Once you know how to change default settings of Wget through command line arguments, you may wish to make some of those settings permanent. You can do that in a convenient way by creating the Wget startup file---`.wgetrc'.
Besides `.wgetrc' is the "main" initialization file, it is convenient to have a special facility for storing passwords. Thus Wget reads and interprets the contents of `$HOME/.netrc', if it finds it. You can find `.netrc' format in your system manuals.
Wget reads `.wgetrc' upon startup, recognizing a limited set of commands.
When initializing, Wget will look for a global startup file, `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default (or some prefix other than `/usr/local', if Wget was not installed there) and read commands from there, if it exists.
Then it will look for the user's file. If the environmental variable
WGETRC is set, Wget will try to load that file. Failing that, no
further attempts will be made.
If WGETRC is not set, Wget will try to load `$HOME/.wgetrc'.
The fact that user's settings are loaded after the system-wide ones means that in case of collision user's wgetrc overrides the system-wide wgetrc (in `/usr/local/etc/wgetrc' by default). Fascist admins, away!
The syntax of a wgetrc command is simple:
variable = value
The variable will also be called command. Valid values are different for different commands.
The commands are case-insensitive and underscore-insensitive. Thus `DIr__PrefiX' is the same as `dirprefix'. Empty lines, lines beginning with `#' and lines containing white-space only are discarded.
Commands that expect a comma-separated list will clear the list on an empty command. So, if you wish to reset the rejection list specified in global `wgetrc', you can do it with:
reject =
The complete set of commands is listed below, the letter after `=' denoting the value the command takes. It is `on/off' for `on' or `off' (which can also be `1' or `0'), string for any non-empty string or n for a positive integer. For example, you may specify `use_proxy = off' to disable use of proxy servers by default. You may use `inf' for infinite values, where appropriate.
Most of the commands have their equivalent command-line option (See section Invoking), except some more obscure or rarely used ones.
Content-Length header; the same as
`--ignore-length'.
Content-Length.
This is the sample initialization file, as given in the distribution. It is divided in two section--one for global usage (suitable for global startup file), and one for local usage (suitable for `$HOME/.wgetrc'). Be careful about the things you change.
Note that all the lines are commented out. For any line to have effect, you must remove the `#' prefix at the beginning of line.
### ### Sample Wget initialization file .wgetrc ### ## You can use this file to change the default behaviour of wget or to ## avoid having to type many many command-line options. This file does ## not contain a comprehensive list of commands -- look at the manual ## to find out what you can put into this file. ## ## Wget initialization file can reside in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc ## (global, for all users) or $HOME/.wgetrc (for a single user). ## ## To use any of the settings in this file, you will have to uncomment ## them (and probably change them). ## ## Global settings (useful for setting up in /usr/local/etc/wgetrc). ## Think well before you change them, since they may reduce wget's ## functionality, and make it behave contrary to the documentation: ## # You can set retrieve quota for beginners by specifying a value # optionally followed by 'K' (kilobytes) or 'M' (megabytes). The # default quota is unlimited. #quota = inf # You can lower (or raise) the default number of retries when # downloading a file (default is 20). #tries = 20 # Lowering the maximum depth of the recursive retrieval is handy to # prevent newbies from going too "deep" when they unwittingly start # the recursive retrieval. The default is 5. #reclevel = 5 # Many sites are behind firewalls that do not allow initiation of # connections from the outside. On these sites you have to use the # `passive' feature of FTP. If you are behind such a firewall, you # can turn this on to make Wget use passive FTP by default. #passive_ftp = off ## ## Local settings (for a user to set in his $HOME/.wgetrc). It is ## *highly* undesirable to put these settings in the global file, since ## they are potentially dangerous to "normal" users. ## ## Even when setting up your own ~/.wgetrc, you should know what you ## are doing before doing so. ## # Set this to on to use timestamping by default: #timestamping = off # It is a good idea to make Wget send your email address in a `From:' # header with your request (so that server administrators can contact # you in case of errors). Wget does *not* send `From:' by default. #header = From: Your Name <username@site.domain> # You can set up other headers, like Accept-Language. Accept-Language # is *not* sent by default. #header = Accept-Language: en # You can set the default proxy for Wget to use. It will override the # value in the environment. #http_proxy = http://proxy.yoyodyne.com:18023/ # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off. #use_proxy = on # You can customize the retrieval outlook. Valid options are default, # binary, mega and micro. #dot_style = default # Setting this to off makes Wget not download /robots.txt. Be sure to # know *exactly* what /robots.txt is and how it is used before changing # the default! #robots = on # It can be useful to make Wget wait between connections. Set this to # the number of seconds you want Wget to wait. #wait = 0 # You can force creating directory structure, even if a single is being # retrieved, by setting this to on. #dirstruct = off # You can turn on recursive retrieving by default (don't do this if # you are not sure you know what it means) by setting this to on. #recursive = off # To have Wget follow FTP links from HTML files by default, set this # to on: #follow_ftp = off
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