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6.3 Wgetrc Commands

The complete set of commands is listed below. Legal values are listed after the =. Simple Boolean values can be set or unset using on and off or 1 and 0. A fancier kind of Boolean allowed in some cases is the lockable Boolean, which may be set to on, off, always, or never. If an option is set to always or never, that value will be locked in for the duration of the Wget invocation—command-line options will not override.

Some commands take pseudo-arbitrary values. address values can be hostnames or dotted-quad IP addresses. n can be any positive integer, or inf for infinity, where appropriate. string values can be any non-empty string.

Most of these commands have direct command-line equivalents. Also, any wgetrc command can be specified on the command line using the --execute switch (see Basic Startup Options.)

accept/reject = string
Same as -A/-R (see Types of Files).
add_hostdir = on/off
Enable/disable host-prefixed file names. -nH disables it.
continue = on/off
If set to on, force continuation of preexistent partially retrieved files. See -c before setting it.
background = on/off
Enable/disable going to background—the same as -b (which enables it).
backup_converted = on/off
Enable/disable saving pre-converted files with the suffix .orig—the same as -K (which enables it).
base = string
Consider relative urls in url input files forced to be interpreted as html as being relative to string—the same as --base=string.
bind_address = address
Bind to address, like the --bind-address=address.
ca_certificate = file
Set the certificate authority bundle file to file. The same as --ca-certificate=file.
ca_directory = directory
Set the directory used for certificate authorities. The same as --ca-directory=directory.
cache = on/off
When set to off, disallow server-caching. See the --no-cache option.
certificate = file
Set the client certificate file name to file. The same as --certificate=file.
certificate_type = string
Specify the type of the client certificate, legal values being PEM (the default) and DER (aka ASN1). The same as --certificate-type=string.
check_certificate = on/off
If this is set to off, the server certificate is not checked against the specified client authorities. The default is “on”. The same as --check-certificate.
convert_links = on/off
Convert non-relative links locally. The same as -k.
cookies = on/off
When set to off, disallow cookies. See the --cookies option.
connect_timeout = n
Set the connect timeout—the same as --connect-timeout.
cut_dirs = n
Ignore n remote directory components. Equivalent to --cut-dirs=n.
debug = on/off
Debug mode, same as -d.
delete_after = on/off
Delete after download—the same as --delete-after.
dir_prefix = string
Top of directory tree—the same as -P string.
dirstruct = on/off
Turning dirstruct on or off—the same as -x or -nd, respectively.
dns_cache = on/off
Turn DNS caching on/off. Since DNS caching is on by default, this option is normally used to turn it off and is equivalent to --no-dns-cache.
dns_timeout = n
Set the DNS timeout—the same as --dns-timeout.
domains = string
Same as -D (see Spanning Hosts).
dot_bytes = n
Specify the number of bytes “contained” in a dot, as seen throughout the retrieval (1024 by default). You can postfix the value with k or m, representing kilobytes and megabytes, respectively. With dot settings you can tailor the dot retrieval to suit your needs, or you can use the predefined styles (see Download Options).
dots_in_line = n
Specify the number of dots that will be printed in each line throughout the retrieval (50 by default).
dot_spacing = n
Specify the number of dots in a single cluster (10 by default).
egd_file = file
Use string as the EGD socket file name. The same as --egd-file=file.
exclude_directories = string
Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from download—the same as -X string (see Directory-Based Limits).
exclude_domains = string
Same as --exclude-domains=string (see Spanning Hosts).
follow_ftp = on/off
Follow ftp links from html documents—the same as --follow-ftp.
follow_tags = string
Only follow certain html tags when doing a recursive retrieval, just like --follow-tags=string.
force_html = on/off
If set to on, force the input filename to be regarded as an html document—the same as -F.
ftp_password = string
Set your ftp password to string. Without this setting, the password defaults to -wget@, which is a useful default for anonymous ftp access.

This command used to be named passwd prior to Wget 1.10.

ftp_proxy = string
Use string as ftp proxy, instead of the one specified in environment.
ftp_user = string
Set ftp user to string.

This command used to be named login prior to Wget 1.10.

glob = on/off
Turn globbing on/off—the same as --glob and --no-glob.
header = string
Define a header for HTTP doewnloads, like using --header=string.
html_extension = on/off
Add a .html extension to text/html or application/xhtml+xml files without it, like -E.
http_keep_alive = on/off
Turn the keep-alive feature on or off (defaults to on). Turning it off is equivalent to --no-http-keep-alive.
http_password = string
Set http password, equivalent to --http-password=string.
http_proxy = string
Use string as http proxy, instead of the one specified in environment.
http_user = string
Set http user to string, equivalent to --http-user=string.
ignore_length = on/off
When set to on, ignore Content-Length header; the same as --ignore-length.
ignore_tags = string
Ignore certain html tags when doing a recursive retrieval, like --ignore-tags=string.
include_directories = string
Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when downloading—the same as -I string.
inet4_only = on/off
Force connecting to IPv4 addresses, off by default. You can put this in the global init file to disable Wget's attempts to resolve and connect to IPv6 hosts. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as --inet4-only or -4.
inet6_only = on/off
Force connecting to IPv6 addresses, off by default. Available only if Wget was compiled with IPv6 support. The same as --inet6-only or -6.
input = file
Read the urls from string, like -i file.
kill_longer = on/off
Consider data longer than specified in content-length header as invalid (and retry getting it). The default behavior is to save as much data as there is, provided there is more than or equal to the value in Content-Length.
limit_rate = rate
Limit the download speed to no more than rate bytes per second. The same as --limit-rate=rate.
load_cookies = file
Load cookies from file. See --load-cookies file.
logfile = file
Set logfile to file, the same as -o file.
mirror = on/off
Turn mirroring on/off. The same as -m.
netrc = on/off
Turn reading netrc on or off.
noclobber = on/off
Same as -nc.
no_parent = on/off
Disallow retrieving outside the directory hierarchy, like --no-parent (see Directory-Based Limits).
no_proxy = string
Use string as the comma-separated list of domains to avoid in proxy loading, instead of the one specified in environment.
output_document = file
Set the output filename—the same as -O file.
page_requisites = on/off
Download all ancillary documents necessary for a single html page to display properly—the same as -p.
passive_ftp = on/off/always/never
Change setting of passive ftp, equivalent to the --passive-ftp option. Some scripts and .pm (Perl module) files download files using wget --passive-ftp. If your firewall does not allow this, you can set passive_ftp = never to override the command-line.
password = string
Specify password string for both ftp and http file retrieval. This command can be overridden using the ftp_password and http_password command for ftp and http respectively.
post_data = string
Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send string in the request body. The same as --post-data=string.
post_file = file
Use POST as the method for all HTTP requests and send the contents of file in the request body. The same as --post-file=file.
prefer_family = IPv4/IPv6/none
When given a choice of several addresses, connect to the addresses with specified address family first. IPv4 addresses are preferred by default. The same as --prefer-family, which see for a detailed discussion of why this is useful.
private_key = file
Set the private key file to file. The same as --private-key=file.
private_key_type = string
Specify the type of the private key, legal values being PEM (the default) and DER (aka ASN1). The same as --private-type=string.
progress = string
Set the type of the progress indicator. Legal types are dot and bar. Equivalent to --progress=string.
protocol_directories = on/off
When set, use the protocol name as a directory component of local file names. The same as --protocol-directories.
proxy_user = string
Set proxy authentication user name to string, like --proxy-user=string.
proxy_password = string
Set proxy authentication password to string, like --proxy-password=string.
quiet = on/off
Quiet mode—the same as -q.
quota = quota
Specify the download quota, which is useful to put in the global wgetrc. When download quota is specified, Wget will stop retrieving after the download sum has become greater than quota. The quota can be specified in bytes (default), kbytes k appended) or mbytes (m appended). Thus quota = 5m will set the quota to 5 megabytes. Note that the user's startup file overrides system settings.
random_file = file
Use file as a source of randomness on systems lacking /dev/random.
read_timeout = n
Set the read (and write) timeout—the same as --read-timeout=n.
reclevel = n
Recursion level (depth)—the same as -l n.
recursive = on/off
Recursive on/off—the same as -r.
referer = string
Set HTTP Referer: header just like --referer=string. (Note it was the folks who wrote the http spec who got the spelling of “referrer” wrong.)
relative_only = on/off
Follow only relative links—the same as -L (see Relative Links).
remove_listing = on/off
If set to on, remove ftp listings downloaded by Wget. Setting it to off is the same as --no-remove-listing.
restrict_file_names = unix/windows
Restrict the file names generated by Wget from URLs. See --restrict-file-names for a more detailed description.
retr_symlinks = on/off
When set to on, retrieve symbolic links as if they were plain files; the same as --retr-symlinks.
retry_connrefused = on/off
When set to on, consider “connection refused” a transient error—the same as --retry-connrefused.
robots = on/off
Specify whether the norobots convention is respected by Wget, “on” by default. This switch controls both the /robots.txt and the nofollow aspect of the spec. See Robot Exclusion, for more details about this. Be sure you know what you are doing before turning this off.
save_cookies = file
Save cookies to file. The same as --save-cookies file.
secure_protocol = string
Choose the secure protocol to be used. Legal values are auto (the default), SSLv2, SSLv3, and TLSv1. The same as --secure-protocol=string.
server_response = on/off
Choose whether or not to print the http and ftp server responses—the same as -S.
span_hosts = on/off
Same as -H.
strict_comments = on/off
Same as --strict-comments.
timeout = n
Set all applicable timeout values to n, the same as -T n.
timestamping = on/off
Turn timestamping on/off. The same as -N (see Time-Stamping).
tries = n
Set number of retries per url—the same as -t n.
use_proxy = on/off
When set to off, don't use proxy even when proxy-related environment variables are set. In that case it is the same as using --no-proxy.
user = string
Specify username string for both ftp and http file retrieval. This command can be overridden using the ftp_user and http_user command for ftp and http respectively.
verbose = on/off
Turn verbose on/off—the same as -v/-nv.
wait = n
Wait n seconds between retrievals—the same as -w n.
waitretry = n
Wait up to n seconds between retries of failed retrievals only—the same as --waitretry=n. Note that this is turned on by default in the global wgetrc.
randomwait = on/off
Turn random between-request wait times on or off. The same as --random-wait.