Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
FETCH(1)		    General Commands Manual		      FETCH(1)

NAME
       fetch --	retrieve a file	by Uniform Resource Locator

SYNOPSIS
       fetch	[-146AadFlMmnPpqRrsUv]	  [-B	bytes]	 [--bind-address=host]
	     [--ca-cert=file]	[--ca-path=dir]	  [--cert=file]	  [--crl=file]
	     [-i file] [--key=file] [-N	file] [--no-passive] [--no-proxy=list]
	     [--no-sslv3]	   [--no-tlsv1]		[--no-verify-hostname]
	     [--no-verify-peer]	  [-o	file]	[--referer=URL]	  [-S	bytes]
	     [-T seconds] [--user-agent=agent-string] [-w seconds] URL ...
       fetch	[-146AadFlMmnPpqRrsUv]	  [-B	bytes]	 [--bind-address=host]
	     [--ca-cert=file]	[--ca-path=dir]	  [--cert=file]	  [--crl=file]
	     [-i file] [--key=file] [-N	file] [--no-passive] [--no-proxy=list]
	     [--no-sslv3]	   [--no-tlsv1]		[--no-verify-hostname]
	     [--no-verify-peer]	  [-o	file]	[--referer=URL]	  [-S	bytes]
	     [-T  seconds] [--user-agent=agent-string] [-w seconds] -h host -f
	     file [-c dir]

DESCRIPTION
       The fetch utility provides a command-line interface to the fetch(3) li-
       brary.  Its purpose is to retrieve the file(s) pointed to by the	URL(s)
       on the command line.

       The following options are available:

       -1, --one-file
		   Stop	and return exit	code 0 at the first  successfully  re-
		   trieved file.

       -4, --ipv4-only
		   Forces fetch	to use IPv4 addresses only.

       -6, --ipv6-only
		   Forces fetch	to use IPv6 addresses only.

       -A, --no-redirect
		   Do  not automatically follow	``temporary'' (302) redirects.
		   Some	broken Web sites will return a redirect	instead	 of  a
		   not-found error when	the requested object does not exist.

       -a, --retry
		   Automatically retry the transfer upon soft failures.

       -B bytes, --buffer-size=bytes
		   Specify  the	 read  buffer  size  in	bytes.	The default is
		   16,384 bytes.  Attempts to set a  buffer  size  lower  than
		   this	 will  be silently ignored.  The number	of reads actu-
		   ally	performed is reported at verbosity level two or	higher
		   (see	the -v flag).

       --bind-address=host
		   Specifies a hostname	or IP address to  which	 sockets  used
		   for outgoing	connections will be bound.

       -c dir	   The	file  to  retrieve  is	in directory dir on the	remote
		   host.  This option is deprecated and	is provided for	 back-
		   ward	compatibility only.

       --ca-cert=file
		   [SSL] Path to certificate bundle containing trusted CA cer-
		   tificates.	Otherwise,  OpenSSL's default CA cert and path
		   settings apply.

       --ca-path=dir
		   [SSL] The directory dir contains trusted CA hashes.

       --cert=file
		   [SSL] file is a PEM encoded	client	certificate/key	 which
		   will	be used	in client certificate authentication.

       --crl=file  [SSL] Points	to certificate revocation list file, which has
		   to  be in PEM format	and may	contain	peer certificates that
		   have	been revoked.

       -d, --direct
		   Use a direct	connection even	if a proxy is configured.

       -F, --force-restart
		   In combination with the -r flag, forces a restart  even  if
		   the	local  and  remote  files  have	different modification
		   times.  Implies -R.

       -f file	   The file to retrieve	is named  file	on  the	 remote	 host.
		   This	option is deprecated and is provided for backward com-
		   patibility only.

       -h host	   The file to retrieve	is located on the host host.  This op-
		   tion	is deprecated and is provided for backward compatibil-
		   ity only.

       -i file,	--if-modified-since=file
		   If-Modified-Since  mode:  the  remote file will only	be re-
		   trieved if it is newer than file on the local host.	 (HTTP
		   only)

       --key=file  [SSL] file is a PEM encoded client key that will be used in
		   client  certificate	authentication	in case	key and	client
		   certificate are stored separately.

       -l, --symlink
		   If the target is a file-scheme URL, make a symbolic link to
		   the target rather than trying to copy it.

       -M

       -m, --mirror
		   Mirror mode:	if the file already exists locally and has the
		   same	size and modification time as the remote file, it will
		   not be fetched.  Note that the -m and -r flags are mutually
		   exclusive.

       -N file,	--netrc=file
		   Use file instead of ~/.netrc	to look	 up  login  names  and
		   passwords  for  FTP sites.  See ftp(1) for a	description of
		   the file format.  This feature is experimental.

       -n, --no-mtime
		   Do not preserve the modification time  of  the  transferred
		   file.

       --no-passive
		   Forces the FTP code to use active mode.

       --no-proxy=list
		   Either a single asterisk, which disables the	use of proxies
		   altogether,	or  a  comma-  or whitespace-separated list of
		   hosts for which proxies should not be used.

       --no-sslv3  [SSL] Do not	allow SSL version 3 when negotiating the  con-
		   nection.   This  option  is	deprecated and is provided for
		   backward compatibility only.	 SSLv3 is disabled by default.
		   Set SSL_ALLOW_SSL3 to change	this behavior.

       --no-tlsv1  [SSL] Do not	allow TLS version 1 when negotiating the  con-
		   nection.

       --no-verify-hostname
		   [SSL]  Do  not verify that the hostname matches the subject
		   of the certificate presented	by the server.

       --no-verify-peer
		   [SSL] Do not	verify the peer	 certificate  against  trusted
		   CAs.

       -o file,	--output=file
		   Set	the  output  file name to file.	 By default, a ``path-
		   name'' is extracted from the	specified URI, and  its	 base-
		   name	 is used as the	name of	the output file.  A file argu-
		   ment	of `-' indicates that results are to  be  directed  to
		   the	standard output.  If the file argument is a directory,
		   fetched file(s) will	be placed within the  directory,  with
		   name(s) selected as in the default behaviour.

       -P

       -p, --passive
		   Use passive FTP.  These flags have no effect, since passive
		   FTP is the default, but are provided	for compatibility with
		   earlier  versions  where  active  FTP  was the default.  To
		   force active	mode, use the --no-passive  flag  or  set  the
		   FTP_PASSIVE_MODE environment	variable to `NO'.

       --referer=URL
		   Specifies  the  referrer  URL to use	for HTTP requests.  If
		   URL is set to "auto", the document URL will be used as  re-
		   ferrer URL.

       -q, --quiet
		   Quiet mode.

       -R, --keep-output
		   The	output	files  are precious, and should	not be deleted
		   under any circumstances, even if the	transfer failed	or was
		   incomplete.

       -r, --restart
		   Restart a previously	interrupted transfer.  Note  that  the
		   -m and -r flags are mutually	exclusive.

       -S bytes, --require-size=bytes
		   Require  the	 file size reported by the server to match the
		   specified value.  If	it does	not, a message is printed  and
		   the	file  is  not fetched.	If the server does not support
		   reporting file sizes, this option is	ignored	and  the  file
		   is fetched unconditionally.

       -s, --print-size
		   Print  the  size  in	 bytes of each requested file, without
		   fetching it.

       -T seconds, --timeout=seconds
		   Set timeout value to	seconds.   Overrides  the  environment
		   variables FTP_TIMEOUT for FTP transfers or HTTP_TIMEOUT for
		   HTTP	transfers if set.

       -U, --passive-portrange-default
		   When	using passive FTP, allocate the	port for the data con-
		   nection  from  the low (default) port range.	 See ip(4) for
		   details on how to specify which port	range this corresponds
		   to.

       --user-agent=agent-string
		   Specifies the User-Agent string to use for  HTTP  requests.
		   This	 can  be useful	when working with HTTP origin or proxy
		   servers that	differentiate between user agents.

       -v, --verbose
		   Increase verbosity level.

       -w seconds, --retry-delay=seconds
		   When	the -a flag is specified, wait this many  seconds  be-
		   tween successive retries.

       If  fetch  receives  a  SIGINFO	signal	(see  the  status argument for
       stty(1)), the current transfer rate statistics will be written  to  the
       standard	 error	output,	 in the	same format as the standard completion
       message.

ENVIRONMENT
       FTP_TIMEOUT   Maximum time, in seconds, to wait before aborting an  FTP
		     connection.

       HTTP_TIMEOUT  Maximum time, in seconds, to wait before aborting an HTTP
		     connection.

       See fetch(3) for	a description of additional environment	variables, in-
       cluding	FETCH_BIND_ADDRESS, FTP_LOGIN, FTP_PASSIVE_MODE, FTP_PASSWORD,
       FTP_PROXY, ftp_proxy, HTTP_ACCEPT, HTTP_AUTH,  HTTP_PROXY,  http_proxy,
       HTTP_PROXY_AUTH,	  HTTP_REFERER,	  HTTP_USER_AGENT,   NETRC,  NO_PROXY,
       no_proxy,  SSL_CA_CERT_FILE,  SSL_CA_CERT_PATH,	 SSL_CLIENT_CERT_FILE,
       SSL_CLIENT_KEY_FILE,    SSL_CRL_FILE,	SSL_ALLOW_SSL3,	  SSL_NO_TLS1,
       SSL_NO_TLS1_1,	   SSL_NO_TLS1_2,      SSL_NO_VERIFY_HOSTNAME	   and
       SSL_NO_VERIFY_PEER.

EXIT STATUS
       The  fetch command returns zero on success, or one on failure.  If mul-
       tiple URLs are listed on	the command line, fetch	will  attempt  to  re-
       trieve each one of them in turn,	and will return	zero only if they were
       all successfully	retrieved.

       If  the	-i  argument is	used and the remote file is not	newer than the
       specified file then the command will still return success, although  no
       file is transferred.

EXAMPLES
       Silently	 try  to  fetch	 the URLs passed as parameters.	 The first one
       will fail.  If the second URL succeeds the third	one will not be	tried:

	     $ fetch -1	-q https://www.freebsd.org/bad.html \
		     ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT \
		     https://www.fake.url
	     fetch: https://www.freebsd.org/bad.html: Not Found

       Be verbose when retrieving the README.TXT file:

	     $ fetch -v	ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT
	     resolving server address: ftp.freebsd.org:80
	     requesting	http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT
	     local size	/ mtime: 4259 /	1431015519
	     remote size / mtime: 4259 / 1431015519
	     README.TXT						   4259	 B   44	MBps	00s

       Quietly save the	README.TXT file	as myreadme.txt	and do not delete  the
       output file under any circumstances:

	     fetch -o myreadme.txt -q -R ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT

       Print  the  size	 of the	requested file and identify the	request	with a
       custom user agent string:

	     $ fetch -s	ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT
	     --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101"
	     3513231

       Restart the transfer of the README.TXT file and retry the transfer upon
       soft failures:

	     $ fetch -a	-r http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT

SEE ALSO
       fetch(3), phttpget(8)

HISTORY
       The fetch command appeared in FreeBSD 2.1.5.  This implementation first
       appeared	in FreeBSD 4.1.

AUTHORS
       The original implementation of fetch  was  done	by  Jean-Marc  Zucconi
       <jmz@FreeBSD.org>.   It	was  extensively  re-worked for	FreeBSD	2.2 by
       Garrett Wollman <wollman@FreeBSD.org>, and later	 completely  rewritten
       to  use	the  fetch(3) library by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>
       and Michael Gmelin <freebsd@grem.de>.

NOTES
       The -b and -t options are no longer supported and will  generate	 warn-
       ings.   They  were workarounds for bugs in other	OSes which this	imple-
       mentation does not trigger.

       One cannot both use the -h, -c and -f options and specify URLs  on  the
       command line.

FreeBSD	13.2			October	7, 2023			      FETCH(1)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ENVIRONMENT | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | NOTES

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fetch&manpath=FreeBSD+14.2-RELEASE+and+Ports>

home | help