HOWTO: Use WGET
Wget is an “unattended downloader” application. What does this mean? Well, you can use wget to grab files off the network using the http, https, ftp, and possibly some other protocols It’s designed to be non-interactive meaning that it doesn’t require any user intervention once launched. A simple command like:
wget http://www.somehost.com/files/somefile.tar.gz
will download somefile.tar.gz to my local machine.
Since wget is non-interactive (meaning that there is no user intervention required once it is launched), it’s ideal for use in scripts to do things like grab PHP files that contain processing instructions.
I also use wget in a different way. I frequently use it to grab files from a remote server when I’m ssh’d into my server. It saves me from downloading the file to my local machine and then uploading it to my server. I’ve made a (blurry, but readable) video on how I use wget on the Linux Learning Station.
This link has the entire command reference for wget (although I think it’s a little out of date).
Enjoy!
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6 opinions for HOWTO: Use WGET
Eric
Apr 28, 2006 at 7:36 am
handy to download plugins for my MT installation on a remote host.
Eric
Apr 28, 2006 at 7:38 am
followed commands after I download my plugin is :
$gunzip somefile.tar.gz
$tar xvf somefile.tar
:)
Jon
Apr 28, 2006 at 1:46 pm
That’s what I use it for. Downloading Wordpress plugins and stuff directly from one server to another.
Way faster :)
Doncha just love wget?
Nov 14, 2007 at 11:54 am
[…] to mirror her blog on my computer so I could read the entire novel’s translation easily. Jon here has a post on using wget and how useful it […]
Imran Khan
May 11, 2008 at 6:38 am
HI,
I am using putty to upload files on the server. Whats the comand line using wget?
Michael Wolff
Jul 16, 2008 at 5:16 am
Has anyone been successful at using wget to retrieve data from behind authentication on a site built with tomcat?
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