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
769 the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
770 to vary between 0 and 2 * @var{wait} seconds, where @var{wait} was
771 specified using the @samp{--wait} option, in order to mask Wget's
772 presence from such analysis.
774 A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a popular
775 consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis on the fly.
776 Its author suggested blocking at the class C address level to ensure
777 automated retrieval programs were blocked despite changing DHCP-supplied
780 The @samp{--random-wait} option was inspired by this ill-advised
781 recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due to the
786 @itemx --proxy=on/off
787 Turn proxy support on or off. The proxy is on by default if the
788 appropriate environment variable is defined.
790 For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, @xref{Proxies}.
794 @itemx --quota=@var{quota}
795 Specify download quota for automatic retrievals. The value can be
796 specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with @samp{k} suffix), or
797 megabytes (with @samp{m} suffix).
799 Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you
800 specify @samp{wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz}, all of the
801 @file{ls-lR.gz} will be downloaded. The same goes even when several
802 @sc{url}s are specified on the command-line. However, quota is
803 respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file.
804 Thus you may safely type @samp{wget -Q2m -i sites}---download will be
805 aborted when the quota is exceeded.
807 Setting quota to 0 or to @samp{inf} unlimits the download quota.
810 @cindex caching of DNS lookups
811 @item --dns-cache=off
812 Turn off caching of DNS lookups. Normally, Wget remembers the addresses
813 it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly contact the DNS
814 server for the same (typically small) set of addresses it retrieves
815 from. This cache exists in memory only; a new Wget run will contact DNS
818 However, in some cases it is not desirable to cache host names, even for
819 the duration of a short-running application like Wget. For example,
820 some HTTP servers are hosted on machines with dynamically allocated IP
821 addresses that change from time to time. Their DNS entries are updated
822 along with each change. When Wget's download from such a host gets
823 interrupted by IP address change, Wget retries the download, but (due to
824 DNS caching) it contacts the old address. With the DNS cache turned
825 off, Wget will repeat the DNS lookup for every connect and will thus get
826 the correct dynamic address every time---at the cost of additional DNS
827 lookups where they're probably not needed.
829 If you don't understand the above description, you probably won't need
832 @cindex file names, restrict
833 @cindex Windows file names
834 @item --restrict-file-names=@var{mode}
835 Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local file
836 names generated from those URLs. Characters that are @dfn{restricted}
837 by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with @samp{%HH}, where
838 @samp{HH} is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the restricted
841 By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part of
842 file names on your operating system, as well as control characters that
843 are typically unprintable. This option is useful for changing these
844 defaults, either because you are downloading to a non-native partition,
845 or because you want to disable escaping of the control characters.
847 When mode is set to ``unix'', Wget escapes the character @samp{/} and
848 the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159. This is the
849 default on Unix-like OS'es.
851 When mode is set to ``windows'', Wget escapes the characters @samp{\},
852 @samp{|}, @samp{/}, @samp{:}, @samp{?}, @samp{"}, @samp{*}, @samp{<},
853 @samp{>}, and the control characters in the ranges 0--31 and 128--159.
854 In addition to this, Wget in Windows mode uses @samp{+} instead of
855 @samp{:} to separate host and port in local file names, and uses
856 @samp{@@} instead of @samp{?} to separate the query portion of the file
857 name from the rest. Therefore, a URL that would be saved as
858 @samp{www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah} in Unix mode would be
859 saved as @samp{www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@@input=blah} in Windows
860 mode. This mode is the default on Windows.
862 If you append @samp{,nocontrol} to the mode, as in
863 @samp{unix,nocontrol}, escaping of the control characters is also
864 switched off. You can use @samp{--restrict-file-names=nocontrol} to
865 turn off escaping of control characters without affecting the choice of
866 the OS to use as file name restriction mode.
869 @node Directory Options
870 @section Directory Options
874 @itemx --no-directories
875 Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving recursively.
876 With this option turned on, all files will get saved to the current
877 directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up more than once, the
878 filenames will get extensions @samp{.n}).
881 @itemx --force-directories
882 The opposite of @samp{-nd}---create a hierarchy of directories, even if
883 one would not have been created otherwise. E.g. @samp{wget -x
884 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt} will save the downloaded file to
885 @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt}.
888 @itemx --no-host-directories
889 Disable generation of host-prefixed directories. By default, invoking
890 Wget with @samp{-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/} will create a structure of
891 directories beginning with @file{fly.srk.fer.hr/}. This option disables
894 @cindex cut directories
895 @item --cut-dirs=@var{number}
896 Ignore @var{number} directory components. This is useful for getting a
897 fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval will
900 Take, for example, the directory at
901 @samp{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. If you retrieve it with
902 @samp{-r}, it will be saved locally under
903 @file{ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/}. While the @samp{-nH} option can
904 remove the @file{ftp.xemacs.org/} part, you are still stuck with
905 @file{pub/xemacs}. This is where @samp{--cut-dirs} comes in handy; it
906 makes Wget not ``see'' @var{number} remote directory components. Here
907 are several examples of how @samp{--cut-dirs} option works.
911 No options -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
913 -nH --cut-dirs=1 -> xemacs/
914 -nH --cut-dirs=2 -> .
916 --cut-dirs=1 -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
921 If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this option is
922 similar to a combination of @samp{-nd} and @samp{-P}. However, unlike
923 @samp{-nd}, @samp{--cut-dirs} does not lose with subdirectories---for
924 instance, with @samp{-nH --cut-dirs=1}, a @file{beta/} subdirectory will
925 be placed to @file{xemacs/beta}, as one would expect.
927 @cindex directory prefix
928 @item -P @var{prefix}
929 @itemx --directory-prefix=@var{prefix}
930 Set directory prefix to @var{prefix}. The @dfn{directory prefix} is the
931 directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved to,
932 i.e. the top of the retrieval tree. The default is @samp{.} (the
937 @section HTTP Options
940 @cindex .html extension
942 @itemx --html-extension
943 If a file of type @samp{application/xhtml+xml} or @samp{text/html} is
944 downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
945 @samp{\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?}, this option will cause the suffix @samp{.html}
946 to be appended to the local filename. This is useful, for instance, when
947 you're mirroring a remote site that uses @samp{.asp} pages, but you want
948 the mirrored pages to be viewable on your stock Apache server. Another
949 good use for this is when you're downloading CGI-generated materials. A URL
950 like @samp{http://site.com/article.cgi?25} will be saved as
951 @file{article.cgi?25.html}.
953 Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time
954 you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local
955 @file{@var{X}.html} file corresponds to remote URL @samp{@var{X}} (since
956 it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type
957 @samp{text/html} or @samp{application/xhtml+xml}. To prevent this
958 re-downloading, you must use @samp{-k} and @samp{-K} so that the original
959 version of the file will be saved as @file{@var{X}.orig} (@pxref{Recursive
963 @cindex http password
964 @cindex authentication
965 @item --http-user=@var{user}
966 @itemx --http-passwd=@var{password}
967 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} on an
968 @sc{http} server. According to the type of the challenge, Wget will
969 encode them using either the @code{basic} (insecure) or the
970 @code{digest} authentication scheme.
972 Another way to specify username and password is in the @sc{url} itself
973 (@pxref{URL Format}). Either method reveals your password to anyone who
974 bothers to run @code{ps}. To prevent the passwords from being seen,
975 store them in @file{.wgetrc} or @file{.netrc}, and make sure to protect
976 those files from other users with @code{chmod}. If the passwords are
977 really important, do not leave them lying in those files either---edit
978 the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.
980 For more information about security issues with Wget, @xref{Security
986 Disable server-side cache. In this case, Wget will send the remote
987 server an appropriate directive (@samp{Pragma: no-cache}) to get the
988 file from the remote service, rather than returning the cached version.
989 This is especially useful for retrieving and flushing out-of-date
990 documents on proxy servers.
992 Caching is allowed by default.
996 Disable the use of cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for maintaining
997 server-side state. The server sends the client a cookie using the
998 @code{Set-Cookie} header, and the client responds with the same cookie
999 upon further requests. Since cookies allow the server owners to keep
1000 track of visitors and for sites to exchange this information, some
1001 consider them a breach of privacy. The default is to use cookies;
1002 however, @emph{storing} cookies is not on by default.
1004 @cindex loading cookies
1005 @cindex cookies, loading
1006 @item --load-cookies @var{file}
1007 Load cookies from @var{file} before the first HTTP retrieval.
1008 @var{file} is a textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
1009 @file{cookies.txt} file.
1011 You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that require
1012 that you be logged in to access some or all of their content. The login
1013 process typically works by the web server issuing an @sc{http} cookie
1014 upon receiving and verifying your credentials. The cookie is then
1015 resent by the browser when accessing that part of the site, and so
1016 proves your identity.
1018 Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
1019 browser sends when communicating with the site. This is achieved by
1020 @samp{--load-cookies}---simply point Wget to the location of the
1021 @file{cookies.txt} file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
1022 would send in the same situation. Different browsers keep textual
1023 cookie files in different locations:
1027 The cookies are in @file{~/.netscape/cookies.txt}.
1029 @item Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
1030 Mozilla's cookie file is also named @file{cookies.txt}, located
1031 somewhere under @file{~/.mozilla}, in the directory of your profile.
1032 The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
1033 @file{~/.mozilla/default/@var{some-weird-string}/cookies.txt}.
1035 @item Internet Explorer.
1036 You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File menu,
1037 Import and Export, Export Cookies. This has been tested with Internet
1038 Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work with earlier versions.
1040 @item Other browsers.
1041 If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
1042 @samp{--load-cookies} will only work if you can locate or produce a
1043 cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.
1046 If you cannot use @samp{--load-cookies}, there might still be an
1047 alternative. If your browser supports a ``cookie manager'', you can use
1048 it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're mirroring.
1049 Write down the name and value of the cookie, and manually instruct Wget
1050 to send those cookies, bypassing the ``official'' cookie support:
1053 wget --cookies=off --header "Cookie: @var{name}=@var{value}"
1056 @cindex saving cookies
1057 @cindex cookies, saving
1058 @item --save-cookies @var{file}
1059 Save cookies to @var{file} before exiting. This will not save cookies
1060 that have expired or that have no expiry time (so-called ``session
1061 cookies''), but also see @samp{--keep-session-cookies}.
1063 @cindex cookies, session
1064 @cindex session cookies
1065 @item --keep-session-cookies
1067 When specified, causes @samp{--save-cookies} to also save session
1068 cookies. Session cookies are normally not save because they are
1069 supposed to be forgotten when you exit the browser. Saving them is
1070 useful on sites that require you to log in or to visit the home page
1071 before you can access some pages. With this option, multiple Wget runs
1072 are considered a single browser session as far as the site is concerned.
1074 Since the cookie file format does not normally carry session cookies,
1075 Wget marks them with an expiry timestamp of 0. Wget's
1076 @samp{--load-cookies} recognizes those as session cookies, but it might
1077 confuse other browsers. Also note that cookies so loaded will be
1078 treated as other session cookies, which means that if you want
1079 @samp{--save-cookies} to preserve them again, you must use
1080 @samp{--keep-session-cookies} again.
1082 @cindex Content-Length, ignore
1083 @cindex ignore length
1084 @item --ignore-length
1085 Unfortunately, some @sc{http} servers (@sc{cgi} programs, to be more
1086 precise) send out bogus @code{Content-Length} headers, which makes Wget
1087 go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved. You can spot
1088 this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again and again,
1089 each time claiming that the (otherwise normal) connection has closed on
1092 With this option, Wget will ignore the @code{Content-Length} header---as
1093 if it never existed.
1096 @item --header=@var{additional-header}
1097 Define an @var{additional-header} to be passed to the @sc{http} servers.
1098 Headers must contain a @samp{:} preceded by one or more non-blank
1099 characters, and must not contain newlines.
1101 You may define more than one additional header by specifying
1102 @samp{--header} more than once.
1106 wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
1107 --header='Accept-Language: hr' \
1108 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
1112 Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
1113 previous user-defined headers.
1116 @cindex proxy password
1117 @cindex proxy authentication
1118 @item --proxy-user=@var{user}
1119 @itemx --proxy-passwd=@var{password}
1120 Specify the username @var{user} and password @var{password} for
1121 authentication on a proxy server. Wget will encode them using the
1122 @code{basic} authentication scheme.
1124 Security considerations similar to those with @samp{--http-passwd}
1125 pertain here as well.
1127 @cindex http referer
1128 @cindex referer, http
1129 @item --referer=@var{url}
1130 Include `Referer: @var{url}' header in HTTP request. Useful for
1131 retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they are
1132 always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only come out
1133 properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that point to them.
1135 @cindex server response, save
1136 @item --save-headers
1137 Save the headers sent by the @sc{http} server to the file, preceding the
1138 actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.
1141 @item -U @var{agent-string}
1142 @itemx --user-agent=@var{agent-string}
1143 Identify as @var{agent-string} to the @sc{http} server.
1145 The @sc{http} protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
1146 @code{User-Agent} header field. This enables distinguishing the
1147 @sc{www} software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
1148 protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as
1149 @samp{Wget/@var{version}}, @var{version} being the current version
1152 However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring
1153 the output according to the @code{User-Agent}-supplied information.
1154 While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by
1155 servers denying information to clients other than @code{Mozilla} or
1156 Microsoft @code{Internet Explorer}. This option allows you to change
1157 the @code{User-Agent} line issued by Wget. Use of this option is
1158 discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing.
1161 @item --post-data=@var{string}
1162 @itemx --post-file=@var{file}
1163 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the specified data
1164 in the request body. @code{--post-data} sends @var{string} as data,
1165 whereas @code{--post-file} sends the contents of @var{file}. Other than
1166 that, they work in exactly the same way.
1168 Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data in
1169 advance. Therefore the argument to @code{--post-file} must be a regular
1170 file; specifying a FIFO or something like @file{/dev/stdin} won't work.
1171 It's not quite clear how to work around this limitation inherent in
1172 HTTP/1.0. Although HTTP/1.1 introduces @dfn{chunked} transfer that
1173 doesn't require knowing the request length in advance, a client can't
1174 use chunked unless it knows it's talking to an HTTP/1.1 server. And it
1175 can't know that until it receives a response, which in turn requires the
1176 request to have been completed -- a chicken-and-egg problem.
1178 Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed, it will
1179 not send the POST data to the redirected URL. This is because URLs that
1180 process POST often respond with a redirection to a regular page
1181 (although that's technically disallowed), which does not desire or
1182 accept POST. It is not yet clear that this behavior is optimal; if it
1183 doesn't work out, it will be changed.
1185 This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then proceed to
1186 download the desired pages, presumably only accessible to authorized
1191 # @r{Log in to the server. This can be done only once.}
1192 wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
1193 --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
1194 http://server.com/auth.php
1196 # @r{Now grab the page or pages we care about.}
1197 wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
1198 -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php
1204 @section FTP Options
1207 @cindex .listing files, removing
1208 @item --no-remove-listing
1209 Don't remove the temporary @file{.listing} files generated by @sc{ftp}
1210 retrievals. Normally, these files contain the raw directory listings
1211 received from @sc{ftp} servers. Not removing them can be useful for
1212 debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to easily check on the
1213 contents of remote server directories (e.g. to verify that a mirror
1214 you're running is complete).
1216 Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this file,
1217 this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
1218 @file{.listing} a symbolic link to @file{/etc/passwd} or something and
1219 asking @code{root} to run Wget in his or her directory. Depending on
1220 the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to @file{.listing},
1221 making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
1222 symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
1223 @file{.listing} file, or the listing will be written to a
1224 @file{.listing.@var{number}} file.
1226 Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, @code{root} should
1227 never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory. A user could do
1228 something as simple as linking @file{index.html} to @file{/etc/passwd}
1229 and asking @code{root} to run Wget with @samp{-N} or @samp{-r} so the file
1230 will be overwritten.
1232 @cindex globbing, toggle
1234 Turn off @sc{ftp} globbing. Globbing refers to the use of shell-like
1235 special characters (@dfn{wildcards}), like @samp{*}, @samp{?}, @samp{[}
1236 and @samp{]} to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
1240 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
1243 By default, globbing will be turned on if the @sc{url} contains a
1244 globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off
1247 You may have to quote the @sc{url} to protect it from being expanded by
1248 your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
1249 system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix @sc{ftp}
1250 servers (and the ones emulating Unix @code{ls} output).
1254 Use the @dfn{passive} @sc{ftp} retrieval scheme, in which the client
1255 initiates the data connection. This is sometimes required for @sc{ftp}
1256 to work behind firewalls.
1258 @cindex symbolic links, retrieving
1259 @item --retr-symlinks
1260 Usually, when retrieving @sc{ftp} directories recursively and a symbolic
1261 link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded. Instead, a
1262 matching symbolic link is created on the local filesystem. The
1263 pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless this recursive retrieval
1264 would have encountered it separately and downloaded it anyway.
1266 When @samp{--retr-symlinks} is specified, however, symbolic links are
1267 traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved. At this time, this
1268 option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to directories and
1269 recurse through them, but in the future it should be enhanced to do
1272 Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
1273 specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed to,
1274 this option has no effect. Symbolic links are always traversed in this
1278 @node Recursive Retrieval Options
1279 @section Recursive Retrieval Options
1284 Turn on recursive retrieving. @xref{Recursive Download}, for more
1287 @item -l @var{depth}
1288 @itemx --level=@var{depth}
1289 Specify recursion maximum depth level @var{depth} (@pxref{Recursive
1290 Download}). The default maximum depth is 5.
1292 @cindex proxy filling
1293 @cindex delete after retrieval
1294 @cindex filling proxy cache
1295 @item --delete-after
1296 This option tells Wget to delete every single file it downloads,
1297 @emph{after} having done so. It is useful for pre-fetching popular
1298 pages through a proxy, e.g.:
1301 wget -r -nd --delete-after http://whatever.com/~popular/page/
1304 The @samp{-r} option is to retrieve recursively, and @samp{-nd} to not
1307 Note that @samp{--delete-after} deletes files on the local machine. It
1308 does not issue the @samp{DELE} command to remote FTP sites, for
1309 instance. Also note that when @samp{--delete-after} is specified,
1310 @samp{--convert-links} is ignored, so @samp{.orig} files are simply not
1311 created in the first place.
1313 @cindex conversion of links
1314 @cindex link conversion
1316 @itemx --convert-links
1317 After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
1318 make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible
1319 hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
1320 such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-@sc{html}
1323 Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
1327 The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
1328 refer to the file they point to as a relative link.
1330 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1331 @file{/bar/img.gif}, also downloaded, then the link in @file{doc.html}
1332 will be modified to point to @samp{../bar/img.gif}. This kind of
1333 transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
1336 The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
1337 to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.
1339 Example: if the downloaded file @file{/foo/doc.html} links to
1340 @file{/bar/img.gif} (or to @file{../bar/img.gif}), then the link in
1341 @file{doc.html} will be modified to point to
1342 @file{http://@var{hostname}/bar/img.gif}.
1345 Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
1346 downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
1347 downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
1348 presenting a broken link. The fact that the former links are converted
1349 to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
1352 Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have
1353 been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by @samp{-k} will be
1354 performed at the end of all the downloads.
1356 @cindex backing up converted files
1358 @itemx --backup-converted
1359 When converting a file, back up the original version with a @samp{.orig}
1360 suffix. Affects the behavior of @samp{-N} (@pxref{HTTP Time-Stamping
1365 Turn on options suitable for mirroring. This option turns on recursion
1366 and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps @sc{ftp}
1367 directory listings. It is currently equivalent to
1368 @samp{-r -N -l inf --no-remove-listing}.
1370 @cindex page requisites
1371 @cindex required images, downloading
1373 @itemx --page-requisites
1374 This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
1375 properly display a given @sc{html} page. This includes such things as
1376 inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
1378 Ordinarily, when downloading a single @sc{html} page, any requisite documents
1379 that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using
1380 @samp{-r} together with @samp{-l} can help, but since Wget does not
1381 ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is
1382 generally left with ``leaf documents'' that are missing their
1385 For instance, say document @file{1.html} contains an @code{<IMG>} tag
1386 referencing @file{1.gif} and an @code{<A>} tag pointing to external
1387 document @file{2.html}. Say that @file{2.html} is similar but that its
1388 image is @file{2.gif} and it links to @file{3.html}. Say this
1389 continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
1391 If one executes the command:
1394 wget -r -l 2 http://@var{site}/1.html
1397 then @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, @file{2.gif}, and
1398 @file{3.html} will be downloaded. As you can see, @file{3.html} is
1399 without its requisite @file{3.gif} because Wget is simply counting the
1400 number of hops (up to 2) away from @file{1.html} in order to determine
1401 where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
1404 wget -r -l 2 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1407 all the above files @emph{and} @file{3.html}'s requisite @file{3.gif}
1408 will be downloaded. Similarly,
1411 wget -r -l 1 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1414 will cause @file{1.html}, @file{1.gif}, @file{2.html}, and @file{2.gif}
1415 to be downloaded. One might think that:
1418 wget -r -l 0 -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1421 would download just @file{1.html} and @file{1.gif}, but unfortunately
1422 this is not the case, because @samp{-l 0} is equivalent to
1423 @samp{-l inf}---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single @sc{html}
1424 page (or a handful of them, all specified on the command-line or in a
1425 @samp{-i} @sc{url} input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off
1426 @samp{-r} and @samp{-l}:
1429 wget -p http://@var{site}/1.html
1432 Note that Wget will behave as if @samp{-r} had been specified, but only
1433 that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that
1434 page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download
1435 a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate
1436 websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author
1437 likes to use a few options in addition to @samp{-p}:
1440 wget -E -H -k -K -p http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1443 To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
1444 external document link is any URL specified in an @code{<A>} tag, an
1445 @code{<AREA>} tag, or a @code{<LINK>} tag other than @code{<LINK
1448 @cindex @sc{html} comments
1449 @cindex comments, @sc{html}
1450 @item --strict-comments
1451 Turn on strict parsing of @sc{html} comments. The default is to terminate
1452 comments at the first occurrence of @samp{-->}.
1454 According to specifications, @sc{html} comments are expressed as @sc{sgml}
1455 @dfn{declarations}. Declaration is special markup that begins with
1456 @samp{<!} and ends with @samp{>}, such as @samp{<!DOCTYPE ...>}, that
1457 may contain comments between a pair of @samp{--} delimiters. @sc{html}
1458 comments are ``empty declarations'', @sc{sgml} declarations without any
1459 non-comment text. Therefore, @samp{<!--foo-->} is a valid comment, and
1460 so is @samp{<!--one-- --two-->}, but @samp{<!--1--2-->} is not.
1462 On the other hand, most @sc{html} writers don't perceive comments as anything
1463 other than text delimited with @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}, which is not
1464 quite the same. For example, something like @samp{<!------------>}
1465 works as a valid comment as long as the number of dashes is a multiple
1466 of four (!). If not, the comment technically lasts until the next
1467 @samp{--}, which may be at the other end of the document. Because of
1468 this, many popular browsers completely ignore the specification and
1469 implement what users have come to expect: comments delimited with
1470 @samp{<!--} and @samp{-->}.
1472 Until version 1.9, Wget interpreted comments strictly, which resulted in
1473 missing links in many web pages that displayed fine in browsers, but had
1474 the misfortune of containing non-compliant comments. Beginning with
1475 version 1.9, Wget has joined the ranks of clients that implements
1476 ``naive'' comments, terminating each comment at the first occurrence of
1479 If, for whatever reason, you want strict comment parsing, use this
1480 option to turn it on.
1483 @node Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1484 @section Recursive Accept/Reject Options
1487 @item -A @var{acclist} --accept @var{acclist}
1488 @itemx -R @var{rejlist} --reject @var{rejlist}
1489 Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
1490 accept or reject (@pxref{Types of Files} for more details).
1492 @item -D @var{domain-list}
1493 @itemx --domains=@var{domain-list}
1494 Set domains to be followed. @var{domain-list} is a comma-separated list
1495 of domains. Note that it does @emph{not} turn on @samp{-H}.
1497 @item --exclude-domains @var{domain-list}
1498 Specify the domains that are @emph{not} to be followed.
1499 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1501 @cindex follow FTP links
1503 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents. Without this option,
1504 Wget will ignore all the @sc{ftp} links.
1506 @cindex tag-based recursive pruning
1507 @item --follow-tags=@var{list}
1508 Wget has an internal table of @sc{html} tag / attribute pairs that it
1509 considers when looking for linked documents during a recursive
1510 retrieval. If a user wants only a subset of those tags to be
1511 considered, however, he or she should be specify such tags in a
1512 comma-separated @var{list} with this option.
1514 @item --ignore-tags=@var{list}
1515 This is the opposite of the @samp{--follow-tags} option. To skip
1516 certain @sc{html} tags when recursively looking for documents to download,
1517 specify them in a comma-separated @var{list}.
1519 In the past, this option was the best bet for downloading a single page
1520 and its requisites, using a command-line like:
1523 wget --ignore-tags=a,area -H -k -K -r http://@var{site}/@var{document}
1526 However, the author of this option came across a page with tags like
1527 @code{<LINK REL="home" HREF="/">} and came to the realization that
1528 specifying tags to ignore was not enough. One can't just tell Wget to
1529 ignore @code{<LINK>}, because then stylesheets will not be downloaded.
1530 Now the best bet for downloading a single page and its requisites is the
1531 dedicated @samp{--page-requisites} option.
1535 Enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving
1536 (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
1540 Follow relative links only. Useful for retrieving a specific home page
1541 without any distractions, not even those from the same hosts
1542 (@pxref{Relative Links}).
1545 @itemx --include-directories=@var{list}
1546 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
1547 downloading (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements
1548 of @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1551 @itemx --exclude-directories=@var{list}
1552 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
1553 download (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits} for more details.) Elements of
1554 @var{list} may contain wildcards.
1558 Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
1559 This is a useful option, since it guarantees that only the files
1560 @emph{below} a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.
1561 @xref{Directory-Based Limits}, for more details.
1566 @node Recursive Download
1567 @chapter Recursive Download
1570 @cindex recursive download
1572 GNU Wget is capable of traversing parts of the Web (or a single
1573 @sc{http} or @sc{ftp} server), following links and directory structure.
1574 We refer to this as to @dfn{recursive retrieval}, or @dfn{recursion}.
1576 With @sc{http} @sc{url}s, Wget retrieves and parses the @sc{html} from
1577 the given @sc{url}, documents, retrieving the files the @sc{html}
1578 document was referring to, through markup like @code{href}, or
1579 @code{src}. If the freshly downloaded file is also of type
1580 @code{text/html} or @code{application/xhtml+xml}, it will be parsed and
1583 Recursive retrieval of @sc{http} and @sc{html} content is
1584 @dfn{breadth-first}. This means that Wget first downloads the requested
1585 @sc{html} document, then the documents linked from that document, then the
1586 documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first
1587 downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on
1588 until the specified maximum depth.
1590 The maximum @dfn{depth} to which the retrieval may descend is specified
1591 with the @samp{-l} option. The default maximum depth is five layers.
1593 When retrieving an @sc{ftp} @sc{url} recursively, Wget will retrieve all
1594 the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
1595 to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
1596 locally. @sc{ftp} retrieval is also limited by the @code{depth}
1597 parameter. Unlike @sc{http} recursion, @sc{ftp} recursion is performed
1600 By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to
1601 the one found on the remote server.
1603 Recursive retrieving can find a number of applications, the most
1604 important of which is mirroring. It is also useful for @sc{www}
1605 presentations, and any other opportunities where slow network
1606 connections should be bypassed by storing the files locally.
1608 You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote
1609 servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may
1610 ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big
1611 amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider
1612 using the @samp{-w} option to introduce a delay between accesses to the
1613 server. The download will take a while longer, but the server
1614 administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
1616 Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If
1617 left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading
1618 from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as
1619 consume memory and CPU.
1621 Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are
1622 trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use
1623 @samp{--page-requisites} without any additional recursion. If you want
1624 to download things under one directory, use @samp{-np} to avoid
1625 downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all
1626 the files from one directory, use @samp{-l 1} to make sure the recursion
1627 depth never exceeds one. @xref{Following Links}, for more information
1630 Recursive retrieval should be used with care. Don't say you were not
1633 @node Following Links
1634 @chapter Following Links
1636 @cindex following links
1638 When retrieving recursively, one does not wish to retrieve loads of
1639 unnecessary data. Most of the time the users bear in mind exactly what
1640 they want to download, and want Wget to follow only specific links.
1642 For example, if you wish to download the music archive from
1643 @samp{fly.srk.fer.hr}, you will not want to download all the home pages
1644 that happen to be referenced by an obscure part of the archive.
1646 Wget possesses several mechanisms that allows you to fine-tune which
1647 links it will follow.
1650 * Spanning Hosts:: (Un)limiting retrieval based on host name.
1651 * Types of Files:: Getting only certain files.
1652 * Directory-Based Limits:: Getting only certain directories.
1653 * Relative Links:: Follow relative links only.
1654 * FTP Links:: Following FTP links.
1657 @node Spanning Hosts
1658 @section Spanning Hosts
1659 @cindex spanning hosts
1660 @cindex hosts, spanning
1662 Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different
1663 than the one you specified on the command line. This is a reasonable
1664 default; without it, every retrieval would have the potential to turn
1665 your Wget into a small version of google.
1667 However, visiting different hosts, or @dfn{host spanning,} is sometimes
1668 a useful option. Maybe the images are served from a different server.
1669 Maybe you're mirroring a site that consists of pages interlinked between
1670 three servers. Maybe the server has two equivalent names, and the @sc{html}
1671 pages refer to both interchangeably.
1674 @item Span to any host---@samp{-H}
1676 The @samp{-H} option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's
1677 recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient
1678 recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will
1679 typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking
1680 up much more data than you have intended.
1682 @item Limit spanning to certain domains---@samp{-D}
1684 The @samp{-D} option allows you to specify the domains that will be
1685 followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to
1686 these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with
1687 @samp{-H}. A typical example would be downloading the contents of
1688 @samp{www.server.com}, but allowing downloads from
1689 @samp{images.server.com}, etc.:
1692 wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/
1695 You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma,
1696 e.g. @samp{-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com}.
1698 @item Keep download off certain domains---@samp{--exclude-domains}
1700 If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it
1701 with @samp{--exclude-domains}, which accepts the same type of arguments
1702 of @samp{-D}, but will @emph{exclude} all the listed domains. For
1703 example, if you want to download all the hosts from @samp{foo.edu}
1704 domain, with the exception of @samp{sunsite.foo.edu}, you can do it like
1708 wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu \
1714 @node Types of Files
1715 @section Types of Files
1716 @cindex types of files
1718 When downloading material from the web, you will often want to restrict
1719 the retrieval to only certain file types. For example, if you are
1720 interested in downloading @sc{gif}s, you will not be overjoyed to get
1721 loads of PostScript documents, and vice versa.
1723 Wget offers two options to deal with this problem. Each option
1724 description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent command
1727 @cindex accept wildcards
1728 @cindex accept suffixes
1729 @cindex wildcards, accept
1730 @cindex suffixes, accept
1732 @item -A @var{acclist}
1733 @itemx --accept @var{acclist}
1734 @itemx accept = @var{acclist}
1735 The argument to @samp{--accept} option is a list of file suffixes or
1736 patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix
1737 is the ending part of a file, and consists of ``normal'' letters,
1738 e.g. @samp{gif} or @samp{.jpg}. A matching pattern contains shell-like
1739 wildcards, e.g. @samp{books*} or @samp{zelazny*196[0-9]*}.
1741 So, specifying @samp{wget -A gif,jpg} will make Wget download only the
1742 files ending with @samp{gif} or @samp{jpg}, i.e. @sc{gif}s and
1743 @sc{jpeg}s. On the other hand, @samp{wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"} will
1744 download only files beginning with @samp{zelazny} and containing numbers
1745 from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for
1746 a description of how pattern matching works.
1748 Of course, any number of suffixes and patterns can be combined into a
1749 comma-separated list, and given as an argument to @samp{-A}.
1751 @cindex reject wildcards
1752 @cindex reject suffixes
1753 @cindex wildcards, reject
1754 @cindex suffixes, reject
1755 @item -R @var{rejlist}
1756 @itemx --reject @var{rejlist}
1757 @itemx reject = @var{rejlist}
1758 The @samp{--reject} option works the same way as @samp{--accept}, only
1759 its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files @emph{except} the
1760 ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
1762 So, if you want to download a whole page except for the cumbersome
1763 @sc{mpeg}s and @sc{.au} files, you can use @samp{wget -R mpg,mpeg,au}.
1764 Analogously, to download all files except the ones beginning with
1765 @samp{bjork}, use @samp{wget -R "bjork*"}. The quotes are to prevent
1766 expansion by the shell.
1769 The @samp{-A} and @samp{-R} options may be combined to achieve even
1770 better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. @samp{wget -A
1771 "*zelazny*" -R .ps} will download all the files having @samp{zelazny} as
1772 a part of their name, but @emph{not} the PostScript files.
1774 Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of @sc{html}
1775 files; Wget must load all the @sc{html}s to know where to go at
1776 all---recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
1778 @node Directory-Based Limits
1779 @section Directory-Based Limits
1781 @cindex directory limits
1783 Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to
1784 place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories
1785 those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this---the
1786 home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some
1787 directories may contain useless information, e.g. @file{/cgi-bin} or
1788 @file{/dev} directories.
1790 Wget offers three different options to deal with this requirement. Each
1791 option description lists a short name, a long name, and the equivalent
1792 command in @file{.wgetrc}.
1794 @cindex directories, include
1795 @cindex include directories
1796 @cindex accept directories
1799 @itemx --include @var{list}
1800 @itemx include_directories = @var{list}
1801 @samp{-I} option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included
1802 in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The
1803 directories are absolute paths.
1805 So, if you wish to download from @samp{http://host/people/bozo/}
1806 following only links to bozo's colleagues in the @file{/people}
1807 directory and the bogus scripts in @file{/cgi-bin}, you can specify:
1810 wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
1813 @cindex directories, exclude
1814 @cindex exclude directories
1815 @cindex reject directories
1817 @itemx --exclude @var{list}
1818 @itemx exclude_directories = @var{list}
1819 @samp{-X} option is exactly the reverse of @samp{-I}---this is a list of
1820 directories @emph{excluded} from the download. E.g. if you do not want
1821 Wget to download things from @file{/cgi-bin} directory, specify @samp{-X
1822 /cgi-bin} on the command line.
1824 The same as with @samp{-A}/@samp{-R}, these two options can be combined
1825 to get a better fine-tuning of downloading subdirectories. E.g. if you
1826 want to load all the files from @file{/pub} hierarchy except for
1827 @file{/pub/worthless}, specify @samp{-I/pub -X/pub/worthless}.
1832 @itemx no_parent = on
1833 The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is
1834 disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy
1835 @dfn{above} than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the
1836 parent directory/directories.
1838 The @samp{--no-parent} option (short @samp{-np}) is useful in this case.
1839 Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
1840 Supposing you issue Wget with:
1843 wget -r --no-parent http://somehost/~luzer/my-archive/
1846 You may rest assured that none of the references to
1847 @file{/~his-girls-homepage/} or @file{/~luzer/all-my-mpegs/} will be
1848 followed. Only the archive you are interested in will be downloaded.
1849 Essentially, @samp{--no-parent} is similar to
1850 @samp{-I/~luzer/my-archive}, only it handles redirections in a more
1851 intelligent fashion.
1854 @node Relative Links
1855 @section Relative Links
1856 @cindex relative links
1858 When @samp{-L} is turned on, only the relative links are ever followed.
1859 Relative links are here defined those that do not refer to the web
1860 server root. For example, these links are relative:
1864 <a href="foo/bar.gif">
1865 <a href="../foo/bar.gif">
1868 These links are not relative:
1872 <a href="/foo/bar.gif">
1873 <a href="http://www.server.com/foo/bar.gif">
1876 Using this option guarantees that recursive retrieval will not span
1877 hosts, even without @samp{-H}. In simple cases it also allows downloads
1878 to ``just work'' without having to convert links.
1880 This option is probably not very useful and might be removed in a future
1884 @section Following FTP Links
1885 @cindex following ftp links
1887 The rules for @sc{ftp} are somewhat specific, as it is necessary for
1888 them to be. @sc{ftp} links in @sc{html} documents are often included
1889 for purposes of reference, and it is often inconvenient to download them
1892 To have @sc{ftp} links followed from @sc{html} documents, you need to
1893 specify the @samp{--follow-ftp} option. Having done that, @sc{ftp}
1894 links will span hosts regardless of @samp{-H} setting. This is logical,
1895 as @sc{ftp} links rarely point to the same host where the @sc{http}
1896 server resides. For similar reasons, the @samp{-L} options has no
1897 effect on such downloads. On the other hand, domain acceptance
1898 (@samp{-D}) and suffix rules (@samp{-A} and @samp{-R}) apply normally.
1900 Also note that followed links to @sc{ftp} directories will not be
1901 retrieved recursively further.
1904 @chapter Time-Stamping
1905 @cindex time-stamping
1906 @cindex timestamping
1907 @cindex updating the archives
1908 @cindex incremental updating
1910 One of the most important aspects of mirroring information from the
1911 Internet is updating your archives.
1913 Downloading the whole archive again and again, just to replace a few
1914 changed files is expensive, both in terms of wasted bandwidth and money,
1915 and the time to do the update. This is why all the mirroring tools
1916 offer the option of incremental updating.
1918 Such an updating mechanism means that the remote server is scanned in
1919 search of @dfn{new} files. Only those new files will be downloaded in
1920 the place of the old ones.
1922 A file is considered new if one of these two conditions are met:
1926 A file of that name does not already exist locally.
1929 A file of that name does exist, but the remote file was modified more
1930 recently than the local file.
1933 To implement this, the program needs to be aware of the time of last
1934 modification of both local and remote files. We call this information the
1935 @dfn{time-stamp} of a file.
1937 The time-stamping in GNU Wget is turned on using @samp{--timestamping}
1938 (@samp{-N}) option, or through @code{timestamping = on} directive in
1939 @file{.wgetrc}. With this option, for each file it intends to download,
1940 Wget will check whether a local file of the same name exists. If it
1941 does, and the remote file is older, Wget will not download it.
1943 If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not
1944 match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps
1948 * Time-Stamping Usage::
1949 * HTTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1950 * FTP Time-Stamping Internals::
1953 @node Time-Stamping Usage
1954 @section Time-Stamping Usage
1955 @cindex time-stamping usage
1956 @cindex usage, time-stamping
1958 The usage of time-stamping is simple. Say you would like to download a
1959 file so that it keeps its date of modification.
1962 wget -S http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1965 A simple @code{ls -l} shows that the time stamp on the local file equals
1966 the state of the @code{Last-Modified} header, as returned by the server.
1967 As you can see, the time-stamping info is preserved locally, even
1968 without @samp{-N} (at least for @sc{http}).
1970 Several days later, you would like Wget to check if the remote file has
1971 changed, and download it if it has.
1974 wget -N http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/
1977 Wget will ask the server for the last-modified date. If the local file
1978 has the same timestamp as the server, or a newer one, the remote file
1979 will not be re-fetched. However, if the remote file is more recent,
1980 Wget will proceed to fetch it.
1982 The same goes for @sc{ftp}. For example:
1985 wget "ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/*"
1988 (The quotes around that URL are to prevent the shell from trying to
1989 interpret the @samp{*}.)
1991 After download, a local directory listing will show that the timestamps
1992 match those on the remote server. Reissuing the command with @samp{-N}
1993 will make Wget re-fetch @emph{only} the files that have been modified
1994 since the last download.
1996 If you wished to mirror the GNU archive every week, you would use a
1997 command like the following, weekly:
2000 wget --timestamping -r ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2003 Note that time-stamping will only work for files for which the server
2004 gives a timestamp. For @sc{http}, this depends on getting a
2005 @code{Last-Modified} header. For @sc{ftp}, this depends on getting a
2006 directory listing with dates in a format that Wget can parse
2007 (@pxref{FTP Time-Stamping Internals}).
2009 @node HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2010 @section HTTP Time-Stamping Internals
2011 @cindex http time-stamping
2013 Time-stamping in @sc{http} is implemented by checking of the
2014 @code{Last-Modified} header. If you wish to retrieve the file
2015 @file{foo.html} through @sc{http}, Wget will check whether
2016 @file{foo.html} exists locally. If it doesn't, @file{foo.html} will be
2017 retrieved unconditionally.
2019 If the file does exist locally, Wget will first check its local
2020 time-stamp (similar to the way @code{ls -l} checks it), and then send a
2021 @code{HEAD} request to the remote server, demanding the information on
2024 The @code{Last-Modified} header is examined to find which file was
2025 modified more recently (which makes it ``newer''). If the remote file
2026 is newer, it will be downloaded; if it is older, Wget will give
2027 up.@footnote{As an additional check, Wget will look at the
2028 @code{Content-Length} header, and compare the sizes; if they are not the
2029 same, the remote file will be downloaded no matter what the time-stamp
2032 When @samp{--backup-converted} (@samp{-K}) is specified in conjunction
2033 with @samp{-N}, server file @samp{@var{X}} is compared to local file
2034 @samp{@var{X}.orig}, if extant, rather than being compared to local file
2035 @samp{@var{X}}, which will always differ if it's been converted by
2036 @samp{--convert-links} (@samp{-k}).
2038 Arguably, @sc{http} time-stamping should be implemented using the
2039 @code{If-Modified-Since} request.
2041 @node FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2042 @section FTP Time-Stamping Internals
2043 @cindex ftp time-stamping
2045 In theory, @sc{ftp} time-stamping works much the same as @sc{http}, only
2046 @sc{ftp} has no headers---time-stamps must be ferreted out of directory
2049 If an @sc{ftp} download is recursive or uses globbing, Wget will use the
2050 @sc{ftp} @code{LIST} command to get a file listing for the directory
2051 containing the desired file(s). It will try to analyze the listing,
2052 treating it like Unix @code{ls -l} output, extracting the time-stamps.
2053 The rest is exactly the same as for @sc{http}. Note that when
2054 retrieving individual files from an @sc{ftp} server without using
2055 globbing or recursion, listing files will not be downloaded (and thus
2056 files will not be time-stamped) unless @samp{-N} is specified.
2058 Assumption that every directory listing is a Unix-style listing may
2059 sound extremely constraining, but in practice it is not, as many
2060 non-Unix @sc{ftp} servers use the Unixoid listing format because most
2061 (all?) of the clients understand it. Bear in mind that @sc{rfc959}
2062 defines no standard way to get a file list, let alone the time-stamps.
2063 We can only hope that a future standard will define this.
2065 Another non-standard solution includes the use of @code{MDTM} command
2066 that is supported by some @sc{ftp} servers (including the popular
2067 @code{wu-ftpd}), which returns the exact time of the specified file.
2068 Wget may support this command in the future.
2071 @chapter Startup File
2072 @cindex startup file
2078 Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command
2079 line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent.
2080 You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup
2081 file---@file{.wgetrc}.
2083 Besides @file{.wgetrc} is the ``main'' initialization file, it is
2084 convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget
2085 reads and interprets the contents of @file{$HOME/.netrc}, if it finds
2086 it. You can find @file{.netrc} format in your system manuals.
2088 Wget reads @file{.wgetrc} upon startup, recognizing a limited set of
2092 * Wgetrc Location:: Location of various wgetrc files.
2093 * Wgetrc Syntax:: Syntax of wgetrc.
2094 * Wgetrc Commands:: List of available commands.
2095 * Sample Wgetrc:: A wgetrc example.
2098 @node Wgetrc Location
2099 @section Wgetrc Location
2100 @cindex wgetrc location
2101 @cindex location of wgetrc
2103 When initializing, Wget will look for a @dfn{global} startup file,
2104 @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default (or some prefix other than
2105 @file{/usr/local}, if Wget was not installed there) and read commands
2106 from there, if it exists.
2108 Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
2109 @code{WGETRC} is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
2110 further attempts will be made.
2112 If @code{WGETRC} is not set, Wget will try to load @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}.
2114 The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones
2115 means that in case of collision user's wgetrc @emph{overrides} the
2116 system-wide wgetrc (in @file{/usr/local/etc/wgetrc} by default).
2117 Fascist admins, away!
2120 @section Wgetrc Syntax
2121 @cindex wgetrc syntax
2122 @cindex syntax of wgetrc
2124 The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
2130 The @dfn{variable} will also be called @dfn{command}. Valid
2131 @dfn{values} are different for different commands.
2133 The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus
2134 @samp{DIr__PrefiX} is the same as @samp{dirprefix}. Empty lines, lines
2135 beginning with @samp{#} and lines containing white-space only are
2138 Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an
2139 empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in
2140 global @file{wgetrc}, you can do it with:
2146 @node Wgetrc Commands
2147 @section Wgetrc Commands
2148 @cindex wgetrc commands
2150 The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed
2151 after the @samp{=}. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using
2152 @samp{on} and @samp{off} or @samp{1} and @samp{0}. A fancier kind of
2153 Boolean allowed in some cases is the @dfn{lockable Boolean}, which may
2154 be set to @samp{on}, @samp{off}, @samp{always}, or @samp{never}. If an
2155 option is set to @samp{always} or @samp{never}, that value will be
2156 locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation---command-line options
2159 Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. @var{address} values can be
2160 hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. @var{n} can be any positive
2161 integer, or @samp{inf} for infinity, where appropriate. @var{string}
2162 values can be any non-empty string.
2164 Most of these commands have command-line equivalents (@pxref{Invoking}),
2165 though some of the more obscure or rarely used ones do not.
2168 @item accept/reject = @var{string}
2169 Same as @samp{-A}/@samp{-R} (@pxref{Types of Files}).
2171 @item add_hostdir = on/off
2172 Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. @samp{-nH} disables it.
2174 @item continue = on/off
2175 If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved
2176 files. See @samp{-c} before setting it.
2178 @item background = on/off
2179 Enable/disable going to background---the same as @samp{-b} (which
2182 @item backup_converted = on/off
2183 Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix
2184 @samp{.orig}---the same as @samp{-K} (which enables it).
2186 @c @item backups = @var{number}
2187 @c #### Document me!
2189 @item base = @var{string}
2190 Consider relative @sc{url}s in @sc{url} input files forced to be
2191 interpreted as @sc{html} as being relative to @var{string}---the same as
2194 @item bind_address = @var{address}
2195 Bind to @var{address}, like the @samp{--bind-address} option.
2197 @item cache = on/off
2198 When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the @samp{--no-cache}
2201 @item convert_links = on/off
2202 Convert non-relative links locally. The same as @samp{-k}.
2204 @item cookies = on/off
2205 When set to off, disallow cookies. See the @samp{--cookies} option.
2207 @item load_cookies = @var{file}
2208 Load cookies from @var{file}. See @samp{--load-cookies}.
2210 @item save_cookies = @var{file}
2211 Save cookies to @var{file}. See @samp{--save-cookies}.
2213 @item connect_timeout = @var{n}
2214 Set the connect timeout---the same as @samp{--connect-timeout}.
2216 @item cut_dirs = @var{n}
2217 Ignore @var{n} remote directory components.
2219 @item debug = on/off
2220 Debug mode, same as @samp{-d}.
2222 @item delete_after = on/off
2223 Delete after download---the same as @samp{--delete-after}.
2225 @item dir_prefix = @var{string}
2226 Top of directory tree---the same as @samp{-P}.
2228 @item dirstruct = on/off
2229 Turning dirstruct on or off---the same as @samp{-x} or @samp{-nd},
2232 @item dns_cache = on/off
2233 Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this
2234 option is normally used to turn it off. Same as @samp{--dns-cache}.
2236 @item dns_timeout = @var{n}
2237 Set the DNS timeout---the same as @samp{--dns-timeout}.
2239 @item domains = @var{string}
2240 Same as @samp{-D} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2242 @item dot_bytes = @var{n}
2243 Specify the number of bytes ``contained'' in a dot, as seen throughout
2244 the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with
2245 @samp{k} or @samp{m}, representing kilobytes and megabytes,
2246 respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to
2247 suit your needs, or you can use the predefined @dfn{styles}
2248 (@pxref{Download Options}).
2250 @item dots_in_line = @var{n}
2251 Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout
2252 the retrieval (50 by default).
2254 @item dot_spacing = @var{n}
2255 Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
2257 @item exclude_directories = @var{string}
2258 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
2259 download---the same as @samp{-X} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2261 @item exclude_domains = @var{string}
2262 Same as @samp{--exclude-domains} (@pxref{Spanning Hosts}).
2264 @item follow_ftp = on/off
2265 Follow @sc{ftp} links from @sc{html} documents---the same as
2266 @samp{--follow-ftp}.
2268 @item follow_tags = @var{string}
2269 Only follow certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2270 @samp{--follow-tags}.
2272 @item force_html = on/off
2273 If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an @sc{html}
2274 document---the same as @samp{-F}.
2276 @item ftp_proxy = @var{string}
2277 Use @var{string} as @sc{ftp} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2281 Turn globbing on/off---the same as @samp{--glob} and @samp{--no-glob}.
2283 @item header = @var{string}
2284 Define an additional header, like @samp{--header}.
2286 @item html_extension = on/off
2287 Add a @samp{.html} extension to @samp{text/html} or
2288 @samp{application/xhtml+xml} files without it, like
2291 @item http_passwd = @var{string}
2292 Set @sc{http} password.
2294 @item http_proxy = @var{string}
2295 Use @var{string} as @sc{http} proxy, instead of the one specified in
2298 @item http_user = @var{string}
2299 Set @sc{http} user to @var{string}.
2301 @item ignore_length = on/off
2302 When set to on, ignore @code{Content-Length} header; the same as
2303 @samp{--ignore-length}.
2305 @item ignore_tags = @var{string}
2306 Ignore certain @sc{html} tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like
2307 @samp{--ignore-tags}.
2309 @item include_directories = @var{string}
2310 Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
2311 downloading---the same as @samp{-I}.
2313 @item input = @var{string}
2314 Read the @sc{url}s from @var{string}, like @samp{-i}.
2316 @item kill_longer = on/off
2317 Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid
2318 (and retry getting it). The default behavior is to save as much data
2319 as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in
2320 @code{Content-Length}.
2322 @item limit_rate = @var{rate}
2323 Limit the download speed to no more than @var{rate} bytes per second.
2324 The same as @samp{--limit-rate}.
2326 @item logfile = @var{string}
2327 Set logfile---the same as @samp{-o}.
2329 @item login = @var{string}
2330 Your user name on the remote machine, for @sc{ftp}. Defaults to
2333 @item mirror = on/off
2334 Turn mirroring on/off. The same as @samp{-m}.
2336 @item netrc = on/off
2337 Turn reading netrc on or off.
2339 @item noclobber = on/off
2342 @item no_parent = on/off
2343 Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like
2344 @samp{--no-parent} (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}).
2346 @item no_proxy = @var{string}
2347 Use @var{string} as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in
2348 proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
2350 @item output_document = @var{string}
2351 Set the output filename---the same as @samp{-O}.
2353 @item page_requisites = on/off
2354 Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single @sc{html} page to
2355 display properly---the same as @samp{-p}.
2357 @item passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
2358 Set passive @sc{ftp}---the same as @samp{--passive-ftp}. Some scripts
2359 and @samp{.pm} (Perl module) files download files using @samp{wget
2360 --passive-ftp}. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set
2361 @samp{passive_ftp = never} to override the command-line.
2363 @item passwd = @var{string}
2364 Set your @sc{ftp} password to @var{password}. Without this setting, the
2365 password defaults to @samp{username@@hostname.domainname}.
2367 @item post_data = @var{string}
2368 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send @var{string} in
2369 the request body. The same as @samp{--post-data}.
2371 @item post_file = @var{file}
2372 Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of
2373 @var{file} in the request body. The same as @samp{--post-file}.
2375 @item progress = @var{string}
2376 Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are ``dot'' and
2379 @item proxy_user = @var{string}
2380 Set proxy authentication user name to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-user}.
2382 @item proxy_passwd = @var{string}
2383 Set proxy authentication password to @var{string}, like @samp{--proxy-passwd}.
2385 @item referer = @var{string}
2386 Set HTTP @samp{Referer:} header just like @samp{--referer}. (Note it
2387 was the folks who wrote the @sc{http} spec who got the spelling of
2388 ``referrer'' wrong.)
2390 @item quiet = on/off
2391 Quiet mode---the same as @samp{-q}.
2393 @item quota = @var{quota}
2394 Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global
2395 @file{wgetrc}. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop
2396 retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The
2397 quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes @samp{k} appended) or
2398 mbytes (@samp{m} appended). Thus @samp{quota = 5m} will set the quota
2399 to 5 mbytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system
2402 @item read_timeout = @var{n}
2403 Set the read (and write) timeout---the same as @samp{--read-timeout}.
2405 @item reclevel = @var{n}
2406 Recursion level---the same as @samp{-l}.
2408 @item recursive = on/off
2409 Recursive on/off---the same as @samp{-r}.
2411 @item relative_only = on/off
2412 Follow only relative links---the same as @samp{-L} (@pxref{Relative
2415 @item remove_listing = on/off
2416 If set to on, remove @sc{ftp} listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it
2417 to off is the same as @samp{--no-remove-listing}.
2419 @item restrict_file_names = unix/windows
2420 Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See
2421 @samp{--restrict-file-names} for a more detailed description.
2423 @item retr_symlinks = on/off
2424 When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the
2425 same as @samp{--retr-symlinks}.
2427 @item robots = on/off
2428 Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, ``on'' by
2429 default. This switch controls both the @file{/robots.txt} and the
2430 @samp{nofollow} aspect of the spec. @xref{Robot Exclusion}, for more
2431 details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning
2434 @item server_response = on/off
2435 Choose whether or not to print the @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} server
2436 responses---the same as @samp{-S}.
2438 @item span_hosts = on/off
2441 @item strict_comments = on/off
2442 Same as @samp{--strict-comments}.
2444 @item timeout = @var{n}
2445 Set timeout value---the same as @samp{-T}.
2447 @item timestamping = on/off
2448 Turn timestamping on/off. The same as @samp{-N} (@pxref{Time-Stamping}).
2450 @item tries = @var{n}
2451 Set number of retries per @sc{url}---the same as @samp{-t}.
2453 @item use_proxy = on/off
2454 Turn proxy support on/off. The same as @samp{-Y}.
2456 @item verbose = on/off
2457 Turn verbose on/off---the same as @samp{-v}/@samp{-nv}.
2459 @item wait = @var{n}
2460 Wait @var{n} seconds between retrievals---the same as @samp{-w}.
2462 @item waitretry = @var{n}
2463 Wait up to @var{n} seconds between retries of failed retrievals
2464 only---the same as @samp{--waitretry}. Note that this is turned on by
2465 default in the global @file{wgetrc}.
2467 @item randomwait = on/off
2468 Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as
2469 @samp{--random-wait}.
2473 @section Sample Wgetrc
2474 @cindex sample wgetrc
2476 This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution.
2477 It is divided in two section---one for global usage (suitable for global
2478 startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for
2479 @file{$HOME/.wgetrc}). Be careful about the things you change.
2481 Note that almost all the lines are commented out. For a command to have
2482 any effect, you must remove the @samp{#} character at the beginning of
2486 @include sample.wgetrc.munged_for_texi_inclusion
2493 @c man begin EXAMPLES
2494 The examples are divided into three sections loosely based on their
2498 * Simple Usage:: Simple, basic usage of the program.
2499 * Advanced Usage:: Advanced tips.
2500 * Very Advanced Usage:: The hairy stuff.
2504 @section Simple Usage
2508 Say you want to download a @sc{url}. Just type:
2511 wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
2515 But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
2516 The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
2517 more than once. In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
2518 either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
2519 (this being 20). It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
2520 insure that the whole file will arrive safely:
2523 wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
2527 Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
2528 to log file @file{log}. It is tiring to type @samp{--tries}, so we
2529 shall use @samp{-t}.
2532 wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &
2535 The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the
2536 background. To unlimit the number of retries, use @samp{-t inf}.
2539 The usage of @sc{ftp} is as simple. Wget will take care of login and
2543 wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
2547 If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
2548 parse it and convert it to @sc{html}. Try:
2551 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/
2556 @node Advanced Usage
2557 @section Advanced Usage
2561 You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download? Use the
2568 If you specify @samp{-} as file name, the @sc{url}s will be read from
2572 Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
2573 same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
2574 document, saving the log of the activities to @file{gnulog}:
2577 wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2581 The same as the above, but convert the links in the @sc{html} files to
2582 point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:
2585 wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
2589 Retrieve only one @sc{html} page, but make sure that all the elements needed
2590 for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
2591 sheets, are also downloaded. Also make sure the downloaded page
2592 references the downloaded links.
2595 wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2598 The @sc{html} page will be saved to @file{www.server.com/dir/page.html}, and
2599 the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under @file{www.server.com/},
2600 depending on where they were on the remote server.
2603 The same as the above, but without the @file{www.server.com/} directory.
2604 In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
2605 anyway---just save @emph{all} those files under a @file{download/}
2606 subdirectory of the current directory.
2609 wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload \
2610 http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
2614 Retrieve the index.html of @samp{www.lycos.com}, showing the original
2618 wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
2622 Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.
2625 wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
2630 Retrieve the first two levels of @samp{wuarchive.wustl.edu}, saving them
2634 wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
2638 You want to download all the @sc{gif}s from a directory on an @sc{http}
2639 server. You tried @samp{wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif}, but that
2640 didn't work because @sc{http} retrieval does not support globbing. In
2644 wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/
2647 More verbose, but the effect is the same. @samp{-r -l1} means to
2648 retrieve recursively (@pxref{Recursive Download}), with maximum depth
2649 of 1. @samp{--no-parent} means that references to the parent directory
2650 are ignored (@pxref{Directory-Based Limits}), and @samp{-A.gif} means to
2651 download only the @sc{gif} files. @samp{-A "*.gif"} would have worked
2655 Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
2656 interrupted. Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
2660 wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
2664 If you want to encode your own username and password to @sc{http} or
2665 @sc{ftp}, use the appropriate @sc{url} syntax (@pxref{URL Format}).
2668 wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@@unix.server.com/.emacs
2671 Note, however, that this usage is not advisable on multi-user systems
2672 because it reveals your password to anyone who looks at the output of
2675 @cindex redirecting output
2677 You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
2681 wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/
2684 You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the
2685 documents from remote hotlists:
2688 wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
2692 @node Very Advanced Usage
2693 @section Very Advanced Usage
2698 If you wish Wget to keep a mirror of a page (or @sc{ftp}
2699 subdirectories), use @samp{--mirror} (@samp{-m}), which is the shorthand
2700 for @samp{-r -l inf -N}. You can put Wget in the crontab file asking it
2701 to recheck a site each Sunday:
2705 0 0 * * 0 wget --mirror http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2709 In addition to the above, you want the links to be converted for local
2710 viewing. But, after having read this manual, you know that link
2711 conversion doesn't play well with timestamping, so you also want Wget to
2712 back up the original @sc{html} files before the conversion. Wget invocation
2713 would look like this:
2716 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2717 http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2721 But you've also noticed that local viewing doesn't work all that well
2722 when @sc{html} files are saved under extensions other than @samp{.html},
2723 perhaps because they were served as @file{index.cgi}. So you'd like
2724 Wget to rename all the files served with content-type @samp{text/html}
2725 or @samp{application/xhtml+xml} to @file{@var{name}.html}.
2728 wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted \
2729 --html-extension -o /home/me/weeklog \
2733 Or, with less typing:
2736 wget -m -k -K -E http://www.gnu.org/ -o /home/me/weeklog
2745 This chapter contains all the stuff that could not fit anywhere else.
2748 * Proxies:: Support for proxy servers
2749 * Distribution:: Getting the latest version.
2750 * Mailing List:: Wget mailing list for announcements and discussion.
2751 * Reporting Bugs:: How and where to report bugs.
2752 * Portability:: The systems Wget works on.
2753 * Signals:: Signal-handling performed by Wget.
2760 @dfn{Proxies} are special-purpose @sc{http} servers designed to transfer
2761 data from remote servers to local clients. One typical use of proxies
2762 is lightening network load for users behind a slow connection. This is
2763 achieved by channeling all @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} requests through the
2764 proxy which caches the transferred data. When a cached resource is
2765 requested again, proxy will return the data from cache. Another use for
2766 proxies is for companies that separate (for security reasons) their
2767 internal networks from the rest of Internet. In order to obtain
2768 information from the Web, their users connect and retrieve remote data
2769 using an authorized proxy.
2771 Wget supports proxies for both @sc{http} and @sc{ftp} retrievals. The
2772 standard way to specify proxy location, which Wget recognizes, is using
2773 the following environment variables:
2777 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{http}
2781 This variable should contain the @sc{url} of the proxy for @sc{ftp}
2782 connections. It is quite common that @sc{http_proxy} and @sc{ftp_proxy}
2783 are set to the same @sc{url}.
2786 This variable should contain a comma-separated list of domain extensions
2787 proxy should @emph{not} be used for. For instance, if the value of
2788 @code{no_proxy} is @samp{.mit.edu}, proxy will not be used to retrieve
2792 In addition to the environment variables, proxy location and settings
2793 may be specified from within Wget itself.
2797 @itemx --proxy=on/off
2798 @itemx proxy = on/off
2799 This option may be used to turn the proxy support on or off. Proxy
2800 support is on by default, provided that the appropriate environment
2803 @item http_proxy = @var{URL}
2804 @itemx ftp_proxy = @var{URL}
2805 @itemx no_proxy = @var{string}
2806 These startup file variables allow you to override the proxy settings
2807 specified by the environment.
2810 Some proxy servers require authorization to enable you to use them. The
2811 authorization consists of @dfn{username} and @dfn{password}, which must
2812 be sent by Wget. As with @sc{http} authorization, several
2813 authentication schemes exist. For proxy authorization only the
2814 @code{Basic} authentication scheme is currently implemented.
2816 You may specify your username and password either through the proxy
2817 @sc{url} or through the command-line options. Assuming that the
2818 company's proxy is located at @samp{proxy.company.com} at port 8001, a
2819 proxy @sc{url} location containing authorization data might look like
2823 http://hniksic:mypassword@@proxy.company.com:8001/
2826 Alternatively, you may use the @samp{proxy-user} and
2827 @samp{proxy-password} options, and the equivalent @file{.wgetrc}
2828 settings @code{proxy_user} and @code{proxy_passwd} to set the proxy
2829 username and password.
2832 @section Distribution
2833 @cindex latest version
2835 Like all GNU utilities, the latest version of Wget can be found at the
2836 master GNU archive site ftp.gnu.org, and its mirrors. For example,
2837 Wget @value{VERSION} can be found at
2838 @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-@value{VERSION}.tar.gz}
2841 @section Mailing List
2842 @cindex mailing list
2845 Wget has its own mailing list at @email{wget@@sunsite.dk}, thanks
2846 to Karsten Thygesen. The mailing list is for discussion of Wget
2847 features and web, reporting Wget bugs (those that you think may be of
2848 interest to the public) and mailing announcements. You are welcome to
2849 subscribe. The more people on the list, the better!
2851 To subscribe, simply send mail to @email{wget-subscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2852 Unsubscribe by mailing to @email{wget-unsubscribe@@sunsite.dk}.
2854 The mailing list is archived at @url{http://fly.srk.fer.hr/archive/wget}.
2855 Alternative archive is available at
2856 @url{http://www.mail-archive.com/wget%40sunsite.auc.dk/}.
2858 @node Reporting Bugs
2859 @section Reporting Bugs
2861 @cindex reporting bugs
2865 You are welcome to send bug reports about GNU Wget to
2866 @email{bug-wget@@gnu.org}.
2868 Before actually submitting a bug report, please try to follow a few
2873 Please try to ascertain that the behavior you see really is a bug. If
2874 Wget crashes, it's a bug. If Wget does not behave as documented,
2875 it's a bug. If things work strange, but you are not sure about the way
2876 they are supposed to work, it might well be a bug.
2879 Try to repeat the bug in as simple circumstances as possible. E.g. if
2880 Wget crashes while downloading @samp{wget -rl0 -kKE -t5 -Y0
2881 http://yoyodyne.com -o /tmp/log}, you should try to see if the crash is
2882 repeatable, and if will occur with a simpler set of options. You might
2883 even try to start the download at the page where the crash occurred to
2884 see if that page somehow triggered the crash.
2886 Also, while I will probably be interested to know the contents of your
2887 @file{.wgetrc} file, just dumping it into the debug message is probably
2888 a bad idea. Instead, you should first try to see if the bug repeats
2889 with @file{.wgetrc} moved out of the way. Only if it turns out that
2890 @file{.wgetrc} settings affect the bug, mail me the relevant parts of
2894 Please start Wget with @samp{-d} option and send the log (or the
2895 relevant parts of it). If Wget was compiled without debug support,
2896 recompile it. It is @emph{much} easier to trace bugs with debug support
2900 If Wget has crashed, try to run it in a debugger, e.g. @code{gdb `which
2901 wget` core} and type @code{where} to get the backtrace.
2906 @section Portability
2908 @cindex operating systems
2910 Like all GNU software, Wget works on the GNU system. However, since it
2911 uses GNU Autoconf for building and configuring, and mostly avoids using
2912 ``special'' features of any particular Unix, it should compile (and
2913 work) on all common Unix flavors.
2915 Various Wget versions have been compiled and tested under many kinds of
2916 Unix systems, including Solaris, GNU/Linux, SunOS, OSF (aka Digital Unix
2917 or Tru64), Ultrix, *BSD, IRIX, AIX, and others; refer to the file
2918 @file{MACHINES} in the distribution directory for a comprehensive list.
2919 If you compile it on an architecture not listed there, please let me
2920 know so I can update it.
2922 Wget should also compile on the other Unix systems, not listed in
2923 @file{MACHINES}. If it doesn't, please let me know.
2925 Thanks to kind contributors, this version of Wget compiles and works on
2926 Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. It has been compiled
2927 successfully using MS Visual C++ 6.0, Watcom, and Borland C compilers,
2928 with Winsock as networking software. Naturally, it is crippled of some
2929 features available on Unix, but it should work as a substitute for
2930 people stuck with Windows. Note that the Windows port is
2931 @strong{neither tested nor maintained} by me---all questions and
2932 problems in Windows usage should be reported to Wget mailing list at
2933 @email{wget@@sunsite.dk} where the volunteers who maintain the
2934 Windows-related features might look at them.
2938 @cindex signal handling
2941 Since the purpose of Wget is background work, it catches the hangup
2942 signal (@code{SIGHUP}) and ignores it. If the output was on standard
2943 output, it will be redirected to a file named @file{wget-log}.
2944 Otherwise, @code{SIGHUP} is ignored. This is convenient when you wish
2945 to redirect the output of Wget after having started it.
2948 $ wget http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/gnus.tar.gz &
2949 $ kill -HUP %% # Redirect the output to wget-log
2952 Other than that, Wget will not try to interfere with signals in any way.
2953 @kbd{C-c}, @code{kill -TERM} and @code{kill -KILL} should kill it alike.
2958 This chapter contains some references I consider useful.
2961 * Robot Exclusion:: Wget's support for RES.
2962 * Security Considerations:: Security with Wget.
2963 * Contributors:: People who helped.
2966 @node Robot Exclusion
2967 @section Robot Exclusion
2968 @cindex robot exclusion
2970 @cindex server maintenance
2972 It is extremely easy to make Wget wander aimlessly around a web site,
2973 sucking all the available data in progress. @samp{wget -r @var{site}},
2974 and you're set. Great? Not for the server admin.
2976 As long as Wget is only retrieving static pages, and doing it at a
2977 reasonable rate (see the @samp{--wait} option), there's not much of a
2978 problem. The trouble is that Wget can't tell the difference between the
2979 smallest static page and the most demanding CGI. A site I know has a
2980 section handled by a CGI Perl script that converts Info files to @sc{html} on
2981 the fly. The script is slow, but works well enough for human users
2982 viewing an occasional Info file. However, when someone's recursive Wget
2983 download stumbles upon the index page that links to all the Info files
2984 through the script, the system is brought to its knees without providing
2985 anything useful to the user (This task of converting Info files could be
2986 done locally and access to Info documentation for all installed GNU
2987 software on a system is available from the @code{info} command).
2989 To avoid this kind of accident, as well as to preserve privacy for
2990 documents that need to be protected from well-behaved robots, the
2991 concept of @dfn{robot exclusion} was invented. The idea is that
2992 the server administrators and document authors can specify which
2993 portions of the site they wish to protect from robots and those
2994 they will permit access.
2996 The most popular mechanism, and the @i{de facto} standard supported by
2997 all the major robots, is the ``Robots Exclusion Standard'' (RES) written
2998 by Martijn Koster et al. in 1994. It specifies the format of a text
2999 file containing directives that instruct the robots which URL paths to
3000 avoid. To be found by the robots, the specifications must be placed in
3001 @file{/robots.txt} in the server root, which the robots are expected to
3004 Although Wget is not a web robot in the strictest sense of the word, it
3005 can downloads large parts of the site without the user's intervention to
3006 download an individual page. Because of that, Wget honors RES when
3007 downloading recursively. For instance, when you issue:
3010 wget -r http://www.server.com/
3013 First the index of @samp{www.server.com} will be downloaded. If Wget
3014 finds that it wants to download more documents from that server, it will
3015 request @samp{http://www.server.com/robots.txt} and, if found, use it
3016 for further downloads. @file{robots.txt} is loaded only once per each
3019 Until version 1.8, Wget supported the first version of the standard,
3020 written by Martijn Koster in 1994 and available at
3021 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html}. As of version 1.8,
3022 Wget has supported the additional directives specified in the internet
3023 draft @samp{<draft-koster-robots-00.txt>} titled ``A Method for Web
3024 Robots Control''. The draft, which has as far as I know never made to
3025 an @sc{rfc}, is available at
3026 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt}.
3028 This manual no longer includes the text of the Robot Exclusion Standard.
3030 The second, less known mechanism, enables the author of an individual
3031 document to specify whether they want the links from the file to be
3032 followed by a robot. This is achieved using the @code{META} tag, like
3036 <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
3039 This is explained in some detail at
3040 @url{http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/meta-user.html}. Wget supports this
3041 method of robot exclusion in addition to the usual @file{/robots.txt}
3044 If you know what you are doing and really really wish to turn off the
3045 robot exclusion, set the @code{robots} variable to @samp{off} in your
3046 @file{.wgetrc}. You can achieve the same effect from the command line
3047 using the @code{-e} switch, e.g. @samp{wget -e robots=off @var{url}...}.
3049 @node Security Considerations
3050 @section Security Considerations
3053 When using Wget, you must be aware that it sends unencrypted passwords
3054 through the network, which may present a security problem. Here are the
3055 main issues, and some solutions.
3058 @item The passwords on the command line are visible using @code{ps}.
3059 The best way around it is to use @code{wget -i -} and feed the @sc{url}s
3060 to Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by
3061 @kbd{C-d}. Another workaround is to use @file{.netrc} to store
3062 passwords; however, storing unencrypted passwords is also considered a
3066 Using the insecure @dfn{basic} authentication scheme, unencrypted
3067 passwords are transmitted through the network routers and gateways.
3070 The @sc{ftp} passwords are also in no way encrypted. There is no good
3071 solution for this at the moment.
3074 Although the ``normal'' output of Wget tries to hide the passwords,
3075 debugging logs show them, in all forms. This problem is avoided by
3076 being careful when you send debug logs (yes, even when you send them to
3081 @section Contributors
3082 @cindex contributors
3085 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Nik@v{s}i@'{c} @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3088 GNU Wget was written by Hrvoje Niksic @email{hniksic@@xemacs.org}.
3090 However, its development could never have gone as far as it has, were it
3091 not for the help of many people, either with bug reports, feature
3092 proposals, patches, or letters saying ``Thanks!''.
3094 Special thanks goes to the following people (no particular order):
3098 Karsten Thygesen---donated system resources such as the mailing list,
3099 web space, and @sc{ftp} space, along with a lot of time to make these
3103 Shawn McHorse---bug reports and patches.
3106 Kaveh R. Ghazi---on-the-fly @code{ansi2knr}-ization. Lots of
3110 Gordon Matzigkeit---@file{.netrc} support.
3114 Zlatko @v{C}alu@v{s}i@'{c}, Tomislav Vujec and Dra@v{z}en
3115 Ka@v{c}ar---feature suggestions and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3118 Zlatko Calusic, Tomislav Vujec and Drazen Kacar---feature suggestions
3119 and ``philosophical'' discussions.
3123 Darko Budor---initial port to Windows.
3126 Antonio Rosella---help and suggestions, plus the Italian translation.
3130 Tomislav Petrovi@'{c}, Mario Miko@v{c}evi@'{c}---many bug reports and
3134 Tomislav Petrovic, Mario Mikocevic---many bug reports and suggestions.
3139 Fran@,{c}ois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3142 Francois Pinard---many thorough bug reports and discussions.
3146 Karl Eichwalder---lots of help with internationalization and other
3150 Junio Hamano---donated support for Opie and @sc{http} @code{Digest}
3154 The people who provided donations for development, including Brian
3158 The following people have provided patches, bug/build reports, useful
3159 suggestions, beta testing services, fan mail and all the other things
3160 that make maintenance so much fun:
3179 Kristijan @v{C}onka@v{s},
3198 Aleksandar Erkalovi@'{c},
3201 Aleksandar Erkalovic,
3218 Erik Magnus Hulthen,
3236 Goran Kezunovi@'{c},
3247 $\Sigma\acute{\iota}\mu o\varsigma\;
3248 \Xi\varepsilon\nu\iota\tau\acute{\epsilon}\lambda\lambda\eta\varsigma$
3249 (Simos KSenitellis),
3257 Nicol@'{a}s Lichtmeier,
3263 Alexander V. Lukyanov,
3291 @c Texinfo doesn't grok @'{@i}, so we have to use TeX itself.
3293 Juan Jos\'{e} Rodr\'{\i}gues,
3296 Juan Jose Rodrigues,
3309 Szakacsits Szabolcs,
3317 Douglas E. Wegscheid,
3327 Apologies to all who I accidentally left out, and many thanks to all the
3328 subscribers of the Wget mailing list.
3335 @cindex free software
3337 GNU Wget is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL),
3338 which makes it @dfn{free software}. Please note that ``free'' in ``free
3339 software'' refers to liberty, not price. As some people like to point
3340 out, it's the ``free'' of ``free speech'', not the ``free'' of ``free
3343 The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below.
3344 The GPL guarantees that you have the right (freedom) to run and change
3345 GNU Wget and distribute it to others, and even---if you want---charge
3346 money for doing any of those things. With these rights comes the
3347 obligation to distribute the source code along with the software and to
3348 grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
3350 This licensing model is also known as @dfn{open source} because it,
3351 among other things, makes sure that all recipients will receive the
3352 source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU
3353 project prefers the term ``free software'' for reasons outlined at
3354 @url{http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html}.
3356 The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU
3357 General Public License it refers to:
3360 GNU Wget is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
3361 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
3362 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
3363 option) any later version.
3365 GNU Wget is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
3366 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
3367 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
3370 A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as part of this
3371 manual; if you did not receive it, write to the Free Software
3372 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3375 In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
3378 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
3379 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
3380 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
3381 Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
3382 Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
3383 Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
3384 entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
3387 @c #### Maybe we should wrap these licenses in ifinfo? Stallman says
3388 @c that the GFDL needs to be present in the manual, and to me it would
3389 @c suck to include the license for the manual and not the license for
3392 The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free
3393 Documentation License are available below.
3396 * GNU General Public License::
3397 * GNU Free Documentation License::
3400 @node GNU General Public License
3401 @section GNU General Public License
3402 @center Version 2, June 1991
3405 Copyright @copyright{} 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3406 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3408 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
3409 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
3412 @unnumberedsec Preamble
3414 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
3415 freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
3416 License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
3417 software---to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
3418 General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
3419 Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
3420 using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
3421 the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
3424 When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
3425 price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
3426 have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
3427 this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
3428 if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
3429 in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
3431 To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
3432 anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
3433 These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
3434 distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
3436 For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
3437 gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
3438 you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
3439 source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
3442 We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
3443 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
3444 distribute and/or modify the software.
3446 Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
3447 that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
3448 software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
3449 want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
3450 that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
3451 authors' reputations.
3453 Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
3454 patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
3455 program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
3456 program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
3457 patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
3459 The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
3460 modification follow.
3463 @unnumberedsec TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3466 @center TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
3471 This License applies to any program or other work which contains
3472 a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
3473 under the terms of this General Public License. The ``Program'', below,
3474 refers to any such program or work, and a ``work based on the Program''
3475 means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
3476 that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
3477 either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
3478 language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
3479 the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
3481 Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
3482 covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
3483 running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
3484 is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
3485 Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
3486 Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
3489 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
3490 source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
3491 conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
3492 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
3493 notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
3494 and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
3495 along with the Program.
3497 You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
3498 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
3501 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
3502 of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
3503 distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
3504 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
3508 You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
3509 stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
3512 You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
3513 whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
3514 part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
3515 parties under the terms of this License.
3518 If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
3519 when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
3520 interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
3521 announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
3522 notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
3523 a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
3524 these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
3525 License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
3526 does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
3527 the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
3530 These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
3531 identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
3532 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
3533 themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
3534 sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
3535 distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
3536 on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
3537 this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
3538 entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
3540 Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
3541 your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
3542 exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
3543 collective works based on the Program.
3545 In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
3546 with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
3547 a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
3548 the scope of this License.
3551 You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
3552 under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
3553 Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
3557 Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
3558 source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
3559 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
3562 Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
3563 years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
3564 cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
3565 machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
3566 distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
3567 customarily used for software interchange; or,
3570 Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
3571 to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
3572 allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
3573 received the program in object code or executable form with such
3574 an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
3577 The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
3578 making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
3579 code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
3580 associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
3581 control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
3582 special exception, the source code distributed need not include
3583 anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
3584 form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
3585 operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
3586 itself accompanies the executable.
3588 If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
3589 access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
3590 access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
3591 distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
3592 compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
3595 You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
3596 except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
3597 otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
3598 void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
3599 However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
3600 this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
3601 parties remain in full compliance.
3604 You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
3605 signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
3606 distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
3607 prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
3608 modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
3609 Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
3610 all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
3611 the Program or works based on it.
3614 Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
3615 Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
3616 original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
3617 these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
3618 restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
3619 You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
3623 If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
3624 infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
3625 conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
3626 otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
3627 excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
3628 distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
3629 License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
3630 may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
3631 license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
3632 all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
3633 the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
3634 refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
3636 If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
3637 any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
3638 apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
3641 It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
3642 patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
3643 such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
3644 integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
3645 implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
3646 generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
3647 through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
3648 system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
3649 to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
3652 This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
3653 be a consequence of the rest of this License.
3656 If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
3657 certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
3658 original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
3659 may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
3660 those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
3661 countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
3662 the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
3665 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
3666 of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
3667 be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
3668 address new problems or concerns.
3670 Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
3671 specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any
3672 later version'', you have the option of following the terms and conditions
3673 either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
3674 Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
3675 this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
3679 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
3680 programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
3681 to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
3682 Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
3683 make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
3684 of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
3685 of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
3688 @heading NO WARRANTY
3696 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
3697 FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
3698 OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
3699 PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
3700 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
3701 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
3702 TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
3703 PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
3704 REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
3707 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
3708 WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
3709 REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
3710 INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
3711 OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
3712 TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
3713 YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
3714 PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
3715 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
3719 @heading END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3722 @center END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
3726 @unnumberedsec How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
3728 If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
3729 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
3730 free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
3732 To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
3733 to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
3734 convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
3735 the ``copyright'' line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
3738 @var{one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.}
3739 Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3741 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
3742 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
3743 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
3744 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
3746 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3747 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3748 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3749 GNU General Public License for more details.
3751 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3752 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
3753 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3756 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
3758 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
3759 when it starts in an interactive mode:
3762 Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19@var{yy} @var{name of author}
3763 Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
3764 type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
3765 to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
3769 The hypothetical commands @samp{show w} and @samp{show c} should show
3770 the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
3771 commands you use may be called something other than @samp{show w} and
3772 @samp{show c}; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items---whatever
3775 You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
3776 school, if any, to sign a ``copyright disclaimer'' for the program, if
3777 necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
3781 Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
3782 interest in the program `Gnomovision'
3783 (which makes passes at compilers) written
3786 @var{signature of Ty Coon}, 1 April 1989
3787 Ty Coon, President of Vice
3791 This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
3792 proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
3793 consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
3794 library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
3795 Public License instead of this License.
3800 @unnumbered Concept Index