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LYNX(1) Lynx - the text web browser LYNX(1) NAME lynx - a general purpose distributed information browser for the World Wide Web SYNOPSIS lynx [options] [optional paths or URLs] lynx [options] [path or URL] -get_data data -- lynx [options] [path or URL] -post_data data -- Use "lynx -help" to display a complete list of current options. DESCRIPTION Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for users running cursor-addressable, character-cell display devices (e.g., vt100 terminals, vt100 emulators running on Windows or any POSIX platform, or any other "curses-oriented" display). It will display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents containing links to files residing on the local system, as well as files residing on remote systems running Gopher, HTTP, FTP, WAIS, and NNTP servers. Lynx has been ported to many systems, including all variants of Unix, Win- dows (since Windows 95), DOS DJGPP and OS/2, as well as VMS and OS/390. Lynx can be used to access information on the World Wide Web, or to build information systems intended primarily for local access. For example, Lynx has been used to build several Campus Wide Information Systems (CWIS). In addition, Lynx can be used to build systems isolated within a single LAN. OPTIONS At start up, Lynx will load any local file or remote URL specified at the command line. For help with URLs, press "?" or "H" while running Lynx. Then follow the link titled, "Help on URLs." If more than one local file or remote URL is listed on the command line, Lynx will open only the last interactively. All of the names (local files and remote URLs) are added to the G)oto history. Lynx uses only long option names. Option names can begin with double dash "--" as well, underscores and dashes can be intermixed in option names (in the reference below, options are shown with one dash "-" before them, and with underscores "_"). Lynx provides many command-line options. Some options require a value (string, number or keyword). These are noted in the reference below. The other options set boolean values in the program. There are three types of boolean options: set, unset and toggle. If no option value is given, these have the obvious meaning: set (to true), unset (to false), or toggle (be- tween true/false). For any of these, an explicit value can be given in different forms to allow for operating system constraints, e.g., -center:off -center=off -center- Lynx recognizes "1", "+", "on" and "true" for true values, and "0", "-", "off" and "false" for false values. Other option-values are ignored. The default boolean, number and string option values that are compiled into Lynx are displayed in the help-message provided by lynx -help. Some of those may differ according to how Lynx was built; see the help message it- self for these values. The -help option is processed in the third pass of options-processing, so any option which sets a value, as well as runtime configuration values are reflected in the help-message. - If the argument is only "-", then Lynx expects to receive the argu- ments from the standard input. This is to allow for the potentially very long command line that can be associated with the -get_data or -post_data arguments (see below). It can also be used to avoid hav- ing sensitive information in the invoking command line (which would be visible to other processes on most systems), especially when the -auth or -pauth options are used. -accept_all_cookies accept all cookies without prompting if Set-Cookie handling is on. The default is "off". -anonymous apply restrictions for anonymous account, see also -restrictions. -assume_charset=MIMEname charset for documents that do not specify it. -assume_local_charset=MIMEname charset assumed for local files, i.e., files which Lynx creates such as internal pages for the options menu. -assume_unrec_charset=MIMEname use this instead of unrecognized charsets. -auth=ID:PASSWD set authorization ID and password for protected documents at startup. Be sure to protect any script files which use this switch. -base prepend a request URL comment and BASE tag to text/html outputs for -source dumps. -bibhost=URL specify a local bibp server (default http://bibhost/). -blink forces high intensity background colors for color mode, if available and supported by the terminal. This applies to the slang library (for a few terminal emulators), or to OS/2 EMX with ncurses. -book use the bookmark page as the startfile. The default or command line startfile is still set for the Main screen command, and will be used if the bookmark page is unavailable or blank. The default is "off". -buried_news toggles scanning of news articles for buried references, and con- verts them to news links. Not recommended because email addresses enclosed in angle brackets will be converted to false news links, and uuencoded messages can be trashed. The default is "on". -cache=NUMBER set the NUMBER of documents cached in memory. The default is 10. -case enable case-sensitive string searching. The default is "off". -center toggles center alignment in HTML TABLE. Normally table cells are centered on the table grid. Set this option "on" to disable center- ing. The default is "off". -cfg=FILENAME specifies a Lynx configuration file other than the default lynx.cfg. -child exit on left-arrow in startfile, and disable save to disk and asso- ciated print/mail options. The default is "off". -child_relaxed exit on left-arrow in startfile, but allow save to disk and associ- ated print/mail options. The default is "off". -cmd_log=FILENAME write keystroke commands and related information to the specified file. -cmd_script=FILENAME read keystroke commands from the specified file. You can use the data written using the -cmd_log option. Lynx will ignore other in- formation which the command-logging may have written to the logfile. Each line of the command script contains either a comment beginning with "#", or a keyword: exit causes the script to stop, and forces Lynx to exit immediately. key the character value, in printable form. Cursor and other special keys are given as names, e.g., "Down Arrow". Printable 7-bit ASCII codes are given as-is, and hexadecimal values represent other 8-bit codes. set followed by a "name=value" allows one to override values set in the lynx.cfg or .lynxrc files. Lynx tries the cfg-file setting first. -collapse_br_tags toggles collapsing of BR tags. The default is "off". -color forces color mode on, if available. Default color control sequences which work for many terminal types are assumed if the terminal capa- bility description does not specify how to handle color. Lynx ac- cepts this flag only when built with the slang library. It is equivalent to setting the COLORTERM environment variable. If color support is provided by a color-capable curses library such as ncurses, Lynx relies completely on the terminal description to determine whether color mode is possible, and this flag is not needed and thus unavailable. A saved show_color=always setting found in a .lynxrc file at startup has the same effect. A saved show_color=never found in .lynxrc on startup is overridden by this flag. -connect_timeout=N Sets the connection timeout, where N is given in seconds. The de- fault is 300. -convert_to=PARAM convert input, setting output format in MIME type notation (e.g., www/present, www/source), and optionally setting the current charac- ter set (i.e., adding ";" followed by charset=VALUE). -cookie_file=FILENAME specifies a file to use to read cookies. If none is specified, the default value is ~/.lynx_cookies for most systems, but ~/cookies for MS-DOS. -cookie_save_file=FILENAME specifies a file to use to store cookies. If none is specified, the value given by -cookie_file is used. -cookies toggles handling of Set-Cookie headers. The default is "on". -core toggles forced core dumps on fatal errors. Turn this option off to ask Lynx to force a core dump if a fatal error occurs. The default is "off". -crawl with -traversal, output each page to a file. with -dump, format output as with -traversal, but to the standard output. -curses_pads toggles the use of curses "pad" feature which supports left/right scrolling of the display. The default is "on". The feature is normally available for curses configurations, but in- active. To activate it, use the "|" character or the LINEWRAP_TOG- GLE command. Toggling this option makes the feature altogether un- available. -debug_partial separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs delay The de- fault is "off". -default_colors toggles the default-colors feature which is normally set in the lynx.cfg file. The default is "on". -delay add DebugSecs delay after each progress-message. The default is 0. -display=DISPLAY set the $DISPLAY variable for X exec-ed programs. -display_charset=MIMEname set the charset for the terminal output. -dont_wrap_pre inhibit wrapping of text when -dump'ing and -crawl'ing, mark wrapped lines of <pre> in interactive session. The default is "off". -dump dumps the formatted output of the default document or those speci- fied on the command line to standard output. Unlike interactive mode, all documents are processed. This can be used in the follow- ing way: lynx -dump https://lynx.invisible-island.net/ Files specified on the command line are formatted as HTML if their names end with one of the standard web suffixes such as ".htm" or ".html". Use the -force_html option to format files whose names do not follow this convention. -editor=EDITOR enable external editing, using the specified EDITOR. (vi, ed, emacs, etc.) -emacskeys enable emacs-like key movement. The default is "off". -enable_scrollback toggles compatibility with communication programs' scrollback keys (may be incompatible with some curses packages). The default is "off". -error_file=FILE define a file where Lynx will report HTTP access codes. -exec enable local program execution (normally not configured). -fileversions include all versions of files in local VMS directory listings. -find_leaks toggle memory leak-checking. Normally this is not compiled-into your executable, but when it is, it can be disabled for a session. -fail_on_alert exit with an error code if any alert message is written. The de- fault is "off". -force_empty_hrefless_a force HREF-less "A" elements to be empty (close them as soon as they are seen). The default is "off". -force_html forces the first document to be interpreted as HTML. The default is "off". This option is most useful when processing files specified on the command line which have an unrecognized suffix (or the suffix is as- sociated with a non-HTML type, such as ".txt" for plain text files). Lynx recognizes these file suffixes as HTML: ".ht3", ".htm", ".html3", ".html", ".htmlx", ".php3", ".php", ".phtml", ".sht", and ".shtml". -force_secure toggles forcing of the secure flag for SSL cookies. The default is "off". -forms_options toggles whether the Options Menu is key-based or form-based. The default is "on". -from toggles transmissions of From headers. The default is "on". -ftp disable ftp access. The default is "off". -get_data properly formatted data for a get form are read from the standard input and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a line that starts with "---". Lynx issues an HTTP GET, sending the form to the path or URL given on the command-line and prints the response of the server. If no path or URL is given, Lynx sends the form to the start-page. -head send a HEAD request for the mime headers. The default is "off". -help print the Lynx command syntax usage message, and exit. -hiddenlinks=[option] control the display of hidden links. merge hidden links show up as bracketed numbers and are numbered to- gether with other links in the sequence of their occurrence in the document. listonly hidden links are shown only on L)ist screens and listings gener- ated by -dump or from the P)rint menu, but appear separately at the end of those lists. This is the default behavior. ignore hidden links do not appear even in listings. -historical toggles use of ">" or "-->" as a terminator for comments. The de- fault is "off". -homepage=URL set homepage separate from start page. -html5_charset toggles use of HTML5 charset replacements. HTML5 pretends that CP1252 is the same as ISO-8859-1. The default is "off". -image_links toggles inclusion of links for all images. The default is "off". -index=URL set the default index file to the specified URL. -ismap toggles inclusion of ISMAP links when client-side MAPs are present. The default is "off". -justify do justification of text. The default is "off". -link=NUMBER starting count for lnk#.dat files produced by -crawl. The default is 0. -list_decoded for -dump, show URL-encoded links decoded. The default is "on". Lynx accepts URL-encoded links on the command line, and decodes them for internal use. When printing URLs, it shows them in encoded form by default. Use this option to disable that printed encoding. -list_inline for -dump, show the links inline with the text. The default is "off". -listonly for -dump, show only the list of links. The default is "off". -localhost disable URLs that point to remote hosts. The default is "off". -locexec enable local program execution from local files only (if Lynx was compiled with local execution enabled). The default is "off". -lss=FILENAME specify filename containing color-style information. The default is lynx.lss. If you give an empty filename, Lynx uses a built-in mono- chrome scheme which imitates the non-color-style configuration. -mime_header prints the MIME header of a fetched document along with its source. -minimal toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing. The default is "on". -nested_tables toggles nested-tables logic (for debugging). The default is "on". -newschunksize=NUMBER number of articles in chunked news listings. -newsmaxchunk=NUMBER maximum news articles in listings before chunking. -nobold disable bold video-attribute. -nobrowse disable directory browsing. -nocc disable Cc: prompts for self copies of mailings. Note that this does not disable any CCs which are incorporated within a mailto URL or form ACTION. -nocolor force color mode off, overriding terminal capabilities and any -color flags, COLORTERM variable, and saved .lynxrc settings. -noexec disable local program execution. The default is "on". -nofilereferer disable transmissions of Referer headers for file URLs. The default is "on". -nolist disable the link list feature in dumps. The default is "off". -nolog disable mailing of error messages to document owners. The default is "on". -nomargins disable left/right margins in the default style sheet. The default is "off". -nomore disable -more- string in statusline messages. -nonrestarting_sigwinch This flag is not available on all systems, Lynx needs to be compiled with HAVE_SIGACTION defined. If available, this flag may cause Lynx to react more immediately to window changes when run within an xterm. The default is "off". -nonumbers disable link- and field-numbering. This overrides -number_fields and -number_links. The default is "off". -nopause disable forced pauses for statusline messages. The default is "off". -noprint disable most print functions. The default is "off". -noredir prevents automatic redirection and prints a message with a link to the new URL. The default is "off". -noreferer disable transmissions of Referer headers. The default is "off". -noreverse disable reverse video-attribute. -nosocks disable SOCKS proxy usage by a SOCKSified Lynx. -nostatus disable the retrieval status messages. The default is "off". -notitle disable title and blank line from top of page. The default is "off". -nounderline disable underline video-attribute. -nozap=DURATION disables checks for "z" key initially if DURATION is "initially" or completely otherwise. -number_fields force numbering of links as well as form input fields The default is "off". -number_links force numbering of links. The default is "off". -partial toggles display partial pages while loading. The default is "on". -partial_thres=NUMBER number of lines to render before repainting display with partial- display logic -passive_ftp toggles passive ftp connections. The default is "on". -pauth=ID:PASSWD set authorization ID and password for a protected proxy server at startup. Be sure to protect any script files which use this switch. -popup toggles handling of single-choice SELECT options via popup windows or as lists of radio buttons. The default is "off". -post_data properly formatted data for a post form are read in from the stan- dard input and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a line that starts with "---". Lynx issues an HTTP POST, sending the form to the path or URL given on the command-line and prints the response of the server. If no path or URL is given, Lynx sends the form to the start-page. -preparsed show HTML source preparsed and reformatted when used with -source or in source view to visualize how lynx behaves with invalid HTML. The default is "off". -prettysrc show HTML source view with lexical elements and tags in color. The default is "off". -print enable print functions. (default) This is the opposite of -noprint. The default is "on". -pseudo_inlines toggles pseudo-ALTs for inline images with no ALT string. The de- fault is "on". -raw toggles default setting of 8-bit character translations or CJK mode for the startup character set. The default is "off". -realm restricts access to URLs in the starting realm. The default is "off". -read_timeout=N Sets the read-timeout, where N is given in seconds. The default is 18000. -reload flushes the cache on a proxy server (only the first document given on the command-line is affected). The default is "off". -restrictions=[option][,option][,option]... allows a list of services to be disabled selectively. Dashes and underscores in option names can be intermixed. The following list is printed if no options are specified. all restricts all options listed below. bookmark disallow changing the location of the bookmark file. bookmark_exec disallow execution links via the bookmark file. change_exec_perms disallow changing the eXecute permission on files (but still al- low it for directories) when local file management is enabled. default same as command line option -anonymous. Disables default ser- vices for anonymous users. Set to all restricted, except for: inside_telnet, outside_telnet, inside_ftp, outside_ftp, inside_rlogin, outside_rlogin, inside_news, outside_news, telnet_port, jump, mail, print, exec, and goto. The settings for these, as well as additional goto restrictions for specific URL schemes that are also applied, are derived from definitions within userdefs.h. dired_support disallow local file management. disk_save disallow saving to disk in the download and print menus. dotfiles disallow access to, or creation of, hidden (dot) files. download disallow some downloaders in the download menu (does not imply disk_save restriction). editor disallow external editing. exec disable execution scripts. exec_frozen disallow the user from changing the local execution option. externals disallow some "EXTERNAL" configuration lines if support for pass- ing URLs to external applications (with the EXTERN command) is compiled in. file_url disallow using G)oto, served links or bookmarks for file: URLs. goto disable the "g" (goto) command. inside_ftp disallow ftps for people coming from inside your domain (utmp re- quired for selectivity). inside_news disallow USENET news posting for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). inside_rlogin disallow rlogins for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). inside_telnet disallow telnets for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). jump disable the "j" (jump) command. multibook disallow multiple bookmarks. mail disallow mail. news_post disallow USENET News posting. options_save disallow saving options in .lynxrc. outside_ftp disallow ftps for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). outside_news disallow USENET news reading and posting for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). This re- striction applies to "news", "nntp", "newspost", and "newsreply" URLs, but not to "snews", "snewspost", or "snewsreply" in case they are supported. outside_rlogin disallow rlogins for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). outside_telnet disallow telnets for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). print disallow most print options. shell disallow shell escapes and lynxexec or lynxprog G)oto's. suspend disallow Unix Control-Z suspends with escape to shell. telnet_port disallow specifying a port in telnet G)oto's. useragent disallow modifications of the User-Agent header. -resubmit_posts toggles forced resubmissions (no-cache) of forms with method POST when the documents they returned are sought with the PREV_DOC com- mand or from the History List. The default is "off". -rlogin disable recognition of rlogin commands. The default is "off". -scrollbar toggles showing scrollbar. The default is "off". -scrollbar_arrow toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar. The default is "on". -selective require .www_browsable files to browse directories. -session=FILENAME resumes from specified file on startup and saves session to that file on exit. -sessionin=FILENAME resumes session from specified file. -sessionout=FILENAME saves session to specified file. -short_url show very long URLs in the status line with "..." to represent the portion which cannot be displayed. The beginning and end of the URL are displayed, rather than suppressing the end. The default is "off". -show_cfg Print the configuration settings, e.g., as read from "lynx.cfg", and exit. The default is "off". -show_cursor If enabled the cursor will not be hidden in the right hand corner but will instead be positioned at the start of the currently se- lected link. Show cursor is the default for systems without FANCY_CURSES capabilities. The default configuration can be changed in userdefs.h or lynx.cfg. The command line switch toggles the de- fault. The default is "on". -show_rate If enabled the transfer rate is shown in bytes/second. If disabled, no transfer rate is shown. Use lynx.cfg or the options menu to se- lect KB/second and/or ETA. The default is "on". -socks5_proxy=URL Tells lynx which SOCKS5 proxy to use for connections. Any network traffic, including all DNS resolutions except the one for URL it- self, will be redirected through the SOCKS5 proxy. The URL may be given as "proxy.example.com", "proxy.example.com:1080", "192.168.0.1", or "192.168.0.1:1080" (and IPv6 notation if so supported). A SOCKS5 proxy may also be specified via the environment variable SOCKS5_PROXY. This option controls the builtin SOCKS5 support, which is unrelated to the op- tion -nosocks. -soft_dquotes toggles emulation of the old Netscape and Mosaic bug which treated ">" as a co-terminator for double-quotes and tags. The default is "off". -source works the same as dump but outputs HTML source instead of formatted text. For example lynx -source . >foo.html generates HTML source listing the files in the current directory. Each file is marked by an HREF relative to the parent directory. Add a trailing slash to make the HREF's relative to the current di- rectory: lynx -source ./ >foo.html -stack_dump disable SIGINT cleanup handler The default is "off". -startfile_ok allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate. The default is "off". -stderr When dumping a document using -dump or -source, Lynx normally does not display alert (error) messages that you see on the screen in the status line. Use the -stderr option to tell Lynx to write these messages to the standard error. The default is "off". -stdin read the startfile from standard input (UNIX only). The default is "off". -syslog=text information for syslog call. -syslog_urls log requested URLs with syslog. The default is "off". -tagsoup initialize parser, using Tag Soup DTD rather than SortaSGML. The default is "off". -telnet disable recognition of telnet commands. The default is "off". -term=TERM tell Lynx what terminal type to assume it is talking to. (This may be useful for remote execution, when, for example, Lynx connects to a remote TCP/IP port that starts a script that, in turn, starts an- other Lynx process.) -timeout=N For win32, sets the network read-timeout, where N is given in sec- onds. -tlog toggles between using a Lynx Trace Log and stderr for trace output from the session. The default is "on". -tna turns on "Textfields Need Activation" mode. The default is "off". -trace turns on Lynx trace mode. Destination of trace output depends on -tlog. The default is "off". -trace_mask=value turn on optional traces, which may result in very large trace files. Logically OR the values to combine options: 1 SGML character parsing states 2 color-style 4 TRST (table layout) 8 configuration (lynx.cfg, .lynxrc, .lynx-keymaps, mime.types and mailcap contents) 16 binary string copy/append, used in form data construction. 32 cookies 64 character sets 128 GridText parsing 256 timing 512 detailed URL parsing The default is 0. -traversal traverse all http links derived from startfile. When used with -crawl, each link that begins with the same string as startfile is output to a file, intended for indexing. See CRAWL.announce for more information. -trim_blank_lines toggles trimming of trailing blank lines as well as the related trimming of blank lines while collapsing BR tags. The default is "on". -trim_input_fields trim input text/textarea fields in forms. The default is "off". -underline_links toggles use of underline/bold attribute for links. The default is "off". -underscore toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps. The default is "off". -unique_urls check for duplicate link numbers in each page and corresponding lists, and reuse the original link number. The default is "off". -update_term_title enables updating the title in terminal emulators. Use only if your terminal emulator supports that escape code. Has no effect when used with -notitle. The default is "off". -use_mouse turn on mouse support, if available. The default is "off". * Clicking the left mouse button on a link traverses it. * Clicking the right mouse button pops back. * Click on the top line to scroll up. * Click on the bottom line to scroll down. * The first few positions in the top and bottom line may invoke additional functions. Lynx must be compiled with ncurses or slang to support this feature. If ncurses is used, clicking the middle mouse button pops up a sim- ple menu. Mouse clicks may only work reliably while Lynx is idle waiting for input. -useragent=Name set alternate Lynx User-Agent header. -validate accept only http URLs (for validation). Complete security restric- tions also are implemented. -verbose toggle [LINK], [IMAGE] and [INLINE] comments with filenames of these images. The default is "off". -version print version information, and exit. -vikeys enable vi-like key movement. The default is "off". -wdebug enable Waterloo tcp/ip packet debug (print to watt debugfile). This applies only to DOS versions compiled with WATTCP or WATT-32. -width=NUMBER number of columns for formatting of dumps, default is 80. This is limited by the number of columns that Lynx could display, typically 1024 (the MAX_LINE symbol). -with_backspaces emit backspaces in output if -dump'ing or -crawl'ing (like man does). The default is "off". -xhtml_parsing tells Lynx that it can ignore certain tags which have no content in an XHTML 1.0 document. For example "<p/>" will be discarded. The default is "off". COMMANDS More than one key can be mapped to a given command. Here are some of the most useful: * Use Up arrow and Down arrow to scroll through hypertext links. * Right arrow or Return will follow a highlighted hypertext link. * Left Arrow or "u" will retreat from a link. * Type "H", "?", or F1 for online help and descriptions of key-stroke commands. * Type "k" or "K" for a list of the current key-stroke command mappings. If the same command is mapped to the same letter differing only by up- per/lowercase only the lowercase mapping is shown. * Type Delete to view history list. ENVIRONMENT In addition to various "standard" environment variables such as DISPLAY, HOME, PATH, SHELL, TMPDIR, USER, etc., Lynx utilizes several Lynx-specific environment variables, if they exist. Others may be created or modified by Lynx to pass data to an external pro- gram, or for other reasons. These are listed separately below. See also the sections on SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT and NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT, below. Note: Not all environment variables apply to all types of platforms sup- ported by Lynx, though most do. Feedback on platform dependencies is so- licited. Environment Variables Used By Lynx: COLORTERM If set, color capability for the terminal is forced on at startup time. The actual value assigned to the variable is ignored. This variable is only meaningful if Lynx was built using the slang screen-handling li- brary. LYNX_CFG This variable, if set, will override the default loca- tion and name of the global configuration file (nor- mally, lynx.cfg) that was defined by the LYNX_CFG_FILE constant in the userdefs.h file, during installation. See the userdefs.h file for more information. LYNX_CFG_PATH If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in search- list of directories used to find the configuration files, e.g., lynx.cfg and lynx.lss. The list is delim- ited with ":" (or ";" for Windows) like the PATH envi- ronment variable. LYNX_HELPFILE If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in URL and configuration file URL for the Lynx help file. LYNX_LOCALEDIR If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in loca- tion of the locale directory which contains native lan- guage (NLS) message text. LYNX_LSS This variable, if set, specifies the location of the default Lynx character style sheet file. [Currently only meaningful if Lynx was built using curses color style support.] LYNX_SAVE_SPACE This variable, if set, will override the default path prefix for files saved to disk that is defined in the lynx.cfg SAVE_SPACE: statement. See the lynx.cfg file for more information. LYNX_TEMP_SPACE This variable, if set, will override the default path prefix for temporary files that was defined during in- stallation, as well as any value that may be assigned to the TMPDIR variable. MAIL This variable specifies the default inbox Lynx will check for new mail, if such checking is enabled in the lynx.cfg file. NEWS_ORGANIZATION This variable, if set, provides the string used in the Organization: header of USENET news postings. It will override the setting of the ORGANIZATION environment variable, if it is also set (and, on UNIX, the contents of an /etc/organization file, if present). NNTPSERVER If set, this variable specifies the default NNTP server that will be used for USENET news reading and posting with Lynx, via news: URL's. ORGANIZATION This variable, if set, provides the string used in the Organization: header of USENET news postings. On UNIX, it will override the contents of an /etc/organization file, if present. PROTOCOL_proxy Lynx supports the use of proxy servers that can act as firewall gateways and caching servers. They are preferable to the older gateway servers (see WWW_ac- cess_GATEWAY, below). Each protocol used by Lynx, (http, ftp, gopher, etc), can be mapped separately by setting environment vari- ables of the form PROTOCOL_proxy. Protocols are indi- cated in a URI by the name before ":", e.g., "http" in "http://some.server.dom:port/" for HTML. Depending on your system configuration and supported protocols, the environment variables recognized by lynx may include cso_proxy finger_proxy ftp_proxy gopher_proxy http_proxy https_proxy news_proxy newspost_proxy newsreply_proxy nntp_proxy no_proxy rlogin_proxy snews_proxy snewspost_proxy snewsreply_proxy telnet_proxy tn3270_proxy wais_proxy See Lynx Users Guide for additional details and exam- ples. RL_CLCOPY_CMD Pipe the contents of the current link using this com- mand as the target. RL_PASTE_CMD Open a pipe to read from this command, pasting it into the current editable-field or command-prompt. SOCKS5_PROXY Is inspected if -socks5_proxy has not been used (for the same content). SSL_CERT_DIR Set to the directory containing trusted certificates. SSL_CERT_FILE Set to the full path and filename for your file of trusted certificates. WWW_access_GATEWAY Lynx still supports use of gateway servers, with the servers specified via "WWW_access_GATEWAY" variables (where "access" is lower case and can be "http", "ftp", "gopher" or "wais"). However most gateway servers have been discontinued. Note that you do not include a ter- minal "/" for gateways, but do for proxies specified by PROTOCOL_proxy environment variables. See Lynx Users Guide for details. WWW_HOME This variable, if set, will override the default startup URL specified in any of the Lynx configuration files. Environment Variables Set or Modified By Lynx: LYNX_PRINT_DATE This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Date: string seen in the document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string un- der UNIX, or "No Date" under VMS. LYNX_PRINT_LASTMOD This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Last Mod: string seen in the document's "Informa- tion about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No LastMod" under VMS. LYNX_PRINT_TITLE This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Linkname: string seen in the document's "Informa- tion about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No Title" under VMS. LYNX_PRINT_URL This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the URL: string seen in the document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string un- der UNIX, or "No URL" under VMS. LYNX_TRACE If set, causes Lynx to write a trace file as if the -trace option were supplied. LYNX_TRACE_FILE If set, overrides the compiled-in name of the trace file, which is either Lynx.trace or LY-TRACE.LOG (the latter on the DOS/Windows platforms). The trace file is in either case relative to the home directory. LYNX_VERSION This variable is always set by Lynx, and may be used by an external program to determine if it was invoked by Lynx. See also the comments in the distribution's sample mailcap file, for notes on usage in such a file. TERM Normally, this variable is used by Lynx to determine the terminal type being used to invoke Lynx. If, how- ever, it is unset at startup time (or has the value "unknown"), or if the -term command-line option is used (see OPTIONS section above), Lynx will set or modify its value to the user specified terminal type (for the Lynx execution environment). Note: If set/modified by Lynx, the values of the LINES and/or COLUMNS environ- ment variables may also be changed. Simulated CGI Support If built with the cgi-links option enabled, Lynx allows access to a cgi script directly without the need for an http daemon. When executing such "lynxcgi scripts" (if enabled), the following variables may be set for simulating a CGI environment: CONTENT_LENGTH CONTENT_TYPE DOCUMENT_ROOT HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE HTTP_USER_AGENT PATH_INFO PATH_TRANSLATED QUERY_STRING REMOTE_ADDR REMOTE_HOST REQUEST_METHOD SERVER_SOFTWARE Other environment variables are not inherited by the script, unless they are provided via a LYNXCGI_ENVIRONMENT statement in the configuration file. See the lynx.cfg file, and the (draft) CGI 1.1 Specification <http://Web.Golux.Com/coar/cgi/draft-coar-cgi-v11-00.txt> for the defini- tion and usage of these variables. The CGI Specification, and other associated documentation, should be con- sulted for general information on CGI script programming. Native Language Support If configured and installed with Native Language Support, Lynx will display status and other messages in your local language. See the file ABOUT_NLS in the source distribution, or at your local GNU site, for more information about internationalization. The following environment variables may be used to alter default settings: LANG This variable, if set, will override the default mes- sage language. It is an ISO 639 two-letter code iden- tifying the language. Language codes are NOT the same as the country codes given in ISO 3166. LANGUAGE This variable, if set, will override the default mes- sage language. This is a GNU extension that has higher priority for setting the message catalog than LANG or LC_ALL. LC_ALL and LC_MESSAGES These variables, if set, specify the notion of native language formatting style. They are POSIXly correct. LINGUAS This variable, if set prior to configuration, limits the installed languages to specific values. It is a space-separated list of two-letter codes. Currently, it is hard-coded to a wish list. NLSPATH This variable, if set, is used as the path prefix for message catalogs. NOTES Mailing Lists If you wish to contribute to the further development of Lynx, subscribe to our mailing list. Send email to <lynx-dev-request@nongnu.org> with "sub- scribe lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of your message. Send bug reports, comments, suggestions to <lynx-dev@nongnu.org> after sub- scribing. Unsubscribe by sending email to <lynx-dev-request@nongnu.org> with "unsub- scribe lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of your message. Do not send the unsubscribe message to the lynx-dev list, itself. Acknowledgments Lynx has incorporated code from a variety of sources along the way. The earliest versions of Lynx included code from Earl Fogel of Computing Ser- vices at the University of Saskatchewan, who implemented HYPERREZ in the Unix environment. HYPERREZ was developed by Niel Larson of Think.com and served as the model for the early versions of Lynx. Those versions also incorporated libraries from the Unix Gopher clients developed at the Uni- versity of Minnesota, and the later versions of Lynx rely on the WWW client library code developed by Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW community. Also a special thanks to Foteos Macrides who ported much of Lynx to VMS and did or organized most of its development since the departures of Lou Montulli and Garrett Blythe from the University of Kansas in the summer of 1994 through the release of v2.7.2, and to everyone on the net who has contributed to Lynx's development either directly (through patches, comments or bug re- ports) or indirectly (through inspiration and development of other sys- tems). AUTHORS Lou Montulli, Garrett Blythe, Craig Lavender, Michael Grobe, Charles Rezac Academic Computing Services University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas 66047 Foteos Macrides Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research Shrewsbury, Massachusetts 01545 Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net> SEE ALSO catgets(3), curses(3), environ(7), ftp(1), gettext(GNU), localeconv(3), ncurses(3), setlocale(3), termcap(5), terminfo(5) Lynx 2.9.3 2026-05-26 LYNX(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | COMMANDS | ENVIRONMENT | NOTES | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO
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