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FETCH(3) Library Functions Manual FETCH(3) NAME fetchMakeURL, fetchParseURL, fetchFreeURL, fetchXGetURL, fetchGetURL, fetchPutURL, fetchStatURL, fetchListURL, fetchXGet, fetchGet, fetchPut, fetchStat, fetchList, fetchXGetFile, fetchGetFile, fetchPutFile, fetchStatFile, fetchListFile, fetchXGetHTTP, fetchGetHTTP, fetchPutHTTP, fetchStatHTTP, fetchListHTTP, fetchReqHTTP, fetchXGetFTP, fetchGetFTP, fetchPutFTP, fetchStatFTP, fetchListFTP -- file transfer functions LIBRARY File Transfer Library for URLs (libfetch, -lfetch) SYNOPSIS #include <sys/param.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <fetch.h> struct url * fetchMakeURL(const char *scheme, const char *host, int port, const char *doc, const char *user, const char *pwd); struct url * fetchParseURL(const char *URL); void fetchFreeURL(struct url *u); FILE * fetchXGetURL(const char *URL, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); FILE * fetchGetURL(const char *URL, const char *flags); FILE * fetchPutURL(const char *URL, const char *flags); int fetchStatURL(const char *URL, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); struct url_ent * fetchListURL(const char *URL, const char *flags); FILE * fetchXGet(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); FILE * fetchGet(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchPut(struct url *u, const char *flags); int fetchStat(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); struct url_ent * fetchList(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchXGetFile(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); FILE * fetchGetFile(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchPutFile(struct url *u, const char *flags); int fetchStatFile(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); struct url_ent * fetchListFile(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchXGetHTTP(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); FILE * fetchGetHTTP(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchPutHTTP(struct url *u, const char *flags); int fetchStatHTTP(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); struct url_ent * fetchListHTTP(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchReqHTTP(struct url *u, const char *method, const char *flags, const char *content_type, const char *body); FILE * fetchXGetFTP(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); FILE * fetchGetFTP(struct url *u, const char *flags); FILE * fetchPutFTP(struct url *u, const char *flags); int fetchStatFTP(struct url *u, struct url_stat *us, const char *flags); struct url_ent * fetchListFTP(struct url *u, const char *flags); DESCRIPTION These functions implement a high-level library for retrieving and uploading files using Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). fetchParseURL() takes a URL in the form of a null-terminated string and splits it into its components function according to the Common Internet Scheme Syntax detailed in RFC1738. A regular expression which produces this syntax is: <scheme>:(//(<user>(:<pwd>)?@)?<host>(:<port>)?)?/(<document>)? If the URL does not seem to begin with a scheme name, the following syntax is assumed: ((<user>(:<pwd>)?@)?<host>(:<port>)?)?/(<document>)? Note that some components of the URL are not necessarily relevant to all URL schemes. For instance, the file scheme only needs the <scheme> and <document> components. fetchMakeURL() and fetchParseURL() return a pointer to a url structure, which is defined as follows in <fetch.h>: #define URL_SCHEMELEN 16 #define URL_USERLEN 256 #define URL_PWDLEN 256 struct url { char scheme[URL_SCHEMELEN+1]; char user[URL_USERLEN+1]; char pwd[URL_PWDLEN+1]; char host[MAXHOSTNAMELEN+1]; int port; char *doc; off_t offset; size_t length; time_t ims_time; }; The ims_time field stores the time value for If-Modified-Since HTTP re- quests. The pointer returned by fetchMakeURL() or fetchParseURL() should be freed using fetchFreeURL(). fetchXGetURL(), fetchGetURL(), and fetchPutURL() constitute the recommended interface to the fetch library. They examine the URL passed to them to de- termine the transfer method, and call the appropriate lower-level functions to perform the actual transfer. fetchXGetURL() also returns the remote document's metadata in the url_stat structure pointed to by the us argu- ment. The flags argument is a string of characters which specify transfer op- tions. The meaning of the individual flags is scheme-dependent, and is de- tailed in the appropriate section below. fetchStatURL() attempts to obtain the requested document's metadata and fill in the structure pointed to by its second argument. The url_stat structure is defined as follows in <fetch.h>: struct url_stat { off_t size; time_t atime; time_t mtime; }; If the size could not be obtained from the server, the size field is set to -1. If the modification time could not be obtained from the server, the mtime field is set to the epoch. If the access time could not be obtained from the server, the atime field is set to the modification time. fetchListURL() attempts to list the contents of the directory pointed to by the URL provided. If successful, it returns a malloced array of url_ent structures. The url_ent structure is defined as follows in <fetch.h>: struct url_ent { char name[PATH_MAX]; struct url_stat stat; }; The list is terminated by an entry with an empty name. The pointer returned by fetchListURL() should be freed using free(). fetchXGet(), fetchGet(), fetchPut() and fetchStat() are similar to fetchXGetURL(), fetchGetURL(), fetchPutURL() and fetchStatURL(), except that they expect a pre-parsed URL in the form of a pointer to a struct url rather than a string. All of the fetchXGetXXX(), fetchGetXXX() and fetchPutXXX() functions return a pointer to a stream which can be used to read or write data from or to the requested document, respectively. Note that although the implementa- tion details of the individual access methods vary, it can generally be as- sumed that a stream returned by one of the fetchXGetXXX() or fetchGetXXX() functions is read-only, and that a stream returned by one of the fetch- PutXXX() functions is write-only. FILE SCHEME fetchXGetFile(), fetchGetFile() and fetchPutFile() provide access to docu- ments which are files in a locally mounted file system. Only the <docu- ment> component of the URL is used. fetchXGetFile() and fetchGetFile() do not accept any flags. fetchPutFile() accepts the `a' (append to file) flag. If that flag is specified, the data written to the stream returned by fetchPutFile() will be appended to the previous contents of the file, instead of replacing them. FTP SCHEME fetchXGetFTP(), fetchGetFTP() and fetchPutFTP() implement the FTP protocol as described in RFC959. If the `P' (not passive) flag is specified, an active (rather than passive) connection will be attempted. The `p' flag is supported for compatibility with earlier versions where ac- tive connections were the default. It has precedence over the `P' flag, so if both are specified, fetchMakeURL will use a passive connection. If the `l' (low) flag is specified, data sockets will be allocated in the low (or default) port range instead of the high port range (see ip(4)). If the `d' (direct) flag is specified, fetchXGetFTP(), fetchGetFTP() and fetchPutFTP() will use a direct connection even if a proxy server is de- fined. If no user name or password is given, the fetch library will attempt an anonymous login, with user name "anonymous" and password "anonymous@<host- name>". HTTP SCHEME The fetchXGetHTTP(), fetchGetHTTP(), fetchPutHTTP() and fetchReqHTTP() functions implement the HTTP/1.1 protocol. With a little luck, there is even a chance that they comply with RFC2616 and RFC2617. If the `d' (direct) flag is specified, fetchXGetHTTP(), fetchGetHTTP() and fetchPutHTTP() will use a direct connection even if a proxy server is de- fined. If the `i' (if-modified-since) flag is specified, and the ims_time field is set in struct url, then fetchXGetHTTP() and fetchGetHTTP() will send a con- ditional If-Modified-Since HTTP header to only fetch the content if it is newer than ims_time. The function fetchReqHTTP() can be used to make requests with an arbitrary HTTP verb, including POST, DELETE, CONNECT, OPTIONS, TRACE or PATCH. This can be done by setting the argument method to the intended verb, such as `POST', and body to the content. Since there seems to be no good way of implementing the HTTP PUT method in a manner consistent with the rest of the fetch library, fetchPutHTTP() is currently unimplemented. HTTPS SCHEME Based on HTTP SCHEME. The CA bundle used for peer verification can be changed by setting the environment variables SSL_CA_CERT_FILE to point to a concatenated bundle of trusted certificates and SSL_CA_CERT_PATH to point to a directory containing hashes of trusted CAs (see verify(1)). A certificate revocation list (CRL) can be used by setting the environment variable SSL_CRL_FILE (see crl(1)). Peer verification can be disabled by setting the environment variable SSL_NO_VERIFY_PEER. Note that this also disables CRL checking. By default the service identity is verified according to the rules detailed in RFC6125 (also known as hostname verification). This feature can be dis- abled by setting the environment variable SSL_NO_VERIFY_HOSTNAME. Client certificate based authentication is supported. The environment variable SSL_CLIENT_CERT_FILE should be set to point to a file containing key and client certificate to be used in PEM format. When a PEM-format key is in a separate file from the client certificate, the environment variable SSL_CLIENT_KEY_FILE can be set to point to the key file. In case the key uses a password, the user will be prompted on standard input. By default libfetch allows TLSv1 and newer when negotiating the connecting with the remote peer. You can change this behavior by setting the SSL_NO_TLS1, SSL_NO_TLS1_1, SSL_NO_TLS1_2 and SSL_NO_TLS1_3 environment variables to disable TLS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 respectively. AUTHENTICATION Apart from setting the appropriate environment variables and specifying the user name and password in the URL or the struct url, the calling program has the option of defining an authentication function with the following prototype: int myAuthMethod(struct url *u) The callback function should fill in the user and pwd fields in the pro- vided struct url and return 0 on success, or any other value to indicate failure. To register the authentication callback, simply set fetchAuthMethod to point at it. The callback will be used whenever a site requires authenti- cation and the appropriate environment variables are not set. This interface is experimental and may be subject to change. RETURN VALUES fetchParseURL() returns a pointer to a struct url containing the individual components of the URL. If it is unable to allocate memory, or the URL is syntactically incorrect, fetchParseURL() returns a NULL pointer. The fetchStat() functions return 0 on success and -1 on failure. All other functions return a stream pointer which may be used to access the requested document, or NULL if an error occurred. The following error codes are defined in <fetch.h>: [FETCH_ABORT] Operation aborted [FETCH_AUTH] Authentication failed [FETCH_DOWN] Service unavailable [FETCH_EXISTS] File exists [FETCH_FULL] File system full [FETCH_INFO] Informational response [FETCH_MEMORY] Insufficient memory [FETCH_MOVED] File has moved [FETCH_NETWORK] Network error [FETCH_OK] No error [FETCH_PROTO] Protocol error [FETCH_RESOLV] Resolver error [FETCH_SERVER] Server error [FETCH_TEMP] Temporary error [FETCH_TIMEOUT] Operation timed out [FETCH_UNAVAIL] File is not available [FETCH_UNKNOWN] Unknown error [FETCH_URL] Invalid URL The accompanying error message includes a protocol-specific error code and message, like "File is not available (404 Not Found)" ENVIRONMENT FETCH_BIND_ADDRESS Specifies a hostname or IP address to which sockets used for outgoing connections will be bound. FTP_LOGIN Default FTP login if none was provided in the URL. FTP_PASSIVE_MODE If set to `no', forces the FTP code to use active mode. If set to any other value, forces passive mode even if the application requested active mode. FTP_PASSWORD Default FTP password if the remote server requests one and none was provided in the URL. FTP_PROXY URL of the proxy to use for FTP requests. The document part is ignored. FTP and HTTP proxies are supported; if no scheme is specified, FTP is assumed. If the proxy is an FTP proxy, libfetch will send `user@host' as user name to the proxy, where `user' is the real user name, and `host' is the name of the FTP server. If this variable is set to an empty string, no proxy will be used for FTP requests, even if the HTTP_PROXY variable is set. ftp_proxy Same as FTP_PROXY, for compatibility. HTTP_ACCEPT Specifies the value of the Accept header for HTTP re- quests. If empty, no Accept header is sent. The de- fault is "*/*". HTTP_AUTH Specifies HTTP authorization parameters as a colon-sep- arated list of items. The first and second item are the authorization scheme and realm respectively; fur- ther items are scheme-dependent. Currently, the "basic" and "digest" authorization methods are sup- ported. Both methods require two parameters: the user name and password, in that order. This variable is only used if the server requires au- thorization and no user name or password was specified in the URL. HTTP_PROXY URL of the proxy to use for HTTP requests. The docu- ment part is ignored. Only HTTP proxies are supported for HTTP requests. If no port number is specified, the default is 3128. Note that this proxy will also be used for FTP docu- ments, unless the FTP_PROXY variable is set. http_proxy Same as HTTP_PROXY, for compatibility. HTTP_PROXY_AUTH Specifies authorization parameters for the HTTP proxy in the same format as the HTTP_AUTH variable. This variable is used if and only if connected to an HTTP proxy, and is ignored if a user and/or a password were specified in the proxy URL. HTTP_REFERER Specifies the referrer URL to use for HTTP requests. If set to "auto", the document URL will be used as re- ferrer URL. HTTP_USER_AGENT Specifies the User-Agent string to use for HTTP re- quests. This can be useful when working with HTTP ori- gin or proxy servers that differentiate between user agents. If defined but empty, no User-Agent header is sent. NETRC Specifies a file to use instead of ~/.netrc to look up login names and passwords for FTP and HTTP sites as well as HTTP proxies. See ftp(1) for a description of the file format. NO_PROXY 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_proxy Same as NO_PROXY, for compatibility. SOCKS5_PROXY Uses SOCKS version 5 to make connection. The format must be the IP or hostname followed by a colon for the port. IPv6 addresses must enclose the address in brackets. If no port is specified, the default is 1080. This setting will supercede a connection to an HTTP_PROXY. SSL_CA_CERT_FILE CA certificate bundle containing trusted CA certifi- cates. Default value: See HTTPS SCHEME above. SSL_CA_CERT_PATH Path containing trusted CA hashes. SSL_CLIENT_CERT_FILE PEM encoded client certificate/key which will be used in client certificate authentication. SSL_CLIENT_KEY_FILE PEM encoded client key in case key and client certifi- cate are stored separately. SSL_CRL_FILE File containing certificate revocation list. SSL_NO_TLS1 Do not allow TLS version 1.0 when negotiating the con- nection. SSL_NO_TLS1_1 Do not allow TLS version 1.1 when negotiating the con- nection. SSL_NO_TLS1_2 Do not allow TLS version 1.2 when negotiating the con- nection. SSL_NO_TLS1_3 Do not allow TLS version 1.3 when negotiating the con- nection. SSL_NO_VERIFY_HOSTNAME If set, do not verify that the hostname matches the subject of the certificate presented by the server. SSL_NO_VERIFY_PEER If set, do not verify the peer certificate against trusted CAs. EXAMPLES To access a proxy server on proxy.example.com port 8080, set the HTTP_PROXY environment variable in a manner similar to this: HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.example.com:8080 If the proxy server requires authentication, there are two options avail- able for passing the authentication data. The first method is by using the proxy URL: HTTP_PROXY=http://<user>:<pwd>@proxy.example.com:8080 The second method is by using the HTTP_PROXY_AUTH environment variable: HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.example.com:8080 HTTP_PROXY_AUTH=basic:*:<user>:<pwd> To disable the use of a proxy for an HTTP server running on the local host, define NO_PROXY as follows: NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1 To use a SOCKS5 proxy, set the SOCKS5_PROXY environment variable to a valid host or IP followed by an optional colon and the port. IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in brackets. The following are examples of valid settings: SOCKS5_PROXY=proxy.example.com SOCKS5_PROXY=proxy.example.com:1080 SOCKS5_PROXY=192.0.2.0 SOCKS5_PROXY=198.51.100.0:1080 SOCKS5_PROXY=[2001:db8::1] SOCKS5_PROXY=[2001:db8::2]:1080 Access HTTPS website without any certificate verification whatsoever: SSL_NO_VERIFY_PEER=1 SSL_NO_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=1 Access HTTPS website using client certificate based authentication and a private CA: SSL_CLIENT_CERT_FILE=/path/to/client.pem SSL_CA_CERT_FILE=/path/to/myca.pem SEE ALSO fetch(1), ip(4) J. Postel and J. K. Reynolds, File Transfer Protocol, October 1985, RFC959. P. Deutsch, A. Emtage, and A. Marine., How to Use Anonymous FTP, May 1994, RFC1635. T. Berners-Lee, L. Masinter, and M. McCahill, Uniform Resource Locators (URL), December 1994, RFC1738. R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P. Leach, and T. Berners-Lee, Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1, January 1999, RFC2616. J. Franks, P. Hallam-Baker, J. Hostetler, S. Lawrence, P. Leach, A. Luoto- nen, and L. Stewart, HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authenti- cation, June 1999, RFC2617. HISTORY The fetch library first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0. AUTHORS The fetch library was mostly written by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org> with numerous suggestions and contributions from Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org>, Eugene Skepner <eu@qub.com>, Hajimu Umemoto <ume@FreeBSD.org>, Henry Whincup <henry@techiebod.com>, Jukka A. Ukkonen <jau@iki.fi>, Jean-Francois Dockes <jf@dockes.org>, Michael Gmelin <freebsd@grem.de> and others. It replaces the older ftpio library written by Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.org> and Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org>. This manual page was written by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org> and Michael Gmelin <freebsd@grem.de>. BUGS Some parts of the library are not yet implemented. The most notable exam- ples of this are fetchPutHTTP(), fetchListHTTP(), fetchListFTP() and FTP proxy support. There is no way to select a proxy at run-time other than setting the HTTP_PROXY or FTP_PROXY environment variables as appropriate. libfetch does not understand or obey 305 (Use Proxy) replies. Error numbers are unique only within a certain context; the error codes used for FTP and HTTP overlap, as do those used for resolver and system er- rors. For instance, error code 202 means "Command not implemented, super- fluous at this site" in an FTP context and "Accepted" in an HTTP context. fetchStatFTP() does not check that the result of an MDTM command is a valid date. In case password protected keys are used for client certificate based au- thentication the user is prompted for the password on each and every fetch operation. The man page is incomplete, poorly written and produces badly formatted text. The error reporting mechanism is unsatisfactory. Some parts of the code are not fully reentrant. FreeBSD ports 15.1 January 22, 2026 FETCH(3)
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILE SCHEME | FTP SCHEME | HTTP SCHEME | HTTPS SCHEME | AUTHENTICATION | RETURN VALUES | ENVIRONMENT | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | BUGS
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