The wget utility can retrieve data from the command line, this data can be local based or over the Internet based and can be in the form of a binary file or a single web page to a bunch of webpages including images.
I tend to use wget out of habit, but it’s worth exploring and trying cURL as well, cURL command switches are listed below and here some wget examples.
WGET:
Download a single zip file from a web server named jupiter.
$wget http://jupiter/mydatafile.tar.gz
Download the zip file in the background and name it latest.tar.gz.
$wget -b -o latest.tar.gz http://jupiter/mydatafile.tar.gz
By default wget will name the file from the last word of the url, so it’s always best to use the -o and specify the name you want. The -b is handy as you can kick off a big download and then logout of the system and it will keep running in the background.
Restart a failed or incomplete download using the -c switch. If your download failed for some reason wget can continue on from where it stopped, handy with big files that timeout of bad network/Internet connections.
$wget -c http://jupiter/mydatafile.tar.gz
Download a complete website with the mirror option.
$wget --mirror ---page-requisites -P /home/user/jupitermirror http://jupiter/
The mirror option will try to mirror the website, the –page-requisites will download the required content such as images and styles sheets, the -P specifies where the site is to be mirror on the local server.
There are many other options available such as these high level options – Logging and input file, Download, Directories, HTTP/HTTPS options, FTP options, Recursive downloads.
cURL help and switches:
Usage: curl [options…] <url>
Options: (H) means HTTP/HTTPS only, (F) means FTP only
–anyauth Pick “any” authentication method (H)
-a, –append Append to target file when uploading (F/SFTP)
–basic Use HTTP Basic Authentication (H)
–cacert FILE CA certificate to verify peer against (SSL)
–capath DIR CA directory to verify peer against (SSL)
-E, –cert CERT[:PASSWD] Client certificate file and password (SSL)
–cert-type TYPE Certificate file type (DER/PEM/ENG) (SSL)
–ciphers LIST SSL ciphers to use (SSL)
–compressed Request compressed response (using deflate or gzip)
-K, –config FILE Specify which config file to read
–connect-timeout SECONDS Maximum time allowed for connection
-C, –continue-at OFFSET Resumed transfer offset
-b, –cookie STRING/FILE String or file to read cookies from (H)
-c, –cookie-jar FILE Write cookies to this file after operation (H)
–create-dirs Create necessary local directory hierarchy
–crlf Convert LF to CRLF in upload
–crlfile FILE Get a CRL list in PEM format from the given file
-d, –data DATA HTTP POST data (H)
–data-ascii DATA HTTP POST ASCII data (H)
–data-binary DATA HTTP POST binary data (H)
–data-urlencode DATA HTTP POST data url encoded (H)
–delegation STRING GSS-API delegation permission
–digest Use HTTP Digest Authentication (H)
–disable-eprt Inhibit using EPRT or LPRT (F)
–disable-epsv Inhibit using EPSV (F)
-D, –dump-header FILE Write the headers to this file
–egd-file FILE EGD socket path for random data (SSL)
–engine ENGINGE Crypto engine (SSL). “–engine list” for list
-f, –fail Fail silently (no output at all) on HTTP errors (H)
-F, –form CONTENT Specify HTTP multipart POST data (H)
–form-string STRING Specify HTTP multipart POST data (H)
–ftp-account DATA Account data string (F)
–ftp-alternative-to-user COMMAND String to replace “USER [name]” (F)
–ftp-create-dirs Create the remote dirs if not present (F)
–ftp-method [MULTICWD/NOCWD/SINGLECWD] Control CWD usage (F)
–ftp-pasv Use PASV/EPSV instead of PORT (F)
-P, –ftp-port ADR Use PORT with given address instead of PASV (F)
–ftp-skip-pasv-ip Skip the IP address for PASV (F)
–ftp-pret Send PRET before PASV (for drftpd) (F)
–ftp-ssl-ccc Send CCC after authenticating (F)
–ftp-ssl-ccc-mode ACTIVE/PASSIVE Set CCC mode (F)
–ftp-ssl-control Require SSL/TLS for ftp login, clear for transfer (F)
-G, –get Send the -d data with a HTTP GET (H)
-g, –globoff Disable URL sequences and ranges using {} and []
-H, –header LINE Custom header to pass to server (H)
-I, –head Show document info only
-h, –help This help text
–hostpubmd5 MD5 Hex encoded MD5 string of the host public key. (SSH)
-0, –http1.0 Use HTTP 1.0 (H)
–ignore-content-length Ignore the HTTP Content-Length header
-i, –include Include protocol headers in the output (H/F)
-k, –insecure Allow connections to SSL sites without certs (H)
–interface INTERFACE Specify network interface/address to use
-4, –ipv4 Resolve name to IPv4 address
-6, –ipv6 Resolve name to IPv6 address
-j, –junk-session-cookies Ignore session cookies read from file (H)
–keepalive-time SECONDS Interval between keepalive probes
–key KEY Private key file name (SSL/SSH)
–key-type TYPE Private key file type (DER/PEM/ENG) (SSL)
–krb LEVEL Enable Kerberos with specified security level (F)
–libcurl FILE Dump libcurl equivalent code of this command line
–limit-rate RATE Limit transfer speed to this rate
-l, –list-only List only names of an FTP directory (F)
–local-port RANGE Force use of these local port numbers
-L, –location Follow redirects (H)
–location-trusted like –location and send auth to other hosts (H)
-M, –manual Display the full manual
–mail-from FROM Mail from this address
–mail-rcpt TO Mail to this receiver(s)
–max-filesize BYTES Maximum file size to download (H/F)
–max-redirs NUM Maximum number of redirects allowed (H)
-m, –max-time SECONDS Maximum time allowed for the transfer
–negotiate Use HTTP Negotiate Authentication (H)
-n, –netrc Must read .netrc for user name and password
–netrc-optional Use either .netrc or URL; overrides -n
–netrc-file FILE Set up the netrc filename to use
-N, –no-buffer Disable buffering of the output stream
–no-keepalive Disable keepalive use on the connection
–no-sessionid Disable SSL session-ID reusing (SSL)
–noproxy List of hosts which do not use proxy
–ntlm Use HTTP NTLM authentication (H)
-o, –output FILE Write output to <file> instead of stdout
–pass PASS Pass phrase for the private key (SSL/SSH)
–post301 Do not switch to GET after following a 301 redirect (H)
–post302 Do not switch to GET after following a 302 redirect (H)
-#, –progress-bar Display transfer progress as a progress bar
–proto PROTOCOLS Enable/disable specified protocols
–proto-redir PROTOCOLS Enable/disable specified protocols on redirect
-x, –proxy [PROTOCOL://]HOST[:PORT] Use proxy on given port
–proxy-anyauth Pick “any” proxy authentication method (H)
–proxy-basic Use Basic authentication on the proxy (H)
–proxy-digest Use Digest authentication on the proxy (H)
–proxy-negotiate Use Negotiate authentication on the proxy (H)
–proxy-ntlm Use NTLM authentication on the proxy (H)
-U, –proxy-user USER[:PASSWORD] Proxy user and password
–proxy1.0 HOST[:PORT] Use HTTP/1.0 proxy on given port
-p, –proxytunnel Operate through a HTTP proxy tunnel (using CONNECT)
–pubkey KEY Public key file name (SSH)
-Q, –quote CMD Send command(s) to server before transfer (F/SFTP)
–random-file FILE File for reading random data from (SSL)
-r, –range RANGE Retrieve only the bytes within a range
–raw Do HTTP “raw”, without any transfer decoding (H)
-e, –referer Referer URL (H)
-J, –remote-header-name Use the header-provided filename (H)
-O, –remote-name Write output to a file named as the remote file
–remote-name-all Use the remote file name for all URLs
-R, –remote-time Set the remote file’s time on the local output
-X, –request COMMAND Specify request command to use
–resolve HOST:PORT:ADDRESS Force resolve of HOST:PORT to ADDRESS
–retry NUM Retry request NUM times if transient problems occur
–retry-delay SECONDS When retrying, wait this many seconds between each
–retry-max-time SECONDS Retry only within this period
-S, –show-error Show error. With -s, make curl show errors when they occur
-s, –silent Silent mode. Don’t output anything
–socks4 HOST[:PORT] SOCKS4 proxy on given host + port
–socks4a HOST[:PORT] SOCKS4a proxy on given host + port
–socks5 HOST[:PORT] SOCKS5 proxy on given host + port
–socks5-hostname HOST[:PORT] SOCKS5 proxy, pass host name to proxy
–socks5-gssapi-service NAME SOCKS5 proxy service name for gssapi
–socks5-gssapi-nec Compatibility with NEC SOCKS5 server
-Y, –speed-limit RATE Stop transfers below speed-limit for ‘speed-time’ secs
-y, –speed-time SECONDS Time for trig speed-limit abort. Defaults to 30
–ssl Try SSL/TLS (FTP, IMAP, POP3, SMTP)
–ssl-reqd Require SSL/TLS (FTP, IMAP, POP3, SMTP)
-2, –sslv2 Use SSLv2 (SSL)
-3, –sslv3 Use SSLv3 (SSL)
–stderr FILE Where to redirect stderr. – means stdout
–tcp-nodelay Use the TCP_NODELAY option
-t, –telnet-option OPT=VAL Set telnet option
–tftp-blksize VALUE Set TFTP BLKSIZE option (must be >512)
-z, –time-cond TIME Transfer based on a time condition
-1, –tlsv1 Use TLSv1 (SSL)
–trace FILE Write a debug trace to the given file
–trace-ascii FILE Like –trace but without the hex output
–trace-time Add time stamps to trace/verbose output
–tr-encoding Request compressed transfer encoding (H)
-T, –upload-file FILE Transfer FILE to destination
–url URL URL to work with
-B, –use-ascii Use ASCII/text transfer
-u, –user USER[:PASSWORD] Server user and password
–tlsuser USER TLS username
–tlspassword STRING TLS password
–tlsauthtype STRING TLS authentication type (default SRP)
-A, –user-agent STRING User-Agent to send to server (H)
-v, –verbose Make the operation more talkative
-V, –version Show version number and quit
-w, –write-out FORMAT What to output after completion
–xattr Store metadata in extended file attributes
-q If used as the first parameter disables .curlrc
