This is wget.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.3 from ./wget.texi.

INFO-DIR-SECTION Network Applications
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Wget: (wget).         The non-interactive network downloader.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

   This file documents the the GNU Wget utility for downloading network
data.

   Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.

   Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

   Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License" and "GNU Free
Documentation License", with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section
entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".


File: wget.info,  Node: Top,  Next: Overview,  Prev: (dir),  Up: (dir)

Wget 1.9.1
**********

   This manual documents version 1.9.1 of GNU Wget, the freely
available utility for network downloads.

   Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.

* Menu:

* Overview::            Features of Wget.
* Invoking::            Wget command-line arguments.
* Recursive Retrieval:: Description of recursive retrieval.
* Following Links::     The available methods of chasing links.
* Time-Stamping::       Mirroring according to time-stamps.
* Startup File::        Wget's initialization file.
* Examples::            Examples of usage.
* Various::             The stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
* Appendices::          Some useful references.
* Copying::             You may give out copies of Wget and of this manual.
* Concept Index::       Topics covered by this manual.


File: wget.info,  Node: Overview,  Next: Invoking,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

Overview
********

   GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from
the Web.  It supports HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as
retrieval through HTTP proxies.

   This chapter is a partial overview of Wget's features.

   * Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the
     background, while the user is not logged on.  This allows you to
     start a retrieval and disconnect from the system, letting Wget
     finish the work.  By contrast, most of the Web browsers require
     constant user's presence, which can be a great hindrance when
     transferring a lot of data.


   * Wget can follow links in HTML and XHTML pages and create local
     versions of remote web sites, fully recreating the directory
     structure of the original site.  This is sometimes referred to as
     "recursive downloading."  While doing that, Wget respects the
     Robot Exclusion Standard (`/robots.txt').  Wget can be instructed
     to convert the links in downloaded HTML files to the local files
     for offline viewing.


   * File name wildcard matching and recursive mirroring of directories
     are available when retrieving via FTP.  Wget can read the
     time-stamp information given by both HTTP and FTP servers, and
     store it locally.  Thus Wget can see if the remote file has
     changed since last retrieval, and automatically retrieve the new
     version if it has.  This makes Wget suitable for mirroring of FTP
     sites, as well as home pages.


   * Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network
     connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will
     keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved.  If the
     server supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue
     the download from where it left off.


   * Wget supports proxy servers, which can lighten the network load,
     speed up retrieval and provide access behind firewalls.  However,
     if you are behind a firewall that requires that you use a socks
     style gateway, you can get the socks library and build Wget with
     support for socks.  Wget also supports the passive FTP downloading
     as an option.


   * Built-in features offer mechanisms to tune which links you wish to
     follow (*note Following Links::).


   * The retrieval is conveniently traced with printing dots, each dot
     representing a fixed amount of data received (1KB by default).
     These representations can be customized to your preferences.


   * Most of the features are fully configurable, either through
     command line options, or via the initialization file `.wgetrc'
     (*note Startup File::).  Wget allows you to define "global"
     startup files (`/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default) for site
     settings.


   * Finally, GNU Wget is free software.  This means that everyone may
     use it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
     GNU General Public License, as published by the Free Software
     Foundation (*note Copying::).


File: wget.info,  Node: Invoking,  Next: Recursive Retrieval,  Prev: Overview,  Up: Top

Invoking
********

   By default, Wget is very simple to invoke.  The basic syntax is:

     wget [OPTION]... [URL]...

   Wget will simply download all the URLs specified on the command
line.  URL is a "Uniform Resource Locator", as defined below.

   However, you may wish to change some of the default parameters of
Wget.  You can do it two ways: permanently, adding the appropriate
command to `.wgetrc' (*note Startup File::), or specifying it on the
command line.

* Menu:

* URL Format::
* Option Syntax::
* Basic Startup Options::
* Logging and Input File Options::
* Download Options::
* Directory Options::
* HTTP Options::
* FTP Options::
* Recursive Retrieval Options::
* Recursive Accept/Reject Options::


File: wget.info,  Node: URL Format,  Next: Option Syntax,  Prev: Invoking,  Up: Invoking

URL Format
==========

   "URL" is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator.  A uniform
resource locator is a compact string representation for a resource
available via the Internet.  Wget recognizes the URL syntax as per
RFC1738.  This is the most widely used form (square brackets denote
optional parts):

     http://host[:port]/directory/file
     ftp://host[:port]/directory/file

   You can also encode your username and password within a URL:

     ftp://user:password@host/path
     http://user:password@host/path

   Either USER or PASSWORD, or both, may be left out.  If you leave out
either the HTTP username or password, no authentication will be sent.
If you leave out the FTP username, `anonymous' will be used.  If you
leave out the FTP password, your email address will be supplied as a
default password.(1)

   *Important Note*: if you specify a password-containing URL on the
command line, the username and password will be plainly visible to all
users on the system, by way of `ps'.  On multi-user systems, this is a
big security risk.  To work around it, use `wget -i -' and feed the
URLs to Wget's standard input, each on a separate line, terminated by
`C-d'.

   You can encode unsafe characters in a URL as `%xy', `xy' being the
hexadecimal representation of the character's ASCII value.  Some common
unsafe characters include `%' (quoted as `%25'), `:' (quoted as `%3A'),
and `@' (quoted as `%40').  Refer to RFC1738 for a comprehensive list
of unsafe characters.

   Wget also supports the `type' feature for FTP URLs.  By default, FTP
documents are retrieved in the binary mode (type `i'), which means that
they are downloaded unchanged.  Another useful mode is the `a'
("ASCII") mode, which converts the line delimiters between the
different operating systems, and is thus useful for text files.  Here
is an example:

     ftp://host/directory/file;type=a

   Two alternative variants of URL specification are also supported,
because of historical (hysterical?) reasons and their widespreaded use.

   FTP-only syntax (supported by `NcFTP'):
     host:/dir/file

   HTTP-only syntax (introduced by `Netscape'):
     host[:port]/dir/file

   These two alternative forms are deprecated, and may cease being
supported in the future.

   If you do not understand the difference between these notations, or
do not know which one to use, just use the plain ordinary format you use
with your favorite browser, like `Lynx' or `Netscape'.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) If you have a `.netrc' file in your home directory, password
will also be searched for there.


File: wget.info,  Node: Option Syntax,  Next: Basic Startup Options,  Prev: URL Format,  Up: Invoking

Option Syntax
=============

   Since Wget uses GNU getopts to process its arguments, every option
has a short form and a long form.  Long options are more convenient to
remember, but take time to type.  You may freely mix different option
styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments.  Thus you
may write:

     wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log

   The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument
may be omitted.  Instead `-o log' you can write `-olog'.

   You may put several options that do not require arguments together,
like:

     wget -drc URL

   This is a complete equivalent of:

     wget -d -r -c URL

   Since the options can be specified after the arguments, you may
terminate them with `--'.  So the following will try to download URL
`-x', reporting failure to `log':

     wget -o log -- -x

   The options that accept comma-separated lists all respect the
convention that specifying an empty list clears its value.  This can be
useful to clear the `.wgetrc' settings.  For instance, if your `.wgetrc'
sets `exclude_directories' to `/cgi-bin', the following example will
first reset it, and then set it to exclude `/~nobody' and `/~somebody'.
You can also clear the lists in `.wgetrc' (*note Wgetrc Syntax::).

     wget -X '' -X /~nobody,/~somebody


File: wget.info,  Node: Basic Startup Options,  Next: Logging and Input File Options,  Prev: Option Syntax,  Up: Invoking

Basic Startup Options
=====================

`-V'
`--version'
     Display the version of Wget.

`-h'
`--help'
     Print a help message describing all of Wget's command-line options.

`-b'
`--background'
     Go to background immediately after startup.  If no output file is
     specified via the `-o', output is redirected to `wget-log'.

`-e COMMAND'
`--execute COMMAND'
     Execute COMMAND as if it were a part of `.wgetrc' (*note Startup
     File::).  A command thus invoked will be executed _after_ the
     commands in `.wgetrc', thus taking precedence over them.


File: wget.info,  Node: Logging and Input File Options,  Next: Download Options,  Prev: Basic Startup Options,  Up: Invoking

Logging and Input File Options
==============================

`-o LOGFILE'
`--output-file=LOGFILE'
     Log all messages to LOGFILE.  The messages are normally reported
     to standard error.

`-a LOGFILE'
`--append-output=LOGFILE'
     Append to LOGFILE.  This is the same as `-o', only it appends to
     LOGFILE instead of overwriting the old log file.  If LOGFILE does
     not exist, a new file is created.

`-d'
`--debug'
     Turn on debug output, meaning various information important to the
     developers of Wget if it does not work properly.  Your system
     administrator may have chosen to compile Wget without debug
     support, in which case `-d' will not work.  Please note that
     compiling with debug support is always safe--Wget compiled with
     the debug support will _not_ print any debug info unless requested
     with `-d'.  *Note Reporting Bugs::, for more information on how to
     use `-d' for sending bug reports.

`-q'
`--quiet'
     Turn off Wget's output.

`-v'
`--verbose'
     Turn on verbose output, with all the available data.  The default
     output is verbose.

`-nv'
`--non-verbose'
     Non-verbose output--turn off verbose without being completely quiet
     (use `-q' for that), which means that error messages and basic
     information still get printed.

`-i FILE'
`--input-file=FILE'
     Read URLs from FILE, in which case no URLs need to be on the
     command line.  If there are URLs both on the command line and in
     an input file, those on the command lines will be the first ones to
     be retrieved.  The FILE need not be an HTML document (but no harm
     if it is)--it is enough if the URLs are just listed sequentially.

     However, if you specify `--force-html', the document will be
     regarded as `html'.  In that case you may have problems with
     relative links, which you can solve either by adding `<base
     href="URL">' to the documents or by specifying `--base=URL' on the
     command line.

`-F'
`--force-html'
     When input is read from a file, force it to be treated as an HTML
     file.  This enables you to retrieve relative links from existing
     HTML files on your local disk, by adding `<base href="URL">' to
     HTML, or using the `--base' command-line option.

`-B URL'
`--base=URL'
     When used in conjunction with `-F', prepends URL to relative links
     in the file specified by `-i'.


File: wget.info,  Node: Download Options,  Next: Directory Options,  Prev: Logging and Input File Options,  Up: Invoking

Download Options
================

`--bind-address=ADDRESS'
     When making client TCP/IP connections, `bind()' to ADDRESS on the
     local machine.  ADDRESS may be specified as a hostname or IP
     address.  This option can be useful if your machine is bound to
     multiple IPs.

`-t NUMBER'
`--tries=NUMBER'
     Set number of retries to NUMBER.  Specify 0 or `inf' for infinite
     retrying.  The default is to retry 20 times, with the exception of
     fatal errors like "connection refused" or "not found" (404), which
     are not retried.

`-O FILE'
`--output-document=FILE'
     The documents will not be written to the appropriate files, but
     all will be concatenated together and written to FILE.  If FILE
     already exists, it will be overwritten.  If the FILE is `-', the
     documents will be written to standard output.  Including this
     option automatically sets the number of tries to 1.

`-nc'
`--no-clobber'
     If a file is downloaded more than once in the same directory,
     Wget's behavior depends on a few options, including `-nc'.  In
     certain cases, the local file will be "clobbered", or overwritten,
     upon repeated download.  In other cases it will be preserved.

     When running Wget without `-N', `-nc', or `-r', downloading the
     same file in the same directory will result in the original copy
     of FILE being preserved and the second copy being named `FILE.1'.
     If that file is downloaded yet again, the third copy will be named
     `FILE.2', and so on.  When `-nc' is specified, this behavior is
     suppressed, and Wget will refuse to download newer copies of
     `FILE'.  Therefore, "`no-clobber'" is actually a misnomer in this
     mode--it's not clobbering that's prevented (as the numeric
     suffixes were already preventing clobbering), but rather the
     multiple version saving that's prevented.

     When running Wget with `-r', but without `-N' or `-nc',
     re-downloading a file will result in the new copy simply
     overwriting the old.  Adding `-nc' will prevent this behavior,
     instead causing the original version to be preserved and any newer
     copies on the server to be ignored.

     When running Wget with `-N', with or without `-r', the decision as
     to whether or not to download a newer copy of a file depends on
     the local and remote timestamp and size of the file (*note
     Time-Stamping::).  `-nc' may not be specified at the same time as
     `-N'.

     Note that when `-nc' is specified, files with the suffixes `.html'
     or (yuck) `.htm' will be loaded from the local disk and parsed as
     if they had been retrieved from the Web.

`-c'
`--continue'
     Continue getting a partially-downloaded file.  This is useful when
     you want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of
     Wget, or by another program.  For instance:

          wget -c ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/ls-lR.Z

     If there is a file named `ls-lR.Z' in the current directory, Wget
     will assume that it is the first portion of the remote file, and
     will ask the server to continue the retrieval from an offset equal
     to the length of the local file.

     Note that you don't need to specify this option if you just want
     the current invocation of Wget to retry downloading a file should
     the connection be lost midway through.  This is the default
     behavior.  `-c' only affects resumption of downloads started
     _prior_ to this invocation of Wget, and whose local files are
     still sitting around.

     Without `-c', the previous example would just download the remote
     file to `ls-lR.Z.1', leaving the truncated `ls-lR.Z' file alone.

     Beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use `-c' on a non-empty file, and
     it turns out that the server does not support continued
     downloading, Wget will refuse to start the download from scratch,
     which would effectively ruin existing contents.  If you really
     want the download to start from scratch, remove the file.

     Also beginning with Wget 1.7, if you use `-c' on a file which is of
     equal size as the one on the server, Wget will refuse to download
     the file and print an explanatory message.  The same happens when
     the file is smaller on the server than locally (presumably because
     it was changed on the server since your last download
     attempt)--because "continuing" is not meaningful, no download
     occurs.

     On the other side of the coin, while using `-c', any file that's
     bigger on the server than locally will be considered an incomplete
     download and only `(length(remote) - length(local))' bytes will be
     downloaded and tacked onto the end of the local file.  This
     behavior can be desirable in certain cases--for instance, you can
     use `wget -c' to download just the new portion that's been
     appended to a data collection or log file.

     However, if the file is bigger on the server because it's been
     _changed_, as opposed to just _appended_ to, you'll end up with a
     garbled file.  Wget has no way of verifying that the local file is
     really a valid prefix of the remote file.  You need to be
     especially careful of this when using `-c' in conjunction with
     `-r', since every file will be considered as an "incomplete
     download" candidate.

     Another instance where you'll get a garbled file if you try to use
     `-c' is if you have a lame HTTP proxy that inserts a "transfer
     interrupted" string into the local file.  In the future a
     "rollback" option may be added to deal with this case.

     Note that `-c' only works with FTP servers and with HTTP servers
     that support the `Range' header.

`--progress=TYPE'
     Select the type of the progress indicator you wish to use.  Legal
     indicators are "dot" and "bar".

     The "bar" indicator is used by default.  It draws an ASCII progress
     bar graphics (a.k.a "thermometer" display) indicating the status of
     retrieval.  If the output is not a TTY, the "dot" bar will be used
     by default.

     Use `--progress=dot' to switch to the "dot" display.  It traces
     the retrieval by printing dots on the screen, each dot
     representing a fixed amount of downloaded data.

     When using the dotted retrieval, you may also set the "style" by
     specifying the type as `dot:STYLE'.  Different styles assign
     different meaning to one dot.  With the `default' style each dot
     represents 1K, there are ten dots in a cluster and 50 dots in a
     line.  The `binary' style has a more "computer"-like
     orientation--8K dots, 16-dots clusters and 48 dots per line (which
     makes for 384K lines).  The `mega' style is suitable for
     downloading very large files--each dot represents 64K retrieved,
     there are eight dots in a cluster, and 48 dots on each line (so
     each line contains 3M).

     Note that you can set the default style using the `progress'
     command in `.wgetrc'.  That setting may be overridden from the
     command line.  The exception is that, when the output is not a
     TTY, the "dot" progress will be favored over "bar".  To force the
     bar output, use `--progress=bar:force'.

`-N'
`--timestamping'
     Turn on time-stamping.  *Note Time-Stamping::, for details.

`-S'
`--server-response'
     Print the headers sent by HTTP servers and responses sent by FTP
     servers.

`--spider'
     When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web "spider",
     which means that it will not download the pages, just check that
     they are there.  For example, you can use Wget to check your
     bookmarks:

          wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html

     This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the
     functionality of real web spiders.

`-T seconds'
`--timeout=SECONDS'
     Set the network timeout to SECONDS seconds.  This is equivalent to
     specifying `--dns-timeout', `--connect-timeout', and
     `--read-timeout', all at the same time.

     Whenever Wget connects to or reads from a remote host, it checks
     for a timeout and aborts the operation if the time expires.  This
     prevents anomalous occurrences such as hanging reads or infinite
     connects.  The only timeout enabled by default is a 900-second
     timeout for reading.  Setting timeout to 0 disables checking for
     timeouts.

     Unless you know what you are doing, it is best not to set any of
     the timeout-related options.

`--dns-timeout=SECONDS'
     Set the DNS lookup timeout to SECONDS seconds.  DNS lookups that
     don't complete within the specified time will fail.  By default,
     there is no timeout on DNS lookups, other than that implemented by
     system libraries.

`--connect-timeout=SECONDS'
     Set the connect timeout to SECONDS seconds.  TCP connections that
     take longer to establish will be aborted.  By default, there is no
     connect timeout, other than that implemented by system libraries.

`--read-timeout=SECONDS'
     Set the read (and write) timeout to SECONDS seconds.  Reads that
     take longer will fail.  The default value for read timeout is 900
     seconds.

`--limit-rate=AMOUNT'
     Limit the download speed to AMOUNT bytes per second.  Amount may
     be expressed in bytes, kilobytes with the `k' suffix, or megabytes
     with the `m' suffix.  For example, `--limit-rate=20k' will limit
     the retrieval rate to 20KB/s.  This kind of thing is useful when,
     for whatever reason, you don't want Wget to consume the entire
     available bandwidth.

     Note that Wget implements the limiting by sleeping the appropriate
     amount of time after a network read that took less time than
     specified by the rate.  Eventually this strategy causes the TCP
     transfer to slow down to approximately the specified rate.
     However, it may take some time for this balance to be achieved, so
     don't be surprised if limiting the rate doesn't work well with
     very small files.

`-w SECONDS'
`--wait=SECONDS'
     Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals.  Use
     of this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by
     making the requests less frequent.  Instead of in seconds, the
     time can be specified in minutes using the `m' suffix, in hours
     using `h' suffix, or in days using `d' suffix.

     Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network
     or the destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough
     to reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the
     retry.

`--waitretry=SECONDS'
     If you don't want Wget to wait between _every_ retrieval, but only
     between retries of failed downloads, you can use this option.
     Wget will use "linear backoff", waiting 1 second after the first
     failure on a given file, then waiting 2 seconds after the second
     failure on that file, up to the maximum number of SECONDS you
     specify.  Therefore, a value of 10 will actually make Wget wait up
     to (1 + 2 + ... + 10) = 55 seconds per file.

     Note that this option is turned on by default in the global
     `wgetrc' file.

`--random-wait'
     Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval
     programs such as Wget by looking for statistically significant
     similarities in the time between requests. This option causes the
     time between requests to vary between 0 and 2 * WAIT seconds,
     where WAIT was specified using the `--wait' option, in order to
     mask Wget's presence from such analysis.

     A recent article in a publication devoted to development on a
     popular consumer platform provided code to perform this analysis
     on the fly.  Its author suggested blocking at the class C address
     level to ensure automated retrieval programs were blocked despite
     changing DHCP-supplied addresses.

     The `--random-wait' option was inspired by this ill-advised
     recommendation to block many unrelated users from a web site due
     to the actions of one.

`-Y on/off'
`--proxy=on/off'
     Turn proxy support on or off.  The proxy is on by default if the
     appropriate environment variable is defined.

     For more information about the use of proxies with Wget, *Note
     Proxies::.

`-Q QUOTA'
`--quota=QUOTA'
     Specify download quota for automatic retrievals.  The value can be
     specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with `k' suffix), or
     megabytes (with `m' suffix).

     Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file.  So
     if you specify `wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz',
     all of the `ls-lR.gz' will be downloaded.  The same goes even when
     several URLs are specified on the command-line.  However, quota is
     respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input
     file.  Thus you may safely type `wget -Q2m -i sites'--download
     will be aborted when the quota is exceeded.

     Setting quota to 0 or to `inf' unlimits the download quota.

`--dns-cache=off'
     Turn off caching of DNS lookups.  Normally, Wget remembers the
     addresses it looked up from DNS so it doesn't have to repeatedly
     contact the DNS server for the same (typically small) set of
     addresses it retrieves from.  This cache exists in memory only; a
     new Wget run will contact DNS again.

     However, in some cases it is not desirable to cache host names,
     even for the duration of a short-running application like Wget.
     For example, some HTTP servers are hosted on machines with
     dynamically allocated IP addresses that change from time to time.
     Their DNS entries are updated along with each change.  When Wget's
     download from such a host gets interrupted by IP address change,
     Wget retries the download, but (due to DNS caching) it contacts
     the old address.  With the DNS cache turned off, Wget will repeat
     the DNS lookup for every connect and will thus get the correct
     dynamic address every time--at the cost of additional DNS lookups
     where they're probably not needed.

     If you don't understand the above description, you probably won't
     need this option.

`--restrict-file-names=MODE'
     Change which characters found in remote URLs may show up in local
     file names generated from those URLs.  Characters that are
     "restricted" by this option are escaped, i.e. replaced with `%HH',
     where `HH' is the hexadecimal number that corresponds to the
     restricted character.

     By default, Wget escapes the characters that are not valid as part
     of file names on your operating system, as well as control
     characters that are typically unprintable.  This option is useful
     for changing these defaults, either because you are downloading to
     a non-native partition, or because you want to disable escaping of
     the control characters.

     When mode is set to "unix", Wget escapes the character `/' and the
     control characters in the ranges 0-31 and 128-159.  This is the
     default on Unix-like OS'es.

     When mode is set to "windows", Wget escapes the characters `\',
     `|', `/', `:', `?', `"', `*', `<', `>', and the control characters
     in the ranges 0-31 and 128-159.  In addition to this, Wget in
     Windows mode uses `+' instead of `:' to separate host and port in
     local file names, and uses `@' instead of `?' to separate the
     query portion of the file name from the rest.  Therefore, a URL
     that would be saved as `www.xemacs.org:4300/search.pl?input=blah'
     in Unix mode would be saved as
     `www.xemacs.org+4300/search.pl@input=blah' in Windows mode.  This
     mode is the default on Windows.

     If you append `,nocontrol' to the mode, as in `unix,nocontrol',
     escaping of the control characters is also switched off.  You can
     use `--restrict-file-names=nocontrol' to turn off escaping of
     control characters without affecting the choice of the OS to use
     as file name restriction mode.


File: wget.info,  Node: Directory Options,  Next: HTTP Options,  Prev: Download Options,  Up: Invoking

Directory Options
=================

`-nd'
`--no-directories'
     Do not create a hierarchy of directories when retrieving
     recursively.  With this option turned on, all files will get saved
     to the current directory, without clobbering (if a name shows up
     more than once, the filenames will get extensions `.n').

`-x'
`--force-directories'
     The opposite of `-nd'--create a hierarchy of directories, even if
     one would not have been created otherwise.  E.g. `wget -x
     http://fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt' will save the downloaded file to
     `fly.srk.fer.hr/robots.txt'.

`-nH'
`--no-host-directories'
     Disable generation of host-prefixed directories.  By default,
     invoking Wget with `-r http://fly.srk.fer.hr/' will create a
     structure of directories beginning with `fly.srk.fer.hr/'.  This
     option disables such behavior.

`--cut-dirs=NUMBER'
     Ignore NUMBER directory components.  This is useful for getting a
     fine-grained control over the directory where recursive retrieval
     will be saved.

     Take, for example, the directory at
     `ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/'.  If you retrieve it with `-r',
     it will be saved locally under `ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/'.
     While the `-nH' option can remove the `ftp.xemacs.org/' part, you
     are still stuck with `pub/xemacs'.  This is where `--cut-dirs'
     comes in handy; it makes Wget not "see" NUMBER remote directory
     components.  Here are several examples of how `--cut-dirs' option
     works.

          No options        -> ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
          -nH               -> pub/xemacs/
          -nH --cut-dirs=1  -> xemacs/
          -nH --cut-dirs=2  -> .
          
          --cut-dirs=1      -> ftp.xemacs.org/xemacs/
          ...

     If you just want to get rid of the directory structure, this
     option is similar to a combination of `-nd' and `-P'.  However,
     unlike `-nd', `--cut-dirs' does not lose with subdirectories--for
     instance, with `-nH --cut-dirs=1', a `beta/' subdirectory will be
     placed to `xemacs/beta', as one would expect.

`-P PREFIX'
`--directory-prefix=PREFIX'
     Set directory prefix to PREFIX.  The "directory prefix" is the
     directory where all other files and subdirectories will be saved
     to, i.e. the top of the retrieval tree.  The default is `.' (the
     current directory).


File: wget.info,  Node: HTTP Options,  Next: FTP Options,  Prev: Directory Options,  Up: Invoking

HTTP Options
============

`-E'
`--html-extension'
     If a file of type `application/xhtml+xml' or `text/html' is
     downloaded and the URL does not end with the regexp
     `\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?', this option will cause the suffix `.html'
     to be appended to the local filename.  This is useful, for
     instance, when you're mirroring a remote site that uses `.asp'
     pages, but you want the mirrored pages to be viewable on your
     stock Apache server.  Another good use for this is when you're
     downloading CGI-generated materials.  A URL like
     `http://site.com/article.cgi?25' will be saved as
     `article.cgi?25.html'.

     Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded
     every time you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the
     local `X.html' file corresponds to remote URL `X' (since it
     doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type `text/html'
     or `application/xhtml+xml'.  To prevent this re-downloading, you
     must use `-k' and `-K' so that the original version of the file
     will be saved as `X.orig' (*note Recursive Retrieval Options::).

`--http-user=USER'
`--http-passwd=PASSWORD'
     Specify the username USER and password PASSWORD on an HTTP server.
     According to the type of the challenge, Wget will encode them
     using either the `basic' (insecure) or the `digest' authentication
     scheme.

     Another way to specify username and password is in the URL itself
     (*note URL Format::).  Either method reveals your password to
     anyone who bothers to run `ps'.  To prevent the passwords from
     being seen, store them in `.wgetrc' or `.netrc', and make sure to
     protect those files from other users with `chmod'.  If the
     passwords are really important, do not leave them lying in those
     files either--edit the files and delete them after Wget has
     started the download.

     For more information about security issues with Wget, *Note
     Security Considerations::.

`-C on/off'
`--cache=on/off'
     When set to off, disable server-side cache.  In this case, Wget
     will send the remote server an appropriate directive (`Pragma:
     no-cache') to get the file from the remote service, rather than
     returning the cached version.  This is especially useful for
     retrieving and flushing out-of-date documents on proxy servers.

     Caching is allowed by default.

`--cookies=on/off'
     When set to off, disable the use of cookies.  Cookies are a
     mechanism for maintaining server-side state.  The server sends the
     client a cookie using the `Set-Cookie' header, and the client
     responds with the same cookie upon further requests.  Since
     cookies allow the server owners to keep track of visitors and for
     sites to exchange this information, some consider them a breach of
     privacy.  The default is to use cookies; however, _storing_
     cookies is not on by default.

`--load-cookies FILE'
     Load cookies from FILE before the first HTTP retrieval.  FILE is a
     textual file in the format originally used by Netscape's
     `cookies.txt' file.

     You will typically use this option when mirroring sites that
     require that you be logged in to access some or all of their
     content.  The login process typically works by the web server
     issuing an HTTP cookie upon receiving and verifying your
     credentials.  The cookie is then resent by the browser when
     accessing that part of the site, and so proves your identity.

     Mirroring such a site requires Wget to send the same cookies your
     browser sends when communicating with the site.  This is achieved
     by `--load-cookies'--simply point Wget to the location of the
     `cookies.txt' file, and it will send the same cookies your browser
     would send in the same situation.  Different browsers keep textual
     cookie files in different locations:

    Netscape 4.x.
          The cookies are in `~/.netscape/cookies.txt'.

    Mozilla and Netscape 6.x.
          Mozilla's cookie file is also named `cookies.txt', located
          somewhere under `~/.mozilla', in the directory of your
          profile.  The full path usually ends up looking somewhat like
          `~/.mozilla/default/SOME-WEIRD-STRING/cookies.txt'.

    Internet Explorer.
          You can produce a cookie file Wget can use by using the File
          menu, Import and Export, Export Cookies.  This has been
          tested with Internet Explorer 5; it is not guaranteed to work
          with earlier versions.

    Other browsers.
          If you are using a different browser to create your cookies,
          `--load-cookies' will only work if you can locate or produce a
          cookie file in the Netscape format that Wget expects.

     If you cannot use `--load-cookies', there might still be an
     alternative.  If your browser supports a "cookie manager", you can
     use it to view the cookies used when accessing the site you're
     mirroring.  Write down the name and value of the cookie, and
     manually instruct Wget to send those cookies, bypassing the
     "official" cookie support:

          wget --cookies=off --header "Cookie: NAME=VALUE"

`--save-cookies FILE'
     Save cookies to FILE at the end of session.  Cookies whose expiry
     time is not specified, or those that have already expired, are not
     saved.

`--ignore-length'
     Unfortunately, some HTTP servers (CGI programs, to be more
     precise) send out bogus `Content-Length' headers, which makes Wget
     go wild, as it thinks not all the document was retrieved.  You can
     spot this syndrome if Wget retries getting the same document again
     and again, each time claiming that the (otherwise normal)
     connection has closed on the very same byte.

     With this option, Wget will ignore the `Content-Length' header--as
     if it never existed.

`--header=ADDITIONAL-HEADER'
     Define an ADDITIONAL-HEADER to be passed to the HTTP servers.
     Headers must contain a `:' preceded by one or more non-blank
     characters, and must not contain newlines.

     You may define more than one additional header by specifying
     `--header' more than once.

          wget --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2' \
               --header='Accept-Language: hr'        \
                 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/

     Specification of an empty string as the header value will clear all
     previous user-defined headers.

`--proxy-user=USER'
`--proxy-passwd=PASSWORD'
     Specify the username USER and password PASSWORD for authentication
     on a proxy server.  Wget will encode them using the `basic'
     authentication scheme.

     Security considerations similar to those with `--http-passwd'
     pertain here as well.

`--referer=URL'
     Include `Referer: URL' header in HTTP request.  Useful for
     retrieving documents with server-side processing that assume they
     are always being retrieved by interactive web browsers and only
     come out properly when Referer is set to one of the pages that
     point to them.

`-s'
`--save-headers'
     Save the headers sent by the HTTP server to the file, preceding the
     actual contents, with an empty line as the separator.

`-U AGENT-STRING'
`--user-agent=AGENT-STRING'
     Identify as AGENT-STRING to the HTTP server.

     The HTTP protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a
     `User-Agent' header field.  This enables distinguishing the WWW
     software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of
     protocol violations.  Wget normally identifies as `Wget/VERSION',
     VERSION being the current version number of Wget.

     However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of
     tailoring the output according to the `User-Agent'-supplied
     information.  While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it
     has been abused by servers denying information to clients other
     than `Mozilla' or Microsoft `Internet Explorer'.  This option
     allows you to change the `User-Agent' line issued by Wget.  Use of
     this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are
     doing.

`--post-data=STRING'
`--post-file=FILE'
     Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the
     specified data in the request body.  `--post-data' sends STRING as
     data, whereas `--post-file' sends the contents of FILE.  Other than
     that, they work in exactly the same way.

     Please be aware that Wget needs to know the size of the POST data
     in advance.  Therefore the argument to `--post-file' must be a
     regular file; specifying a FIFO or something like `/dev/stdin'
     won't work.  It's not quite clear how to work around this
     limitation inherent in HTTP/1.0.  Although HTTP/1.1 introduces
     "chunked" transfer that doesn't require knowing the request length
     in advance, a client can't use chunked unless it knows it's
     talking to an HTTP/1.1 server.  And it can't know that until it
     receives a response, which in turn requires the request to have
     been completed - a chicken-and-egg problem.

     Note: if Wget is redirected after the POST request is completed,
     it will not send the POST data to the redirected URL.  This is
     because URLs that process POST often respond with a redirection to
     a regular page (although that's technically disallowed), which
     does not desire or accept POST.  It is not yet clear that this
     behavior is optimal; if it doesn't work out, it will be changed.

     This example shows how to log to a server using POST and then
     proceed to download the desired pages, presumably only accessible
     to authorized users:

          # Log in to the server.  This can be done only once.
          wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
               --post-data 'user=foo&password=bar' \
               http://server.com/auth.php
          
          # Now grab the page or pages we care about.
          wget --load-cookies cookies.txt \
               -p http://server.com/interesting/article.php


File: wget.info,  Node: FTP Options,  Next: Recursive Retrieval Options,  Prev: HTTP Options,  Up: Invoking

FTP Options
===========

`-nr'
`--dont-remove-listing'
     Don't remove the temporary `.listing' files generated by FTP
     retrievals.  Normally, these files contain the raw directory
     listings received from FTP servers.  Not removing them can be
     useful for debugging purposes, or when you want to be able to
     easily check on the contents of remote server directories (e.g. to
     verify that a mirror you're running is complete).

     Note that even though Wget writes to a known filename for this
     file, this is not a security hole in the scenario of a user making
     `.listing' a symbolic link to `/etc/passwd' or something and
     asking `root' to run Wget in his or her directory.  Depending on
     the options used, either Wget will refuse to write to `.listing',
     making the globbing/recursion/time-stamping operation fail, or the
     symbolic link will be deleted and replaced with the actual
     `.listing' file, or the listing will be written to a
     `.listing.NUMBER' file.

     Even though this situation isn't a problem, though, `root' should
     never run Wget in a non-trusted user's directory.  A user could do
     something as simple as linking `index.html' to `/etc/passwd' and
     asking `root' to run Wget with `-N' or `-r' so the file will be
     overwritten.

`-g on/off'
`--glob=on/off'
     Turn FTP globbing on or off.  Globbing means you may use the
     shell-like special characters ("wildcards"), like `*', `?', `['
     and `]' to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at
     once, like:

          wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg

     By default, globbing will be turned on if the URL contains a
     globbing character.  This option may be used to turn globbing on
     or off permanently.

     You may have to quote the URL to protect it from being expanded by
     your shell.  Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing,
     which is system-specific.  This is why it currently works only
     with Unix FTP servers (and the ones emulating Unix `ls' output).

`--passive-ftp'
     Use the "passive" FTP retrieval scheme, in which the client
     initiates the data connection.  This is sometimes required for FTP
     to work behind firewalls.

`--retr-symlinks'
     Usually, when retrieving FTP directories recursively and a symbolic
     link is encountered, the linked-to file is not downloaded.
     Instead, a matching symbolic link is created on the local
     filesystem.  The pointed-to file will not be downloaded unless
     this recursive retrieval would have encountered it separately and
     downloaded it anyway.

     When `--retr-symlinks' is specified, however, symbolic links are
     traversed and the pointed-to files are retrieved.  At this time,
     this option does not cause Wget to traverse symlinks to
     directories and recurse through them, but in the future it should
     be enhanced to do this.

     Note that when retrieving a file (not a directory) because it was
     specified on the command-line, rather than because it was recursed
     to, this option has no effect.  Symbolic links are always
     traversed in this case.

