Windows PowerShell command on Get-command curl

Manual Pages for UNIX Operating System command usage for man curl

Curl Manual curl(1)

NAME

curl - transfer a URL

SYNOPSIS

curl [options] [URL...]

DESCRIPTION

curl is a tool to transfer data from or to a server, using

one of the supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, DICT, TELNET, LDAP or FILE). The command is designed to work without user interaction.

curl offers a busload of useful tricks like proxy support,

user authentication, FTP upload, HTTP post, SSL connections, cookies, file transfer resume and more. As you will see below, the number of features will make your head spin!

curl is powered by libcurl for all transfer-related

features. See libcurl(3) for details.

URL

The URL syntax is protocol-dependent. You'll find a detailed

description in RFC 3986. You can specify multiple URLs or parts of URLs by writing part sets within braces as in: http://site.{one,two,three}.com or you can get sequences of alphanumeric series by using [] as in:

ftp://ftp.numericals.com/file[1-100].txt

ftp://ftp.numericals.com/file[001-100].txt (with leading

zeros)

ftp://ftp.letters.com/file[a-z].txt

No nesting of the sequences is supported at the moment, but you can use several ones next to each other:

http://any.org/archive[1996-1999]/vol[1-4]/part{a,b,c}.html

You can specify any amount of URLs on the command line. They will be fetched in a sequential manner in the specified order.

Since curl 7.15.1 you can also specify a step counter for

the ranges, so that you can get every Nth number or letter:

http://www.numericals.com/file[1-100:10].txt

http://www.letters.com/file[a-z:2].txt

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If you specify URL without protocol:// prefix, curl will

attempt to guess what protocol you might want. It will then

default to HTTP but try other protocols based on often-used

host name prefixes. For example, for host names starting

with "ftp." curl will assume you want to speak FTP.

curl will do its best to use what you pass to it as a URL.

It is not trying to validate it as a syntactically correct URL by any means but is instead very liberal with what it accepts.

Curl will attempt to re-use connections for multiple file

transfers, so that getting many files from the same server will not do multiple connects / handshakes. This improves speed. Of course this is only done on files specified on a

single command line and cannot be used between separate curl

invokes. PROGRESS METER

curl normally displays a progress meter during operations,

indicating the amount of transferred data, transfer speeds and estimated time left, etc.

However, since curl displays this data to the terminal by

default, if you invoke curl to do an operation and it is

about to write data to the terminal, it disables the pro-

gress meter as otherwise it would mess up the output mixing progress meter and response data. If you want a progress meter for HTTP POST or PUT requests, you need to redirect the response output to a file, using

shell redirect (>), -o [file] or similar.

It is not the same case for FTP upload as that operation does not spit out any response data to the terminal. If you prefer a progress "bar" instead of the regular meter,

-# is your friend.

OPTIONS

In general, all boolean options are enabled with --option

and yet again disabled with --no-option. That is, you use

the exact same option name but prefix it with "no-". How-

ever, in this list we mostly only list and show the --option

version of them. (This concept with --no options was added

in 7.19.0. Previously most options were toggled on/off on repeated use of the same command line option.)

-a/--append

(FTP/SFTP) When used in an upload, this will tell curl

to append to the target file instead of overwriting it. If the file doesn't exist, it will be created. Note Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 2

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that this flag is ignored by some SSH servers (includ-

ing OpenSSH).

-A/--user-agent

(HTTP) Specify the User-Agent string to send to the

HTTP server. Some badly done CGIs fail if this field isn't set to "Mozilla/4.0". To encode blanks in the string, surround the string with single quote marks.

This can also be set with the -H/--header option of

course. If this option is set more than once, the last one will be the one that's used.

--anyauth

(HTTP) Tells curl to figure out authentication method

by itself, and use the most secure one the remote site claims to support. This is done by first doing a

request and checking the response-headers, thus possi-

bly inducing an extra network round-trip. This is used

instead of setting a specific authentication method,

which you can do with --basic, --digest, --ntlm, and

--negotiate.

Note that using --anyauth is not recommended if you do

uploads from stdin, since it may require data to be sent twice and then the client must be able to rewind. If the need should arise when uploading from stdin, the upload operation will fail.

-b/--cookie

(HTTP) Pass the data to the HTTP server as a cookie. It is supposedly the data previously received from the

server in a "Set-Cookie:" line. The data should be in

the format "NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2".

If no '=' symbol is used in the line, it is treated as a filename to use to read previously stored cookie lines from, which should be used in this session if they match. Using this method also activates the

"cookie parser" which will make curl record incoming

cookies too, which may be handy if you're using this in

combination with the -L/--location option. The file

format of the file to read cookies from should be plain

HTTP headers or the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file for-

mat.

NOTE that the file specified with -b/--cookie is only

used as input. No cookies will be stored in the file.

To store cookies, use the -c/--cookie-jar option or you

could even save the HTTP headers to a file using -D/--

dump-header!

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If this option is set more than once, the last one will be the one that's used.

-B/--use-ascii

Enable ASCII transfer when using FTP or LDAP. For FTP, this can also be enforced by using an URL that ends with ";type=A". This option causes data sent to stdout to be in text mode for win32 systems.

--basic

(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP Basic authentication.

This is the default and this option is usually point-

less, unless you use it to override a previously set option that sets a different authentication method

(such as --ntlm, --digest, or --negotiate).

--ciphers

(SSL) Specifies which ciphers to use in the connection. The list of ciphers must specify valid ciphers. Read up on SSL cipher list details on this URL: http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html NSS ciphers are done differently than OpenSSL and

GnuTLS. The full list of NSS ciphers is in the NSSCi-

pherSuite entry at this URL:

http://directory.fedora.redhat.com/docs/mod_nss.html#Directives

If this option is used several times, the last one will override the others.

--compressed

(HTTP) Request a compressed response using one of the

algorithms libcurl supports, and return the

uncompressed document. If this option is used and the

server sends an unsupported encoding, curl will report

an error.

--connect-timeout

Maximum time in seconds that you allow the connection to the server to take. This only limits the connection

phase, once curl has connected this option is of no

more use. See also the -m/--max-time option.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-c/--cookie-jar

Specify to which file you want curl to write all cook-

ies after a completed operation. Curl writes all cook-

ies previously read from a specified file as well as

all cookies received from remote server(s). If no cook-

ies are known, no file will be written. The file will Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 4

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be written using the Netscape cookie file format. If

you set the file name to a single dash, "-", the cook-

ies will be written to stdout. NOTE If the cookie jar can't be created or written to,

the whole curl operation won't fail or even report an

error clearly. Using -v will get a warning displayed,

but that is the only visible feedback you get about this possibly lethal situation.

If this option is used several times, the last speci-

fied file name will be used.

-C/--continue-at

Continue/Resume a previous file transfer at the given offset. The given offset is the exact number of bytes that will be skipped, counting from the beginning of

the source file before it is transferred to the desti-

nation. If used with uploads, the FTP server command

SIZE will not be used by curl.

Use "-C -" to tell curl to automatically find out

where/how to resume the transfer. It then uses the given output/input files to figure that out. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--create-dirs

When used in conjunction with the -o option, curl will

create the necessary local directory hierarchy as needed. This option creates the dirs mentioned with the

-o option, nothing else. If the -o file name uses no

dir or if the dirs it mentions already exist, no dir will be created. To create remote directories when using FTP or SFTP,

try --ftp-create-dirs.

--crlf

(FTP) Convert LF to CRLF in upload. Useful for MVS (OS/390).

--crlfile

(HTTPS/FTPS) Provide a file using PEM format with a

Certificate Revocation List that may specify peer cer-

tificates that are to be considered revoked. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used. (Added in 7.19.7) Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 5

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-d/--data

(HTTP) Sends the specified data in a POST request to the HTTP server, in the same way that a browser does when a user has filled in an HTML form and presses the

submit button. This will cause curl to pass the data to

the server using the content-type application/x-www-

form-urlencoded. Compare to -F/--form.

-d/--data is the same as --data-ascii. To post data

purely binary, you should instead use the --data-binary

option. To URL-encode the value of a form field you may

use --data-urlencode.

If any of these options is used more than once on the same command line, the data pieces specified will be

merged together with a separating &-symbol. Thus, using

'-d name=daniel -d skill=lousy' would generate a post

chunk that looks like 'name=daniel&skill=lousy'. If you start the data with the letter @, the rest

should be a file name to read the data from, or - if

you want curl to read the data from stdin. The con-

tents of the file must already be URL-encoded. Multiple

files can also be specified. Posting data from a file

named 'foobar' would thus be done with --data @foobar.

--data-binary

(HTTP) This posts data exactly as specified with no extra processing whatsoever. If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename. Data is posted in a similar

manner as --data-ascii does, except that newlines are

preserved and conversions are never done.

If this option is used several times, the ones follow-

ing the first will append data as described in -d/--

data.

--data-urlencode

(HTTP) This posts data, similar to the other --data

options with the exception that this performs URL-

encoding. (Added in 7.18.0)

To be CGI-compliant, the part should begin with

a name followed by a separator and a content specifica-

tion. The part can be passed to curl using one

of the following syntaxes: content

This will make curl URL-encode the content and

pass that on. Just be careful so that the content Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 6

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doesn't contain any = or @ symbols, as that will then make the syntax match one of the other cases below! =content

This will make curl URL-encode the content and

pass that on. The preceding = symbol is not included in the data. name=content

This will make curl URL-encode the content part

and pass that on. Note that the name part is

expected to be URL-encoded already.

@filename

This will make curl load data from the given file

(including any newlines), URL-encode that data and

pass it on in the POST. name@filename

This will make curl load data from the given file

(including any newlines), URL-encode that data and

pass it on in the POST. The name part gets an equal sign appended, resulting in

name=urlencoded-file-content. Note that the name

is expected to be URL-encoded already.

--digest

(HTTP) Enables HTTP Digest authentication. This is a authentication that prevents the password from being

sent over the wire in clear text. Use this in combina-

tion with the normal -u/--user option to set user name

and password. See also --ntlm, --negotiate and --

anyauth for related options. If this option is used several times, the following occurrences make no difference.

--disable-eprt

(FTP) Tell curl to disable the use of the EPRT and LPRT

commands when doing active FTP transfers. Curl will normally always first attempt to use EPRT, then LPRT before using PORT, but with this option, it will use PORT right away. EPRT and LPRT are extensions to the original FTP protocol, and may not work on all servers, but they enable more functionality in a better way than the traditional PORT command.

Since curl 7.19.0, --eprt can be used to explicitly

enable EPRT again and --no-eprt is an alias for --

disable-eprt.

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Disabling EPRT only changes the active behavior. If you want to switch to passive mode you need to not use

-P/--ftp-port or force it with --ftp-pasv.

--disable-epsv

(FTP) Tell curl to disable the use of the EPSV command

when doing passive FTP transfers. Curl will normally always first attempt to use EPSV before PASV, but with this option, it will not try using EPSV.

Since curl 7.19.0, --epsv can be used to explicitly

enable EPRT again and --no-epsv is an alias for --

disable-epsv.

Disabling EPSV only changes the passive behavior. If

you want to switch to active mode you need to use -P/-

-ftp-port.

-D/--dump-header

Write the protocol headers to the specified file. This option is handy to use when you want to store the headers that a HTTP site sends to you. Cookies from the

headers could then be read in a second curl invocation

by using the -b/--cookie option! The -c/--cookie-jar

option is however a better way to store cookies. When used in FTP, the FTP server response lines are considered being "headers" and thus are saved there. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-e/--referer

(HTTP) Sends the "Referer Page" information to the HTTP

server. This can also be set with the -H/--header flag

of course. When used with -L/--location you can append

";auto" to the --referer URL to make curl automatically

set the previous URL when it follows a Location: header. The ";auto" string can be used alone, even if

you don't set an initial --referer.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--engine

Select the OpenSSL crypto engine to use for cipher

operations. Use --engine list to print a list of

build-time supported engines. Note that not all (or

none) of the engines may be available at run-time.

--environment

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(RISC OS ONLY) Sets a range of environment variables,

using the names the -w option supports, to allow easier

extraction of useful information after having run curl.

--egd-file

(SSL) Specify the path name to the Entropy Gathering Daemon socket. The socket is used to seed the random

engine for SSL connections. See also the --random-file

option.

-E/--cert

(SSL) Tells curl to use the specified certificate file

when getting a file with HTTPS or FTPS. The certificate must be in PEM format. If the optional password isn't specified, it will be queried for on the terminal. Note that this option assumes a "certificate" file that is

the private key and the private certificate con-

catenated! See --cert and --key to specify them

independently.

If curl is built against the NSS SSL library then this

option tells curl the nickname of the certificate to

use within the NSS database defined by the environment

variable SSL_DIR (or by default /etc/pki/nssdb). If the

NSS PEM PKCS#11 module (libnsspem.so) is available then

PEM files may be loaded. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--cert-type

(SSL) Tells curl what certificate type the provided

certificate is in. PEM, DER and ENG are recognized types. If not specified, PEM is assumed. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--cacert

(SSL) Tells curl to use the specified certificate file

to verify the peer. The file may contain multiple CA certificates. The certificate(s) must be in PEM format.

Normally curl is built to use a default file for this,

so this option is typically used to alter that default file.

curl recognizes the environment variable named

'CURL_CA_BUNDLE' if it is set, and uses the given path

as a path to a CA cert bundle. This option overrides that variable.

The windows version of curl will automatically look for

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a CA certs file named 'curl-ca-bundle.crt', either in

the same directory as curl.exe, or in the Current Work-

ing Directory, or in any folder along your PATH.

If curl is built against the NSS SSL library then this

option tells curl the nickname of the CA certificate to

use within the NSS database defined by the environment

variable SSL_DIR (or by default /etc/pki/nssdb). If

the NSS PEM PKCS#11 module (libnsspem.so) is available

then PEM files may be loaded. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--capath

(SSL) Tells curl to use the specified certificate

directory to verify the peer. The certificates must be

in PEM format, and the directory must have been pro-

cessed using the c_rehash utility supplied with

openssl. Using --capath can allow curl to make SSL-

connections much more efficiently than using --cacert

if the --cacert file contains many CA certificates.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-f/--fail

(HTTP) Fail silently (no output at all) on server errors. This is mostly done to better enable scripts etc to better deal with failed attempts. In normal cases when a HTTP server fails to deliver a document, it returns an HTML document stating so (which often also describes why and more). This flag will prevent

curl from outputting that and return error 22.

This method is not fail-safe and there are occasions

where non-successful response codes will slip through,

especially when authentication is involved (response codes 401 and 407).

--ftp-account [data]

(FTP) When an FTP server asks for "account data" after user name and password has been provided, this data is sent off using the ACCT command. (Added in 7.13.0) If this option is used twice, the second will override the previous use.

--ftp-create-dirs

(FTP/SFTP) When an FTP or SFTP URL/operation uses a path that doesn't currently exist on the server, the

standard behavior of curl is to fail. Using this

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option, curl will instead attempt to create missing

directories.

--ftp-method [method]

(FTP) Control what method curl should use to reach a

file on a FTP(S) server. The method argument should be one of the following alternatives: multicwd

curl does a single CWD operation for each path

part in the given URL. For deep hierarchies this means very many commands. This is how RFC1738 says it should be done. This is the default but the slowest behavior. nocwd

curl does no CWD at all. curl will do SIZE, RETR,

STOR etc and give a full path to the server for all these commands. This is the fastest behavior. singlecwd

curl does one CWD with the full target directory

and then operates on the file "normally" (like in

the multicwd case). This is somewhat more stan-

dards compliant than 'nocwd' but without the full penalty of 'multicwd'. (Added in 7.15.1)

--ftp-pasv

(FTP) Use passive mode for the data conection. Passive is the internal default behavior, but using this option

can be used to override a previous -P/-ftp-port option.

(Added in 7.11.0) If this option is used several times, the following occurrences make no difference. Undoing an enforced passive really isn't doable but you must then instead

enforce the correct -P/--ftp-port again.

Passive mode means that curl will try the EPSV command

first and then PASV, unless --disable-epsv is used.

--ftp-alternative-to-user

(FTP) If authenticating with the USER and PASS commands fails, send this command. When connecting to Tumbleweed's Secure Transport server over FTPS using a client certificate, using "SITE AUTH" will tell the server to retrieve the username from the certificate. (Added in 7.15.5)

--ftp-skip-pasv-ip

(FTP) Tell curl to not use the IP address the server

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suggests in its response to curl's PASV command when

curl connects the data connection. Instead curl will

re-use the same IP address it already uses for the con-

trol connection. (Added in 7.14.2) This option has no effect if PORT, EPRT or EPSV is used instead of PASV.

--ftp-pret

(FTP) Tell curl to send a PRET command before PASV (and

EPSV). Certain FTP servers, mainly drftpd, require this

non-standard command for directory listings as well as

up and downloads in PASV mode. (Added in 7.20.x)

--ssl

(FTP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP) Try to use SSL/TLS for the con-

nection. Reverts to a non-secure connection if the

server doesn't support SSL/TLS. See also --ftp-ssl-

control and --ssl-reqd for different levels of encryp-

tion required. (Added in 7.20.0)

This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl (Added in

7.11.0) and that can still be used but will be removed in a future version.

--ftp-ssl-control

(FTP) Require SSL/TLS for the FTP login, clear for

transfer. Allows secure authentication, but non-

encrypted data transfers for efficiency. Fails the

transfer if the server doesn't support SSL/TLS. (Added in 7.16.0)

--ssl-reqd

(FTP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP) Require SSL/TLS for the connec-

tion. Terminates the connection if the server doesn't

support SSL/TLS. (Added in 7.20.0)

This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl-reqd (added

in 7.15.5) and that can still be used but will be removed in a future version.

--ftp-ssl-ccc

(FTP) Use CCC (Clear Command Channel) Shuts down the

SSL/TLS layer after authenticating. The rest of the control channel communication will be unencrypted. This allows NAT routers to follow the FTP transaction. The

default mode is passive. See --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode for

other modes. (Added in 7.16.1)

--ftp-ssl-ccc-mode [active/passive]

(FTP) Use CCC (Clear Command Channel) Sets the CCC mode. The passive mode will not initiate the shutdown, Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 12

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but instead wait for the server to do it, and will not reply to the shutdown from the server. The active mode initiates the shutdown and waits for a reply from the server. (Added in 7.16.2)

-F/--form

(HTTP) This lets curl emulate a filled-in form in which

a user has pressed the submit button. This causes curl

to POST data using the Content-Type multipart/form-data

according to RFC2388. This enables uploading of binary files etc. To force the 'content' part to be a file, prefix the file name with an @ sign. To just get the content part from a file, prefix the file name with the symbol <. The difference between @ and < is then that @ makes a file get attached in the post as a file upload,

while the < makes a text field and just get the con-

tents for that text field from a file. Example, to send your password file to the server,

where 'password' is the name of the form-field to which

/etc/passwd will be the input:

curl -F password=@/etc/passwd www.mypasswords.com

To read the file's content from stdin instead of a

file, use - where the file name should've been. This

goes for both @ and < constructs.

You can also tell curl what Content-Type to use by

using 'type=', in a manner similar to:

curl -F "web=@index.html;type=text/html" url.com

curl -F "name=daniel;type=text/foo" url.com

You can also explicitly change the name field of an file upload part by setting filename=, like this:

curl -F "file=@localfile;filename=nameinpost" url.com

See further examples and details in the MANUAL. This option can be used multiple times.

--form-string

(HTTP) Similar to --form except that the value string

for the named parameter is used literally. Leading '@' and '<' characters, and the ';type=' string in the value have no special meaning. Use this in preference

to --form if there's any possibility that the string

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value may accidentally trigger the '@' or '<' features

of --form.

-g/--globoff

This option switches off the "URL globbing parser". When you set this option, you can specify URLs that contain the letters {}[] without having them being

interpreted by curl itself. Note that these letters are

not normal legal URL contents but they should be encoded according to the URI standard.

-G/--get

When used, this option will make all data specified

with -d/--data or --data-binary to be used in a HTTP

GET request instead of the POST request that otherwise would be used. The data will be appended to the URL with a '?' separator.

If used in combination with -I, the POST data will

instead be appended to the URL with a HEAD request. If this option is used several times, the following occurrences make no difference. This is because undoing a GET doesn't make sense, but you should then instead enforce the alternative method you prefer.

-h/--help

Usage help.

-H/--header

(HTTP) Extra header to use when getting a web page. You may specify any number of extra headers. Note that if you should add a custom header that has the same name

as one of the internal ones curl would use, your exter-

nally set header will be used instead of the internal one. This allows you to make even trickier stuff than

curl would normally do. You should not replace inter-

nally set headers without knowing perfectly well what you're doing. Remove an internal header by giving a replacement without content on the right side of the

colon, as in: -H "Host:".

curl will make sure that each header you add/replace is

sent with the proper end-of-line marker, you should

thus not add that as a part of the header content: do not add newlines or carriage returns, they will only mess things up for you.

See also the -A/--user-agent and -e/--referer options.

This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove multiple headers. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 14

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--hostpubmd5

Pass a string containing 32 hexadecimal digits. The string should be the 128 bit MD5 checksum of the remote

host's public key, curl will refuse the connection with

the host unless the md5sums match. This option is only for SCP and SFTP transfers. (Added in 7.17.1)

--ignore-content-length

(HTTP) Ignore the Content-Length header. This is par-

ticularly useful for servers running Apache 1.x, which

will report incorrect Content-Length for files larger

than 2 gigabytes.

-i/--include

(HTTP) Include the HTTP-header in the output. The

HTTP-header includes things like server-name, date of

the document, HTTP-version and more...

--interface

Perform an operation using a specified interface. You can enter interface name, IP address or host name. An example could look like:

curl --interface eth0:1 http://www.netscape.com/

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-I/--head

(HTTP/FTP/FILE) Fetch the HTTP-header only! HTTP-

servers feature the command HEAD which this uses to get nothing but the header of a document. When used on a

FTP or FILE file, curl displays the file size and last

modification time only.

-j/--junk-session-cookies

(HTTP) When curl is told to read cookies from a given

file, this option will make it discard all "session cookies". This will basically have the same effect as if a new session is started. Typical browsers always discard session cookies when they're closed down.

-J/--remote-header-name

(HTTP) This option tells the -O/--remote-name option to

use the server-specified Content-Disposition filename

instead of extracting a filename from the URL.

-k/--insecure

(SSL) This option explicitly allows curl to perform

"insecure" SSL connections and transfers. All SSL con-

nections are attempted to be made secure by using the CA certificate bundle installed by default. This makes Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 15

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all connections considered "insecure" fail unless -k/-

-insecure is used.

See this online resource for further details:

http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html

--keepalive-time

This option sets the time a connection needs to remain idle before sending keepalive probes and the time between individual keepalive probes. It is currently effective on operating systems offering the

TCP_KEEPIDLE and TCP_KEEPINTVL socket options (meaning

Linux, recent AIX, HP-UX and more). This option has no

effect if --no-keepalive is used. (Added in 7.18.0)

If this option is used multiple times, the last occurrence sets the amount.

--key

(SSL/SSH) Private key file name. Allows you to provide your private key in this separate file. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--key-type

(SSL) Private key file type. Specify which type your

--key provided private key is. DER, PEM, and ENG are

supported. If not specified, PEM is assumed. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--krb

(FTP) Enable Kerberos authentication and use. The level must be entered and should be one of 'clear', 'safe', 'confidential', or 'private'. Should you use a level that is not one of these, 'private' will instead be used. This option requires a library built with kerberos4 or

GSSAPI (GSS-Negotiate) support. This is not very com-

mon. Use -V/--version to see if your curl supports it.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-K/--config

Specify which config file to read curl arguments from.

The config file is a text file in which command line arguments can be written which then will be used as if they were written on the actual command line. Options Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 16

Curl Manual curl(1)

and their parameters must be specified on the same con-

fig file line, separated by whitespace, colon, the equals sign or any combination thereof (however, the

preferred separator is the equals sign). If the parame-

ter is to contain whitespace, the parameter must be

enclosed within quotes. Within double quotes, the fol-

lowing escape sequences are available: \\, \", \t, \n, \r and \v. A backslash preceding any other letter is

ignored. If the first column of a config line is a '#'

character, the rest of the line will be treated as a comment. Only write one option per physical line in the config file.

Specify the filename to -K/--config as '-' to make curl

read the file from stdin. Note that to be able to specify a URL in the config

file, you need to specify it using the --url option,

and not by simply writing the URL on its own line. So, it could look similar to this:

url = "http://curl.haxx.se/docs/"

Long option names can optionally be given in the config file without the initial double dashes.

When curl is invoked, it always (unless -q is used)

checks for a default config file and uses it if found. The default config file is checked for in the following places in this order:

1) curl tries to find the "home dir": It first checks

for the CURL_HOME and then the HOME environment vari-

ables. Failing that, it uses getpwuid() on UNIX-like

systems (which returns the home dir given the current user in your system). On Windows, it then checks for the APPDATA variable, or as a last resort the

'%USERPROFILE%\Application Data'.

2) On windows, if there is no _curlrc file in the home

dir, it checks for one in the same dir the curl execut-

able is placed. On UNIX-like systems, it will simply

try to load .curlrc from the determined home dir.

# --- Example file ---

# this is a comment

url = "curl.haxx.se"

output = "curlhere.html"

user-agent = "superagent/1.0"

# and fetch another URL too

url = "curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html"

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-O

referer = "http://nowhereatall.com/"

# --- End of example file ---

This option can be used multiple times to load multiple config files.

--libcurl

Append this option to any ordinary curl command line,

and you will get a libcurl-using source code written to

the file that does the equivalent of what your

command-line operation does!

NOTE: this does not properly support -F and the sending

of multipart formposts, so in those cases the output program will be missing necessary calls to

curl_formadd(3), and possibly more.

If this option is used several times, the last given file name will be used. (Added in 7.16.1)

--limit-rate

Specify the maximum transfer rate you want curl to use.

This feature is useful if you have a limited pipe and you'd like your transfer not to use your entire bandwidth. The given speed is measured in bytes/second, unless a suffix is appended. Appending 'k' or 'K' will count the number as kilobytes, 'm' or M' makes it megabytes, while 'g' or 'G' makes it gigabytes. Examples: 200K, 3m and 1G. The given rate is the average speed counted during the

entire transfer. It means that curl might use higher

transfer speeds in short bursts, but over time it uses no more than the given rate.

If you also use the -Y/--speed-limit option, that

option will take precedence and might cripple the

rate-limiting slightly, to help keeping the speed-limit

logic working. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-l/--list-only

(FTP) When listing an FTP directory, this switch forces

a name-only view. Especially useful if you want to

machine-parse the contents of an FTP directory since

the normal directory view doesn't use a standard look or format. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 18

Curl Manual curl(1)

This option causes an FTP NLST command to be sent. Some FTP servers list only files in their response to NLST; they do not include subdirectories and symbolic links.

--local-port [-num]

Set a preferred number or range of local port numbers to use for the connection(s). Note that port numbers by nature are a scarce resource that will be busy at times so setting this range to something too narrow might cause unnecessary connection setup failures. (Added in 7.15.2)

-L/--location

(HTTP/HTTPS) If the server reports that the requested page has moved to a different location (indicated with a Location: header and a 3XX response code), this

option will make curl redo the request on the new

place. If used together with -i/--include or -I/--head,

headers from all requested pages will be shown. When

authentication is used, curl only sends its credentials

to the initial host. If a redirect takes curl to a dif-

ferent host, it won't be able to intercept the

user+password. See also --location-trusted on how to

change this. You can limit the amount of redirects to

follow by using the --max-redirs option.

When curl follows a redirect and the request is not a

plain GET (for example POST or PUT), it will do the following request with a GET if the HTTP response was 301, 302, or 303. If the response code was any other

3xx code, curl will re-send the following request using

the same unmodified method.

--location-trusted

(HTTP/HTTPS) Like -L/--location, but will allow sending

the name + password to all hosts that the site may redirect to. This may or may not introduce a security breach if the site redirects you to a site to which

you'll send your authentication info (which is plain-

text in the case of HTTP Basic authentication).

--mail-rcpt

(SMTP) Specify a single address that the given mail should get sent to. This option can be used multiple times to specify many recipients. (Added in 7.20.0)

--mail-from

(SMTP) Specify a single address that the given mail Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 19

Curl Manual curl(1)

should get sent from. (Added in 7.20.0)

--max-filesize

Specify the maximum size (in bytes) of a file to down-

load. If the file requested is larger than this value,

the transfer will not start and curl will return with

exit code 63.

NOTE: The file size is not always known prior to down-

load, and for such files this option has no effect even if the file transfer ends up being larger than this given limit. This concerns both FTP and HTTP transfers.

-m/--max-time

Maximum time in seconds that you allow the whole opera-

tion to take. This is useful for preventing your batch jobs from hanging for hours due to slow networks or

links going down. See also the --connect-timeout

option. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-M/--manual

Manual. Display the huge help text.

-n/--netrc

Makes curl scan the .netrc (_netrc on Windows) file in

the user's home directory for login name and password. This is typically used for FTP on UNIX. If used with

HTTP, curl will enable user authentication. See

netrc(4) or ftp(1) for details on the file format. Curl will not complain if that file doesn't have the right

permissions (it should not be either world- or group-

readable). The environment variable "HOME" is used to find the home directory. A quick and very simple example of how to setup a

.netrc to allow curl to FTP to the machine

host.domain.com with user name 'myself' and password 'secret' should look similar to: machine host.domain.com login myself password secret

--netrc-optional

Very similar to --netrc, but this option makes the

.netrc usage optional and not mandatory as the --netrc

option does.

--negotiate

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(HTTP) Enables GSS-Negotiate authentication. The GSS-

Negotiate method was designed by Microsoft and is used in their web applications. It is primarily meant as a support for Kerberos5 authentication but may be also used along with another authentication method. For more

information see IETF draft draft-brezak-spnego-http-

04.txt.

If you want to enable Negotiate for your proxy authen-

tication, then use --proxy-negotiate.

This option requires a library built with GSSAPI sup-

port. This is not very common. Use -V/--version to see

if your version supports GSS-Negotiate.

When using this option, you must also provide a fake

-u/--user option to activate the authentication code

properly. Sending a '-u :' is enough as the user name

and password from the -u option aren't actually used.

If this option is used several times, the following occurrences make no difference.

-N/--no-buffer

Disables the buffering of the output stream. In normal

work situations, curl will use a standard buffered out-

put stream that will have the effect that it will out-

put the data in chunks, not necessarily exactly when the data arrives. Using this option will disable that buffering. Note that this is the negated option name documented.

You can thus use --buffer to enforce the buffering.

--no-keepalive

Disables the use of keepalive messages on the TCP con-

nection, as by default curl enables them.

Note that this is the negated option name documented.

You can thus use --keepalive to enforce keepalive.

--no-sessionid

(SSL) Disable curl's use of SSL session-ID caching. By

default all transfers are done using the cache. Note that while nothing should ever get hurt by attempting

to reuse SSL session-IDs, there seem to be broken SSL

implementations in the wild that may require you to disable this in order for you to succeed. (Added in 7.16.0) Note that this is the negated option name documented.

You can thus use --sessionid to enforce session-ID

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caching.

--noproxy

Comma-separated list of hosts which do not use a proxy,

if one is specified. The only wildcard is a single * character, which matches all hosts, and effectively disables the proxy. Each name in this list is matched as either a domain which contains the hostname, or the hostname itself. For example, local.com would match local.com, local.com:80, and www.local.com, but not www.notlocal.com. (Added in 7.19.4).

--ntlm

(HTTP) Enables NTLM authentication. The NTLM authenti-

cation method was designed by Microsoft and is used by IIS web servers. It is a proprietary protocol,

reverse-engineered by clever people and implemented in

curl based on their efforts. This kind of behavior

should not be endorsed, you should encourage everyone who uses NTLM to switch to a public and documented authentication method instead, such as Digest.

If you want to enable NTLM for your proxy authentica-

tion, then use --proxy-ntlm.

This option requires a library built with SSL support.

Use -V/--version to see if your curl supports NTLM.

If this option is used several times, the following occurrences make no difference.

-o/--output

Write output to instead of stdout. If you are using {} or [] to fetch multiple documents, you can use

'#' followed by a number in the specifier. That

variable will be replaced with the current string for the URL being fetched. Like in:

curl http://{one,two}.site.com -o "file_#1.txt"

or use several variables like:

curl http://{site,host}.host[1-5].com -o "#1_#2"

You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have.

See also the --create-dirs option to create the local

directories dynamically. Specifying the output as '-'

(a single dash) will force the output to be done to stdout. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 22

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-O/--remote-name

Write output to a local file named like the remote file we get. (Only the file part of the remote file is used, the path is cut off.) The remote file name to use for saving is extracted from the given URL, nothing else. You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have.

--remote-name-all

This option changes the default action for all given

URLs to be dealt with as if -O/--remote-name were used

for each one. So if you want to disable that for a

specific URL after --remote-name-all has been used, you

must use "-o -" or --no-remote-name. (Added in 7.19.0)

--pass

(SSL/SSH) Passphrase for the private key If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--post301

Tells curl to respect RFC 2616/10.3.2 and not convert

POST requests into GET requests when following a 301

redirection. The non-RFC behaviour is ubiquitous in web

browsers, so curl does the conversion by default to

maintain consistency. However, a server may require a POST to remain a POST after such a redirection. This

option is meaningful only when using -L/--location

(Added in 7.17.1)

--post302

Tells curl to respect RFC 2616/10.3.2 and not convert

POST requests into GET requests when following a 302

redirection. The non-RFC behaviour is ubiquitous in web

browsers, so curl does the conversion by default to

maintain consistency. However, a server may require a POST to remain a POST after such a redirection. This

option is meaningful only when using -L/--location

(Added in 7.19.1)

--proto

Tells curl to use the listed protocols for its initial

retrieval. Protocols are evaluated left to right, are comma separated, and are each a protocol name or 'all',

optionally prefixed by zero or more modifiers. Avail-

able modifiers are: + Permit this protocol in addition to protocols Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 23

Curl Manual curl(1)

already permitted (this is the default if no modif-

ier is used).

- Deny this protocol, removing it from the list of

protocols already permitted. = Permit only this protocol (ignoring the list already permitted), though subject to later modification by subsequent entries in the comma separated list. For example:

--proto -ftps uses the default protocols, but disables

ftps

--proto -all,https,+http

only enables http and https

--proto =http,https

also only enables http and https Unknown protocols produce a warning. This allows

scripts to safely rely on being able to disable poten-

tially dangerous protocols, without relying upon sup-

port for that protocol being built into curl to avoid

an error. This option can be used multiple times, in which case the effect is the same as concatenating the protocols into one instance of the option. (Added in 7.20.2)

--proto-redir

Tells curl to use the listed protocols after a

redirect. See --proto for how protocols are

represented. (Added in 7.20.2)

--proxy-anyauth

Tells curl to pick a suitable authentication method

when communicating with the given proxy. This might

cause an extra request/response round-trip. (Added in

7.13.2)

--proxy-basic

Tells curl to use HTTP Basic authentication when com-

municating with the given proxy. Use --basic for ena-

bling HTTP Basic with a remote host. Basic is the

default authentication method curl uses with proxies.

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--proxy-digest

Tells curl to use HTTP Digest authentication when com-

municating with the given proxy. Use --digest for ena-

bling HTTP Digest with a remote host.

--proxy-negotiate

Tells curl to use HTTP Negotiate authentication when

communicating with the given proxy. Use --negotiate for

enabling HTTP Negotiate with a remote host. (Added in 7.17.1)

--proxy-ntlm

Tells curl to use HTTP NTLM authentication when commun-

icating with the given proxy. Use --ntlm for enabling

NTLM with a remote host.

--proxy1.0

Use the specified HTTP 1.0 proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. The only difference between this and the HTTP proxy

option (-x/--proxy), is that attempts to use CONNECT

through the proxy will specify an HTTP 1.0 protocol instead of the default HTTP 1.1.

-p/--proxytunnel

When an HTTP proxy is used (-x/--proxy), this option

will cause non-HTTP protocols to attempt to tunnel

through the proxy instead of merely using it to do

HTTP-like operations. The tunnel approach is made with

the HTTP proxy CONNECT request and requires that the proxy allows direct connect to the remote port number

curl wants to tunnel through to.

--pubkey

(SSH) Public key file name. Allows you to provide your public key in this separate file. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-P/--ftp-port

(FTP) Reverses the default initiator/listener roles

when connecting with FTP. This switch makes curl use

active mode. In practice, curl then tells the server to

connect back to the client's specified address and port, while passive mode asks the server to setup an IP address and port for it to connect to.

should be one of: interface i.e "eth0" to specify which interface's IP address Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 25

Curl Manual curl(1)

you want to use (Unix only) IP address i.e "192.168.10.1" to specify the exact IP address host name i.e "my.host.domain" to specify the machine

- make curl pick the same IP address that is already

used for the control connection If this option is used several times, the last one will be

used. Disable the use of PORT with --ftp-pasv. Disable the

attempt to use the EPRT command instead of PORT by using --

disable-eprt. EPRT is really PORT++.

Starting in 7.19.5, you can append ":[start]-[end]" to the

right of the address, to tell curl what TCP port range to

use. That means you specify a port range, from a lower to a higher number. A single number works as well, but do note that it increases the risk of failure since the port may not be available.

-q If used as the first parameter on the command line, the

curlrc config file will not be read and used. See the

-K/--config for details on the default config file

search path.

-Q/--quote

(FTP/SFTP) Send an arbitrary command to the remote FTP or SFTP server. Quote commands are sent BEFORE the

transfer takes place (just after the initial PWD com-

mand in an FTP transfer, to be exact). To make commands take place after a successful transfer, prefix them

with a dash '-'. To make commands be sent after lib-

curl has changed the working directory, just before the

transfer command(s), prefix the command with a '+' (this is only supported for FTP). You may specify any number of commands. If the server returns failure for one of the commands, the entire operation will be

aborted. You must send syntactically correct FTP com-

mands as RFC959 defines to FTP servers, or one of the commands listed below to SFTP servers. This option can be used multiple times.

SFTP is a binary protocol. Unlike for FTP, libcurl

interprets SFTP quote commands before sending them to the server. Following is the list of all supported SFTP quote commands: chgrp group file The chgrp command sets the group ID of the file Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 26

Curl Manual curl(1)

named by the file operand to the group ID speci-

fied by the group operand. The group operand is a decimal integer group ID. chmod mode file The chmod command modifies the file mode bits of the specified file. The mode operand is an octal integer mode number. chown user file The chown command sets the owner of the file named by the file operand to the user ID specified by the user operand. The user operand is a decimal integer user ID.

ln source_file target_file

The ln and symlink commands create a symbolic link

at the target_file location pointing to the

source_file location.

mkdir directory_name

The mkdir command creates the directory named by

the directory_name operand.

pwd The pwd command returns the absolute pathname of the current working directory. rename source target The rename command renames the file or directory named by the source operand to the destination path named by the target operand. rm file The rm command removes the file specified by the file operand. rmdir directory The rmdir command removes the directory entry specified by the directory operand, provided it is empty.

symlink source_file target_file

See ln.

--random-file

(SSL) Specify the path name to file containing what will be considered as random data. The data is used to seed the random engine for SSL connections. See also

the --egd-file option.

-r/--range

(HTTP/FTP/SFTP/FILE) Retrieve a byte range (i.e a Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 27

Curl Manual curl(1)

partial document) from a HTTP/1.1, FTP or SFTP server or a local FILE. Ranges can be specified in a number of ways.

0-499 specifies the first 500 bytes

500-999 specifies the second 500 bytes

-500 specifies the last 500 bytes

9500- specifies the bytes from offset 9500 and for-

ward

0-0,-1 specifies the first and last byte only(*)(H)

500-700,600-799

specifies 300 bytes from offset 500(H)

100-199,500-599

specifies two separate 100-byte ranges(*)(H)

(*) = NOTE that this will cause the server to reply with a multipart response!

Only digit characters (0-9) are valid in the 'start' and

'stop' fields of the 'start-stop' range syntax. If a non-

digit character is given in the range, the server's response

will be unspecified, depending on the server's configura-

tion. You should also be aware that many HTTP/1.1 servers do not have this feature enabled, so that when you attempt to get a range, you'll instead get the whole document. FTP and SFTP range downloads only support the simple

'start-stop' syntax (optionally with one of the numbers

omitted). FTP use depends on the extended FTP command SIZE. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--raw

When used, it disables all internal HTTP decoding of content or transfer encodings and instead makes them passed on unaltered, raw. (Added in 7.16.2)

-R/--remote-time

When used, this will make libcurl attempt to figure out

the timestamp of the remote file, and if that is avail-

able make the local file get that same timestamp.

--retry

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Curl Manual curl(1)

If a transient error is returned when curl tries to

perform a transfer, it will retry this number of times

before giving up. Setting the number to 0 makes curl do

no retries (which is the default). Transient error means either: a timeout, an FTP 4xx response code or an HTTP 5xx response code.

When curl is about to retry a transfer, it will first

wait one second and then for all forthcoming retries it will double the waiting time until it reaches 10 minutes which then will be the delay between the rest

of the retries. By using --retry-delay you disable

this exponential backoff algorithm. See also --retry-

max-time to limit the total time allowed for retries.

(Added in 7.12.3) If this option is used multiple times, the last occurrence decide the amount.

--retry-delay

Make curl sleep this amount of time before each retry

when a transfer has failed with a transient error (it changes the default backoff time algorithm between

retries). This option is only interesting if --retry is

also used. Setting this delay to zero will make curl

use the default backoff time. (Added in 7.12.3) If this option is used multiple times, the last occurrence determines the amount.

--retry-max-time

The retry timer is reset before the first transfer

attempt. Retries will be done as usual (see --retry) as

long as the timer hasn't reached this given limit. Notice that if the timer hasn't reached the limit, the request will be made and while performing, it may take longer than this given time period. To limit a single

request's maximum time, use -m/--max-time. Set this

option to zero to not timeout retries. (Added in 7.12.3) If this option is used multiple times, the last occurrence determines the amount.

-s/--silent

Silent or quiet mode. Don't show progress meter or error messages. Makes Curl mute.

-S/--show-error

When used with -s it makes curl show an error message

if it fails. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 29

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--socks4

Use the specified SOCKS4 proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. (Added in 7.15.2)

This option overrides any previous use of -x/--proxy,

as they are mutually exclusive. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--socks4a

Use the specified SOCKS4a proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. (Added in 7.18.0)

This option overrides any previous use of -x/--proxy,

as they are mutually exclusive. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--socks5-hostname

Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy (and let the proxy resolve the host name). If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. (Added in 7.18.0)

This option overrides any previous use of -x/--proxy,

as they are mutually exclusive. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used. (This option was previously wrongly documented

and used as --socks without the number appended.)

--socks5

Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy - but resolve the host

name locally. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080.

This option overrides any previous use of -x/--proxy,

as they are mutually exclusive. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used. (This option was previously wrongly documented

and used as --socks without the number appended.)

This option (as well as --socks4) does not work with

IPV6, FTPS or LDAP.

--socks5-gssapi-service

The default service name for a socks server is Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 30

Curl Manual curl(1)

rcmd/server-fqdn. This option allows you to change it.

Examples:

--socks5 proxy-name --socks5-gssapi-service sockd

would use sockd/proxy-name

--socks5 proxy-name --socks5-gssapi-service

sockd/real-name would use sockd/real-name for cases

where the proxy-name does not match the princpal name.

(Added in 7.19.4).

--socks5-gssapi-nec

As part of the gssapi negotiation a protection mode is negotiated. The rfc1961 says in section 4.3/4.4 it

should be protected, but the NEC reference implementa-

tion does not. The option --socks5-gssapi-nec allows

the unprotected exchange of the protection mode nego-

tiation. (Added in 7.19.4).

--stderr

Redirect all writes to stderr to the specified file

instead. If the file name is a plain '-', it is instead

written to stdout. This option has no point when you're using a shell with decent redirecting capabilities. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--tcp-nodelay

Turn on the TCP_NODELAY option. See the

curl_easy_setopt(3) man page for details about this

option. (Added in 7.11.2)

-t/--telnet-option

Pass options to the telnet protocol. Supported options are: TTYPE= Sets the terminal type. XDISPLOC= Sets the X display location.

NEW_ENV= Sets an environment variable.

--tftp-blksize

(TFTP) Set TFTP BLKSIZE option (must be >512). This is

the block size that curl will try to use when tranfer-

ring data to or from a TFTP server. By default 512 bytes will be used. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used. (Added in 7.20.0) Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 31

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-T/--upload-file

This transfers the specified local file to the remote URL. If there is no file part in the specified URL, Curl will append the local file name. NOTE that you must use a trailing / on the last directory to really

prove to Curl that there is no file name or curl will

think that your last directory name is the remote file name to use. That will most likely cause the upload operation to fail. If this is used on a HTTP(S) server, the PUT command will be used.

Use the file name "-" (a single dash) to use stdin

instead of a given file. Alternately, the file name

"." (a single period) may be specified instead of "-"

to use stdin in non-blocking mode to allow reading

server output while stdin is being uploaded.

You can specify one -T for each URL on the command

line. Each -T + URL pair specifies what to upload and

to where. curl also supports "globbing" of the -T argu-

ment, meaning that you can upload multiple files to a

single URL by using the same URL globbing style sup-

ported in the URL, like this:

curl -T "{file1,file2}" http://www.uploadtothissite.com

or even

curl -T "img[1-1000].png"

ftp://ftp.picturemania.com/upload/

--trace

Enables a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including descriptive information, to the given

output file. Use "-" as filename to have the output

sent to stdout.

This option overrides previous uses of -v/--verbose or

--trace-ascii.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--trace-ascii

Enables a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including descriptive information, to the given

output file. Use "-" as filename to have the output

sent to stdout.

This is very similar to --trace, but leaves out the hex

part and only shows the ASCII part of the dump. It makes smaller output that might be easier to read for Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 32

Curl Manual curl(1)

untrained humans.

This option overrides previous uses of -v/--verbose or

--trace.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--trace-time

Prepends a time stamp to each trace or verbose line

that curl displays. (Added in 7.14.0)

-u/--user

Specify the user name and password to use for server

authentication. Overrides -n/--netrc and --netrc-

optional. If you just give the user name (without entering a

colon) curl will prompt for a password.

If you use an SSPI-enabled curl binary and do NTLM

authentication, you can force curl to pick up the user

name and password from your environment by simply

specifying a single colon with this option: "-u :".

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-U/--proxy-user

Specify the user name and password to use for proxy authentication.

If you use an SSPI-enabled curl binary and do NTLM

authentication, you can force curl to pick up the user

name and password from your environment by simply

specifying a single colon with this option: "-U :".

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--url

Specify a URL to fetch. This option is mostly handy when you want to specify URL(s) in a config file. This option may be used any number of times. To control

where this URL is written, use the -o/--output or the

-O/--remote-name options.

-v/--verbose

Makes the fetching more verbose/talkative. Mostly use-

ful for debugging. A line starting with '>' means

"header data" sent by curl, '<' means "header data"

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received by curl that is hidden in normal cases, and a

line starting with '*' means additional info provided

by curl.

Note that if you only want HTTP headers in the output,

-i/--include might be the option you're looking for.

If you think this option still doesn't give you enough

details, consider using --trace or --trace-ascii

instead.

This option overrides previous uses of --trace-ascii or

--trace.

Use -S/--silent to make curl quiet.

-V/--version

Displays information about curl and the libcurl version

it uses.

The first line includes the full version of curl, lib-

curl and other 3rd party libraries linked with the exe-

cutable. The second line (starts with "Protocols:") shows all

protocols that libcurl reports to support.

The third line (starts with "Features:") shows specific

features libcurl reports to offer. Available features

include: IPv6 You can use IPv6 with this. krb4 Krb4 for FTP is supported. SSL HTTPS and FTPS are supported. libz Automatic decompression of compressed files over HTTP is supported. NTLM NTLM authentication is supported.

GSS-Negotiate

Negotiate authentication and krb5 for FTP is sup-

ported. Debug

This curl uses a libcurl built with Debug. This

enables more error-tracking and memory debugging

etc. For curl-developers only!

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Curl Manual curl(1)

This curl uses asynchronous name resolves.

SPNEGO SPNEGO Negotiate authentication is supported. Largefile

This curl supports transfers of large files, files

larger than 2GB.

IDN This curl supports IDN - international domain

names. SSPI SSPI is supported. If you use NTLM and set a blank

user name, curl will authenticate with your

current user and password.

-w/--write-out

Defines what to display on stdout after a completed and successful operation. The format is a string that may contain plain text mixed with any number of variables. The string can be specified as "string", to get read from a particular file you specify it "@filename" and

to tell curl to read the format from stdin you write

"@-".

The variables present in the output format will be sub-

stituted by the value or text that curl thinks fit, as

described below. All variables are specified as

%{variable_name} and to output a normal % you just

write them as %%. You can output a newline by using \n,

a carriage return with \r and a tab space with \t.

NOTE: The %-symbol is a special symbol in the win32-

environment, where all occurrences of % must be doubled

when using this option. The variables available at this point are:

url_effective The URL that was fetched last. This is

most meaningful if you've told curl to

follow location: headers.

http_code The numerical response code that was

found in the last retrieved HTTP(S) or FTP(s) transfer. In 7.18.2 the alias

response_code was added to show the same

info.

http_connect The numerical code that was found in the

last response (from a proxy) to a curl

CONNECT request. (Added in 7.12.4) Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 35

Curl Manual curl(1)

time_total The total time, in seconds, that the

full operation lasted. The time will be displayed with millisecond resolution.

time_namelookup

The time, in seconds, it took from the

start until the name resolving was com-

pleted.

time_connect The time, in seconds, it took from the

start until the TCP connect to the remote host (or proxy) was completed.

time_appconnect

The time, in seconds, it took from the

start until the SSL/SSH/etc connect/handshake to the remote host was completed. (Added in 7.19.0)

time_pretransfer

The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the file transfer was just

about to begin. This includes all pre-

transfer commands and negotiations that are specific to the particular protocol(s) involved.

time_redirect The time, in seconds, it took for all

redirection steps include name lookup, connect, pretransfer and transfer before the final transaction was started.

time_redirect shows the complete execu-

tion time for multiple redirections. (Added in 7.12.3)

time_starttransfer

The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the first byte was just about to be transferred. This includes

time_pretransfer and also the time the

server needed to calculate the result.

size_download The total amount of bytes that were

downloaded.

size_upload The total amount of bytes that were

uploaded.

size_header The total amount of bytes of the down-

loaded headers.

size_request The total amount of bytes that were sent

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in the HTTP request.

speed_download The average download speed that curl

measured for the complete download. Bytes per second.

speed_upload The average upload speed that curl meas-

ured for the complete upload. Bytes per second.

content_type The Content-Type of the requested docu-

ment, if there was any.

num_connects Number of new connects made in the

recent transfer. (Added in 7.12.3)

num_redirects Number of redirects that were followed

in the request. (Added in 7.12.3)

redirect_url When a HTTP request was made without -L

to follow redirects, this variable will show the actual URL a redirect would take you to. (Added in 7.18.2)

ftp_entry_path The initial path libcurl ended up in

when logging on to the remote FTP server. (Added in 7.15.4)

ssl_verify_result

The result of the SSL peer certificate verification that was requested. 0 means the verification was successful. (Added in 7.19.0) If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-x/--proxy

Use the specified HTTP proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. This option overrides existing environment variables that set the proxy to use. If there's an environment variable setting a proxy, you can set proxy to "" to override it. Note that all operations that are performed over a HTTP proxy will transparently be converted to HTTP. It means that certain protocol specific operations might not be available. This is not the case if you can tunnel

through the proxy, as done with the -p/--proxytunnel

option. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 37

Curl Manual curl(1)

Starting with 7.14.1, the proxy host can be specified the exact same way as the proxy environment variables,

including the protocol prefix (http://) and the embed-

ded user + password. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-X/--request

(HTTP) Specifies a custom request method to use when communicating with the HTTP server. The specified request will be used instead of the method otherwise

used (which defaults to GET). Read the HTTP 1.1 specif-

ication for details and explanations. Common additional

HTTP requests include PUT and DELETE, but related tech-

nologies like WebDAV offers PROPFIND, COPY, MOVE and more. (FTP) Specifies a custom FTP command to use instead of LIST when doing file lists with FTP. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-y/--speed-time

If a download is slower than speed-limit bytes per

second during a speed-time period, the download gets

aborted. If speed-time is used, the default speed-limit

will be 1 unless set with -Y.

This option controls transfers and thus will not affect slow connects etc. If this is a concern for you, try

the --connect-timeout option.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-Y/--speed-limit

If a download is slower than this given speed (in bytes

per second) for speed-time seconds it gets aborted.

speed-time is set with -y and is 30 if not set.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-z/--time-cond

(HTTP/FTP) Request a file that has been modified later than the given time and date, or one that has been modified before that time. The date expression can be all sorts of date strings or if it doesn't match any internal ones, it tries to get the time from a given

file name instead! See the curl_getdate(3) man pages

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for date expression details.

Start the date expression with a dash (-) to make it

request for a document that is older than the given date/time, default is a document that is newer than the specified date/time. If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--max-redirs

Set maximum number of redirection-followings allowed.

If -L/--location is used, this option can be used to

prevent curl from following redirections "in absurdum".

By default, the limit is set to 50 redirections. Set

this option to -1 to make it limitless.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

-0/--http1.0

(HTTP) Forces curl to issue its requests using HTTP 1.0

instead of using its internally preferred: HTTP 1.1.

-1/--tlsv1

(SSL) Forces curl to use TLS version 1 when negotiating

with a remote TLS server.

-2/--sslv2

(SSL) Forces curl to use SSL version 2 when negotiating

with a remote SSL server.

-3/--sslv3

(SSL) Forces curl to use SSL version 3 when negotiating

with a remote SSL server.

-4/--ipv4

If libcurl is capable of resolving an address to multi-

ple IP versions (which it is if it is IPv6-capable),

this option tells libcurl to resolve names to IPv4

addresses only.

-6/--ipv6

If libcurl is capable of resolving an address to multi-

ple IP versions (which it is if it is IPv6-capable),

this option tells libcurl to resolve names to IPv6

addresses only.

-#/--progress-bar

Make curl display progress information as a progress

bar instead of the default statistics. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 39

Curl Manual curl(1)

FILES

~/.curlrc

Default config file, see -K/--config for details.

ENVIRONMENT The environment variables can be specified in lower case or upper case. The lower case version has precedence.

http_proxy is an exception as it is only available in lower

case.

http_proxy [protocol://][:port]

Sets the proxy server to use for HTTP.

HTTPS_PROXY [protocol://][:port]

Sets the proxy server to use for HTTPS.

FTP_PROXY [protocol://][:port]

Sets the proxy server to use for FTP.

ALL_PROXY [protocol://][:port]

Sets the proxy server to use if no protocol-specific

proxy is set.

NO_PROXY

list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy. If set to a asterisk '*' only, it matches all hosts. EXIT CODES There are a bunch of different error codes and their

corresponding error messages that may appear during bad con-

ditions. At the time of this writing, the exit codes are:

1 Unsupported protocol. This build of curl has no support

for this protocol. 2 Failed to initialize. 3 URL malformed. The syntax was not correct. 5 Couldn't resolve proxy. The given proxy host could not be resolved. 6 Couldn't resolve host. The given remote host was not resolved. 7 Failed to connect to host.

8 FTP weird server reply. The server sent data curl

couldn't parse. 9 FTP access denied. The server denied login or denied access to the particular resource or directory you Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 40

Curl Manual curl(1)

wanted to reach. Most often you tried to change to a directory that doesn't exist on the server. 11 FTP weird PASS reply. Curl couldn't parse the reply sent to the PASS request. 13 FTP weird PASV reply, Curl couldn't parse the reply sent to the PASV request.

14 FTP weird 227 format. Curl couldn't parse the 227-line

the server sent. 15 FTP can't get host. Couldn't resolve the host IP we got

in the 227-line.

17 FTP couldn't set binary. Couldn't change transfer method to binary. 18 Partial file. Only a part of the file was transferred. 19 FTP couldn't download/access the given file, the RETR (or similar) command failed. 21 FTP quote error. A quote command returned error from the server. 22 HTTP page not retrieved. The requested url was not found or returned another error with the HTTP error code being 400 or above. This return code only appears

if -f/--fail is used.

23 Write error. Curl couldn't write data to a local filesystem or similar. 25 FTP couldn't STOR file. The server denied the STOR operation, used for FTP uploading. 26 Read error. Various reading problems. 27 Out of memory. A memory allocation request failed.

28 Operation timeout. The specified time-out period was

reached according to the conditions. 30 FTP PORT failed. The PORT command failed. Not all FTP servers support the PORT command, try doing a transfer using PASV instead! 31 FTP couldn't use REST. The REST command failed. This command is used for resumed FTP transfers. 33 HTTP range error. The range "command" didn't work. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 41

Curl Manual curl(1)

34 HTTP post error. Internal post-request generation

error. 35 SSL connect error. The SSL handshaking failed. 36 FTP bad download resume. Couldn't continue an earlier aborted download.

37 FILE couldn't read file. Failed to open the file. Per-

missions? 38 LDAP cannot bind. LDAP bind operation failed. 39 LDAP search failed. 41 Function not found. A required LDAP function was not found.

42 Aborted by callback. An application told curl to abort

the operation.

43 Internal error. A function was called with a bad param-

eter. 45 Interface error. A specified outgoing interface could not be used.

47 Too many redirects. When following redirects, curl hit

the maximum amount. 48 Unknown TELNET option specified. 49 Malformed telnet option. 51 The peer's SSL certificate or SSH MD5 fingerprint was not ok.

52 The server didn't reply anything, which here is con-

sidered an error. 53 SSL crypto engine not found. 54 Cannot set SSL crypto engine as default. 55 Failed sending network data. 56 Failure in receiving network data. 58 Problem with the local certificate. 59 Couldn't use specified SSL cipher. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 42

Curl Manual curl(1)

60 Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with known CA certificates. 61 Unrecognized transfer encoding. 62 Invalid LDAP URL. 63 Maximum file size exceeded. 64 Requested FTP SSL level failed. 65 Sending the data requires a rewind that failed. 66 Failed to initialise SSL Engine. 67 The user name, password, or similar was not accepted

and curl failed to log in.

68 File not found on TFTP server. 69 Permission problem on TFTP server. 70 Out of disk space on TFTP server. 71 Illegal TFTP operation. 72 Unknown TFTP transfer ID. 73 File already exists (TFTP). 74 No such user (TFTP). 75 Character conversion failed. 76 Character conversion functions required. 77 Problem with reading the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?). 78 The resource referenced in the URL does not exist. 79 An unspecified error occurred during the SSH session. 80 Failed to shut down the SSL connection. 82 Could not load CRL file, missing or wrong format (added in 7.19.0). 83 Issuer check failed (added in 7.19.0). XX More error codes will appear here in future releases. The existing ones are meant to never change. Curl 7.20.0 Last change: 28 November 2009 43

Curl Manual curl(1)

AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Stenberg is the main author, but the whole list of contributors is found in the separate THANKS file. WWW

http://curl.haxx.se

FTP

ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/utilities/curl/

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-

butes:

_______________________________________

| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE|

|____________________|__________________|_

| Availability | web/curl |

|____________________|__________________|_

| Interface Stability| Uncommitted |

|____________________|_________________|

NOTES

Source for C-URL is available on http://opensolaris.org.

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