What is GNU Wget
GNU Wget is a command-line software that retrieves content from the web. It supports downloading from HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP. I am still learning to use Wget so I might come back and update this article, but as for now, this is an easy start.
Download and install
You can download and Wget from here, but I recommend a version that have compiled support for SSL which you can find here.
If you are on a windows computer make sure that you have added Wget to PATH.
Example 1: Download content from a list of links
Make a file called “url_list.txt” and place it somewhere in a folder. The file should contain multiple HTML URLs e.g.:
http://webpage.com/cat/lorem.html
http://webpage.com/cat/ipsum.html
http://webpage.com/cat/dolor.htmlUse the command to download the links in the list:
wget -i url_list.txtWget will download the HTML files in the same folder as “url_list.txt”.
Example 2: Use Wget on protected sites or sites that use cookies
Very often you will not be able to download a webpage with Wget because the webpage might be protected with login or authentication.
In this case, you do have to improvise a bit. I have found that the following method works best for me.
Just log in on the page using Google Chrome and download the cookie file for the site with the Chrome extension cookies.txt (or something similar).
Save the cookie file as cookies.txt in the same folder as you intend to run wget from. The file contains the authentication data needed to give access to the webpage.
Now you can use the cookie for as a form of credential when you attempt to download with Wget. Here is an example command showing how you can add the cookies file to Wget.
wget --load-cookies cookies.txt -p https://the_webpage_you_want_to_download.com/All Wget commands
Here is the full list of Wget commands to get you started. Basic operation is fairly easy if you are used to command line tools.
GNU Wget 1.19.4, a non-interactive network retriever.
Usage: wget [OPTION]... [URL]...
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
Startup:
-V, --version display the version of Wget and exit
-h, --help print this help
-b, --background go to background after startup
-e, --execute=COMMAND execute a `.wgetrc'-style command
Logging and input file:
-o, --output-file=FILE log messages to FILE
-a, --append-output=FILE append messages to FILE
-d, --debug print lots of debugging information
-q, --quiet quiet (no output)
-v, --verbose be verbose (this is the default)
-nv, --no-verbose turn off verboseness, without being quiet
--report-speed=TYPE output bandwidth as TYPE. TYPE can be bits
-i, --input-file=FILE download URLs found in local or external FILE
--input-metalink=FILE download files covered in local Metalink FILE
-F, --force-html treat input file as HTML
-B, --base=URL resolves HTML input-file links (-i -F)
relative to URL
--config=FILE specify config file to use
--no-config do not read any config file
--rejected-log=FILE log reasons for URL rejection to FILE
Download:
-t, --tries=NUMBER set number of retries to NUMBER (0 unlimits)
--retry-connrefused retry even if connection is refused
-O, --output-document=FILE write documents to FILE
-nc, --no-clobber skip downloads that would download to
existing files (overwriting them)
--no-netrc don't try to obtain credentials from .netrc
-c, --continue resume getting a partially-downloaded file
--start-pos=OFFSET start downloading from zero-based position OFFSET
--progress=TYPE select progress gauge type
--show-progress display the progress bar in any verbosity mode
-N, --timestamping don't re-retrieve files unless newer than
local
--no-if-modified-since don't use conditional if-modified-since get
requests in timestamping mode
--no-use-server-timestamps don't set the local file's timestamp by
the one on the server
-S, --server-response print server response
--spider don't download anything
-T, --timeout=SECONDS set all timeout values to SECONDS
--dns-timeout=SECS set the DNS lookup timeout to SECS
--connect-timeout=SECS set the connect timeout to SECS
--read-timeout=SECS set the read timeout to SECS
-w, --wait=SECONDS wait SECONDS between retrievals
--waitretry=SECONDS wait 1..SECONDS between retries of a retrieval
--random-wait wait from 0.5*WAIT...1.5*WAIT secs between retrievals
--no-proxy explicitly turn off proxy
-Q, --quota=NUMBER set retrieval quota to NUMBER
--bind-address=ADDRESS bind to ADDRESS (hostname or IP) on local host
--limit-rate=RATE limit download rate to RATE
--no-dns-cache disable caching DNS lookups
--restrict-file-names=OS restrict chars in file names to ones OS allows
--ignore-case ignore case when matching files/directories
-4, --inet4-only connect only to IPv4 addresses
-6, --inet6-only connect only to IPv6 addresses
--prefer-family=FAMILY connect first to addresses of specified family,
one of IPv6, IPv4, or none
--user=USER set both ftp and http user to USER
--password=PASS set both ftp and http password to PASS
--ask-password prompt for passwords
--use-askpass=COMMAND specify credential handler for requesting
username and password. If no COMMAND is
specified the WGET_ASKPASS or the SSH_ASKPASS
environment variable is used.
--no-iri turn off IRI support
--local-encoding=ENC use ENC as the local encoding for IRIs
--remote-encoding=ENC use ENC as the default remote encoding
--unlink remove file before clobber
--keep-badhash keep files with checksum mismatch (append .badhash)
--metalink-index=NUMBER Metalink application/metalink4+xml metaurl ordinal NUMBER
--metalink-over-http use Metalink metadata from HTTP response headers
--preferred-location preferred location for Metalink resources
Directories:
-nd, --no-directories don't create directories
-x, --force-directories force creation of directories
-nH, --no-host-directories don't create host directories
--protocol-directories use protocol name in directories
-P, --directory-prefix=PREFIX save files to PREFIX/..
--cut-dirs=NUMBER ignore NUMBER remote directory components
HTTP options:
--http-user=USER set http user to USER
--http-password=PASS set http password to PASS
--no-cache disallow server-cached data
--default-page=NAME change the default page name (normally
this is 'index.html'.)
-E, --adjust-extension save HTML/CSS documents with proper extensions
--ignore-length ignore 'Content-Length' header field
--header=STRING insert STRING among the headers
--compression=TYPE choose compression, one of auto, gzip and none. (default: none)
--max-redirect maximum redirections allowed per page
--proxy-user=USER set USER as proxy username
--proxy-password=PASS set PASS as proxy password
--referer=URL include 'Referer: URL' header in HTTP request
--save-headers save the HTTP headers to file
-U, --user-agent=AGENT identify as AGENT instead of Wget/VERSION
--no-http-keep-alive disable HTTP keep-alive (persistent connections)
--no-cookies don't use cookies
--load-cookies=FILE load cookies from FILE before session
--save-cookies=FILE save cookies to FILE after session
--keep-session-cookies load and save session (non-permanent) cookies
--post-data=STRING use the POST method; send STRING as the data
--post-file=FILE use the POST method; send contents of FILE
--method=HTTPMethod use method "HTTPMethod" in the request
--body-data=STRING send STRING as data. --method MUST be set
--body-file=FILE send contents of FILE. --method MUST be set
--content-disposition honor the Content-Disposition header when
choosing local file names (EXPERIMENTAL)
--content-on-error output the received content on server errors
--auth-no-challenge send Basic HTTP authentication information
without first waiting for the server's
challenge
HTTPS (SSL/TLS) options:
--secure-protocol=PR choose secure protocol, one of auto, SSLv2,
SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv1_1, TLSv1_2 and PFS
--https-only only follow secure HTTPS links
--no-check-certificate don't validate the server's certificate
--certificate=FILE client certificate file
--certificate-type=TYPE client certificate type, PEM or DER
--private-key=FILE private key file
--private-key-type=TYPE private key type, PEM or DER
--ca-certificate=FILE file with the bundle of CAs
--ca-directory=DIR directory where hash list of CAs is stored
--crl-file=FILE file with bundle of CRLs
--pinnedpubkey=FILE/HASHES Public key (PEM/DER) file, or any number
of base64 encoded sha256 hashes preceded by
'sha256//' and separated by ';', to verify
peer against
--random-file=FILE file with random data for seeding the SSL PRNG
HSTS options:
--no-hsts disable HSTS
--hsts-file path of HSTS database (will override default)
FTP options:
--ftp-user=USER set ftp user to USER
--ftp-password=PASS set ftp password to PASS
--no-remove-listing don't remove '.listing' files
--no-glob turn off FTP file name globbing
--no-passive-ftp disable the "passive" transfer mode
--preserve-permissions preserve remote file permissions
--retr-symlinks when recursing, get linked-to files (not dir)
FTPS options:
--ftps-implicit use implicit FTPS (default port is 990)
--ftps-resume-ssl resume the SSL/TLS session started in the control connection when
opening a data connection
--ftps-clear-data-connection cipher the control channel only; all the data will be in plaintext
--ftps-fallback-to-ftp fall back to FTP if FTPS is not supported in the target server
WARC options:
--warc-file=FILENAME save request/response data to a .warc.gz file
--warc-header=STRING insert STRING into the warcinfo record
--warc-max-size=NUMBER set maximum size of WARC files to NUMBER
--warc-cdx write CDX index files
--warc-dedup=FILENAME do not store records listed in this CDX file
--no-warc-compression do not compress WARC files with GZIP
--no-warc-digests do not calculate SHA1 digests
--no-warc-keep-log do not store the log file in a WARC record
--warc-tempdir=DIRECTORY location for temporary files created by the
WARC writer
Recursive download:
-r, --recursive specify recursive download
-l, --level=NUMBER maximum recursion depth (inf or 0 for infinite)
--delete-after delete files locally after downloading them
-k, --convert-links make links in downloaded HTML or CSS point to
local files
--convert-file-only convert the file part of the URLs only (usually known as the basename)
--backups=N before writing file X, rotate up to N backup files
-K, --backup-converted before converting file X, back up as X.orig
-m, --mirror shortcut for -N -r -l inf --no-remove-listing
-p, --page-requisites get all images, etc. needed to display HTML page
--strict-comments turn on strict (SGML) handling of HTML comments
Recursive accept/reject:
-A, --accept=LIST comma-separated list of accepted extensions
-R, --reject=LIST comma-separated list of rejected extensions
--accept-regex=REGEX regex matching accepted URLs
--reject-regex=REGEX regex matching rejected URLs
--regex-type=TYPE regex type (posix)
-D, --domains=LIST comma-separated list of accepted domains
--exclude-domains=LIST comma-separated list of rejected domains
--follow-ftp follow FTP links from HTML documents
--follow-tags=LIST comma-separated list of followed HTML tags
--ignore-tags=LIST comma-separated list of ignored HTML tags
-H, --span-hosts go to foreign hosts when recursive
-L, --relative follow relative links only
-I, --include-directories=LIST list of allowed directories
--trust-server-names use the name specified by the redirection
URL's last component
-X, --exclude-directories=LIST list of excluded directories
-np, --no-parent don't ascend to the parent directory
___
Sources:
https://gist.github.com/luisredondo/11e61de0b2171a535e6d3f42eec67fa8
Thanks for the points you have contributed here.
curl: https://curl.haxx.se/
Documentation: https://ec.haxx.se/
tar and curl Come to Windows!: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2018/01/18/tar-and-curl-come-to-windows/
Copy as curl: https://ec.haxx.se/usingcurl-copyas.html
(I hope this doesn’t get annoying)