目录
- 命令：curl
- 一、简介
- 二、使用案例
- 1、基本用法
- 2、保存访问的网页
- 3、测试网页返回值
- 4、指定proxy服务器以及其端口
- 5、cookie
- 6、模仿浏览器
- 7、伪造referer（盗链）
- 8、下载文件
- 9、断点续传
- 10、上传文件
- 11、显示抓取错误
- 三、man手册详情
命令：curl
一、简介
在Linux中curl是一个利用URL规则在命令行下工作的文件传输工具，可以说是一款很强大的http命令行工具。它支持文件的上传和下载，是综合传输工具，但按传统，习惯称url为下载工具。
语法：# curl [option] [url]常见参数：
-A/--user-agent 设置用户代理发送给服务器
-b/--cookie cookie字符串或文件读取位置
-c/--cookie-jar 操作结束后把cookie写入到这个文件中
-C/--continue-at 断点续转
-D/--dump-header 把header信息写入到该文件中
-e/--referer 来源网址
-f/--fail 连接失败时不显示http错误
-o/--output 把输出写到该文件中
-O/--remote-name 把输出写到该文件中，保留远程文件的文件名
-r/--range 检索来自HTTP/1.1或FTP服务器字节范围
-s/--silent 静音模式。不输出任何东西
-T/--upload-file 上传文件
-u/--user 设置服务器的用户和密码
-w/--write-out [format] 什么输出完成后
-x/--proxy 在给定的端口上使用HTTP代理
-#/--progress-bar 进度条显示当前的传送状态 二、使用案例
1、基本用法
# curl http://www.linux.com执行后，www.linux.com 的html就会显示在屏幕上了
Ps：由于安装linux的时候很多时候是没有安装桌面的，也意味着没有浏览器，因此这个方法也经常用于测试一台服务器是否可以到达一个网站
2、保存访问的网页
2.1、使用linux的重定向功能保存
# curl http://www.linux.com >> linux.html2.2、可以使用curl的内置option:-o(小写)保存网页
$ curl -o linux.html http://www.linux.com执行完成后会显示如下界面，显示100%则表示保存成功
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 79684 0 79684 0 0 3437k 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 7781k2.3、可以使用curl的内置option:-O(大写)保存网页中的文件
要注意这里后面的url要具体到某个文件，不然抓不下来
# curl -O http://www.linux.com/hello.sh3、测试网页返回值
# curl -o /dev/null -s -w %{http_code} www.linux.comPs:在脚本中，这是很常见的测试网站是否正常的用法
4、指定proxy服务器以及其端口
很多时候上网需要用到代理服务器(比如是使用代理服务器上网或者因为使用curl别人网站而被别人屏蔽IP地址的时候)，幸运的是curl通过使用内置option：-x来支持设置代理
# curl -x 192.168.100.100:1080 http://www.linux.com5、cookie
有些网站是使用cookie来记录session信息。对于chrome这样的浏览器，可以轻易处理cookie信息，但在curl中只要增加相关参数也是可以很容易的处理cookie
5.1、保存http的response里面的cookie信息。内置option:-c（小写）
# curl -c cookiec.txt http://www.linux.com执行后cookie信息就被存到了cookiec.txt里面了
5.2、保存http的response里面的header信息。内置option: -D
# curl -D cookied.txt http://www.linux.com执行后cookie信息就被存到了cookied.txt里面了
注意：-c(小写)产生的cookie和-D里面的cookie是不一样的。
5.3、使用cookie
很多网站都是通过监视你的cookie信息来判断你是否按规矩访问他们的网站的，因此我们需要使用保存的cookie信息。内置option: -b
# curl -b cookiec.txt http://www.linux.com6、模仿浏览器
有些网站需要使用特定的浏览器去访问他们，有些还需要使用某些特定的版本。curl内置option:-A可以让我们指定浏览器去访问网站
# curl -A "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.0)" http://www.linux.com这样服务器端就会认为是使用IE8.0去访问的
7、伪造referer（盗链）
很多服务器会检查http访问的referer从而来控制访问。比如：你是先访问首页，然后再访问首页中的邮箱页面，这里访问邮箱的referer地址就是访问首页成功后的页面地址，如果服务器发现对邮箱页面访问的referer地址不是首页的地址，就断定那是个盗连了
curl中内置option：-e可以让我们设定referer
# curl -e "www.linux.com" http://mail.linux.com这样就会让服务器其以为你是从www.linux.com点击某个链接过来的
8、下载文件
8.1、利用curl下载文件。
#使用内置option：-o(小写)
# curl -o dodo1.jpg http:www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG#使用内置option：-O（大写)
# curl -O http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG这样就会以服务器上的名称保存文件到本地
8.2、循环下载
有时候下载图片可以能是前面的部分名称是一样的，就最后的尾椎名不一样
# curl -O http://www.linux.com/dodo[1-5].JPG这样就会把dodo1，dodo2，dodo3，dodo4，dodo5全部保存下来
8.3、下载重命名
# curl -O http://www.linux.com/{hello,bb}/dodo[1-5].JPG由于下载的hello与bb中的文件名都是dodo1，dodo2，dodo3，dodo4，dodo5。因此第二次下载的会把第一次下载的覆盖，这样就需要对文件进行重命名。
# curl -o #1_#2.JPG http://www.linux.com/{hello,bb}/dodo[1-5].JPG这样在hello/dodo1.JPG的文件下载下来就会变成hello_dodo1.JPG,其他文件依此类推，从而有效的避免了文件被覆盖
8.4、分块下载
有时候下载的东西会比较大，这个时候我们可以分段下载。使用内置option：-r
# curl -r 0-100 -o dodo1_part1.JPG http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG
# curl -r 100-200 -o dodo1_part2.JPG http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG
# curl -r 200- -o dodo1_part3.JPG http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG
# cat dodo1_part* > dodo1.JPG这样就可以查看dodo1.JPG的内容了
8.5、通过ftp下载文件
curl可以通过ftp下载文件，curl提供两种从ftp中下载的语法
# curl -O -u 用户名:密码 ftp://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG
# curl -O ftp://用户名:密码@www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG8.6、显示下载进度条
# curl -# -O http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG8.7、不会显示下载进度信息
# curl -s -O http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG9、断点续传
在windows中，我们可以使用迅雷这样的软件进行断点续传。curl可以通过内置option:-C同样可以达到相同的效果
如果在下载dodo1.JPG的过程中突然掉线了，可以使用以下的方式续传
# curl -C -O http://www.linux.com/dodo1.JPG10、上传文件
curl不仅仅可以下载文件，还可以上传文件。通过内置option:-T来实现
# curl -T dodo1.JPG -u 用户名:密码 ftp://www.linux.com/img/这样就向ftp服务器上传了文件dodo1.JPG
11、显示抓取错误
# curl -f http://www.linux.com/error其他参数(此处翻译为转载)
-a/--append 上传文件时，附加到目标文件
--anyauth 可以使用“任何”身份验证方法
--basic 使用HTTP基本验证
-B/--use-ascii 使用ASCII文本传输
-d/--data HTTP POST方式传送数据
--data-ascii 以ascii的方式post数据
--data-binary 以二进制的方式post数据
--negotiate 使用HTTP身份验证
--digest 使用数字身份验证
--disable-eprt 禁止使用EPRT或LPRT
--disable-epsv 禁止使用EPSV
--egd-file 为随机数据(SSL)设置EGD socket路径
--tcp-nodelay 使用TCP_NODELAY选项
-E/--cert 客户端证书文件和密码 (SSL)
--cert-type 证书文件类型 (DER/PEM/ENG) (SSL)
--key 私钥文件名 (SSL)
--key-type 私钥文件类型 (DER/PEM/ENG) (SSL)
--pass 私钥密码 (SSL)
--engine 加密引擎使用 (SSL). "--engine list" for list
--cacert CA证书 (SSL)
--capath CA目 (made using c_rehash) to verify peer against (SSL)
--ciphers SSL密码
--compressed 要求返回是压缩的形势 (using deflate or gzip)
--connect-timeout 设置最大请求时间
--create-dirs 建立本地目录的目录层次结构
--crlf 上传是把LF转变成CRLF
--ftp-create-dirs 如果远程目录不存在，创建远程目录
--ftp-method [multicwd/nocwd/singlecwd] 控制CWD的使用
--ftp-pasv 使用 PASV/EPSV 代替端口
--ftp-skip-pasv-ip 使用PASV的时候,忽略该IP地址
--ftp-ssl 尝试用 SSL/TLS 来进行ftp数据传输
--ftp-ssl-reqd 要求用 SSL/TLS 来进行ftp数据传输
-F/--form 模拟http表单提交数据
-form-string 模拟http表单提交数据
-g/--globoff 禁用网址序列和范围使用{}和[]
-G/--get 以get的方式来发送数据
-h/--help 帮助
-H/--header 自定义头信息传递给服务器
--ignore-content-length 忽略的HTTP头信息的长度
-i/--include 输出时包括protocol头信息
-I/--head 只显示文档信息
-j/--junk-session-cookies 读取文件时忽略session cookie
--interface 使用指定网络接口/地址
--krb4 使用指定安全级别的krb4
-k/--insecure 允许不使用证书到SSL站点
-K/--config 指定的配置文件读取
-l/--list-only 列出ftp目录下的文件名称
--limit-rate 设置传输速度
--local-port 强制使用本地端口号
-m/--max-time 设置最大传输时间
--max-redirs 设置最大读取的目录数
--max-filesize 设置最大下载的文件总量
-M/--manual 显示全手动
-n/--netrc 从netrc文件中读取用户名和密码
--netrc-optional 使用 .netrc 或者 URL来覆盖-n
--ntlm 使用 HTTP NTLM 身份验证
-N/--no-buffer 禁用缓冲输出
-p/--proxytunnel 使用HTTP代理
--proxy-anyauth 选择任一代理身份验证方法
--proxy-basic 在代理上使用基本身份验证
--proxy-digest 在代理上使用数字身份验证
--proxy-ntlm 在代理上使用ntlm身份验证
-P/--ftp-port 使用端口地址，而不是使用PASV
-Q/--quote 文件传输前，发送命令到服务器
--range-file 读取（SSL）的随机文件
-R/--remote-time 在本地生成文件时，保留远程文件时间
--retry 传输出现问题时，重试的次数
--retry-delay 传输出现问题时，设置重试间隔时间
--retry-max-time 传输出现问题时，设置最大重试时间
-S/--show-error 显示错误
--socks4 用socks4代理给定主机和端口
--socks5 用socks5代理给定主机和端口
-t/--telnet-option Telnet选项设置
--trace 对指定文件进行debug
--trace-ascii Like --跟踪但没有hex输出
--trace-time 跟踪/详细输出时，添加时间戳
--url Spet URL to work with
-U/--proxy-user 设置代理用户名和密码
-V/--version 显示版本信息
-X/--request 指定什么命令
-y/--speed-time 放弃限速所要的时间。默认为30
-Y/--speed-limit 停止传输速度的限制，速度时间'秒
-z/--time-cond 传送时间设置
-0/--http1.0 使用HTTP 1.0
-1/--tlsv1 使用TLSv1（SSL）
-2/--sslv2 使用SSLv2的（SSL）
-3/--sslv3 使用的SSLv3（SSL）
--3p-quote like -Q for the source URL for 3rd party transfer
--3p-url 使用url，进行第三方传送
--3p-user 使用用户名和密码，进行第三方传送
-4/--ipv4 使用IP4
-6/--ipv6 使用IP6
三、man手册详情
curl(1) 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 (DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP,
RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET and TFTP). 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, Metalink, 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
Nested sequences are not supported, 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.
You can specify a step counter for the ranges to get every Nth number or letter:
http://www.numericals.com/file[1-100:10].txt
http://www.letters.com/file[a-z:2].txt
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.
curl displays this data to the terminal by default, so if you invoke curl to do an operation and it is about to write data to the terminal, it disables the progress meter as oth‐
erwise 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-". However,
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.)
-#, --progress-bar
Make curl display progress as a simple progress bar instead of the standard, more informational, meter.
-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.x when negotiating with a remote TLS server. You can use options --tlsv1.0, --tlsv1.1, and --tlsv1.2 to control the TLS version more
precisely (if the SSL backend in use supports such a level of control).
-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 curl is capable of resolving an address to multiple IP versions (which it is if it is IPv6-capable), this option tells curl to resolve names to IPv4 addresses only.
-6, --ipv6
If curl is capable of resolving an address to multiple IP versions (which it is if it is IPv6-capable), this option tells curl to resolve names to IPv6 addresses only.
-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 that
this flag is ignored by some SSH servers (including 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, sur‐
round the string with single quote marks. This can also be set with the -H, --header option of course.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be 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 possibly 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 for‐
mat "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 format.
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!
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-B, --use-ascii
(FTP/LDAP) Enable ASCII transfer. 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 pointless, unless you use it to override a previously set option that
sets a different authentication method (such as --ntlm, --digest, or --negotiate).
-c, --cookie-jar
(HTTP) Specify to which file you want curl to write all cookies after a completed operation. Curl writes all cookies previously read from a specified file as well as all
cookies received from remote server(s). If no cookies are known, no file will be written. The file will be written using the Netscape cookie file format. If you set the
file name to a single dash, "-", the cookies will be written to stdout.
This command line option will activate the cookie engine that makes curl record and use cookies. Another way to activate it is to use the -b, --cookie option.
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 specified 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 destination. 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.
--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 NSSCipherSuite entry at this URL: http://git.fedora‐
hosted.org/cgit/mod_nss.git/plain/docs/mod_nss.html#Directives
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--compressed
(HTTP) Request a compressed response using one of the algorithms curl supports, and save the uncompressed document. If this option is used and the server sends an unsup‐
ported 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.
--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 certificates that are to be considered revoked.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
(Added in 7.19.7)
-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 but‐
ton. 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 contents 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.
-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 an 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.
--data-ascii
See -d, --data.
--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 following 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 specification. 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 doesn't contain any = or @ symbols, as that will then make the syn‐
tax 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.
--delegation LEVEL
Set LEVEL to tell the server what it is allowed to delegate when it comes to user credentials. Used with GSS/kerberos.
none Don't allow any delegation.
policy Delegates if and only if the OK-AS-DELEGATE flag is set in the Kerberos service ticket, which is a matter of realm policy.
always Unconditionally allow the server to delegate.
--digest
(HTTP) Enables HTTP Digest authentication. This is an authentication scheme that prevents the password from being sent over the wire in clear text. Use this in combination
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, only the first one is used.
--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.
--eprt can be used to explicitly enable EPRT again and --no-eprt is an alias for --disable-eprt.
If the server is an IPv6 host, this option will have no effect as EPRT is necessary then.
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.
--epsv can be used to explicitly enable EPSV again and --no-epsv is an alias for --disable-epsv.
If the server is an IPv6 host, this option will have no effect as EPSV is necessary then.
Disabling EPSV only changes the passive behavior. If you want to switch to active mode you need to use -P, --ftp-port.
-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.
-E, --cert
(SSL) Tells curl to use the specified client certificate file when getting a file with HTTPS, FTPS or another SSL-based protocol. 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 concatenated! See --cert and --key to specify them independently.
If curl is built against the NSS SSL library then this option can tell curl the nickname of the certificate to use within the NSS database defined by the environment vari‐
able 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 you want to use a file from the cur‐
rent directory, please precede it with "./" prefix, in order to avoid confusion with a nickname. If the nickname contains ":", it needs to be preceded by "\" so that it is
not recognized as password delimiter. If the nickname contains "\", it needs to be escaped as "\\" so that it is not recognized as an escape character.
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
(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.
--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 a CA certs file named ´curl-ca-bundle.crt´, either in the same directory as curl.exe, or in the Current Working
Directory, or in any folder along your PATH.
If curl is built against the NSS SSL library, the NSS PEM PKCS#11 module (libnsspem.so) needs to be available for this option to work properly.
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. Multiple paths can be provided by separating them with ":" (e.g. "path1:path2:path3"). The
certificates must be in PEM format, and if curl is built against OpenSSL, the directory must have been processed using the c_rehash utility supplied with OpenSSL. Using
--capath can allow OpenSSL-powered curl to make SSL-connections much more efficiently than using --cacert if the --cacert file contains many CA certificates.
If this option is set, the default capath value will be ignored, and if it 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 an 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).
-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 RFC 2388. 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 contents 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 content from stdin instead of a file, use - as the filename. 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 "[email protected];type=text/html" url.com
or
curl -F "name=daniel;type=text/foo" url.com
You can also explicitly change the name field of a file upload part by setting filename=, like this:
curl -F "file=@localfile;filename=nameinpost" url.com
If filename/path contains ',' or ';', it must be quoted by double-quotes like:
curl -F "file=@\"localfile\";filename=\"nameinpost\"" url.com
or
curl -F 'file=@"localfile";filename="nameinpost"' url.com
Note that if a filename/path is quoted by double-quotes, any double-quote or backslash within the filename must be escaped by backslash.
See further examples and details in the MANUAL.
This option can be used multiple times.
--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 several times, the last one will be 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 certifi‐
cate, using "SITE AUTH" will tell the server to retrieve the username from the certificate. (Added in 7.15.5)
--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 option, curl will
instead attempt to create missing directories.
--ftp-method [method]
(FTP) Control what method curl should use to reach a file on an 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 RFC 1738 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 standards compliant than
'nocwd' but without the full penalty of 'multicwd'.
(Added in 7.15.1)
--ftp-pasv
(FTP) Use passive mode for the data connection. 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, only the first one is used. 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-skip-pasv-ip
(FTP) Tell curl to not use the IP address the server 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 control 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)
--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, 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)
--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) that can still be used but will be removed in a future version.
--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 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 an 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, only the first one is used. This is because undoing a GET doesn't make sense, but you should then instead enforce the alternative
method you prefer.
-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 externally set header will be used instead of the internal one. This allows you to make even trickier stuff than curl would nor‐
mally do. You should not replace internally 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:". If you send the custom header with no-value then its header must be terminated with a semicolon, such as -H "X-Custom-
Header;" to send "X-Custom-Header:".
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.
--hostpubmd5
(SCP/SFTP) 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. (Added in 7.17.1)
--ignore-content-length
(HTTP) Ignore the Content-Length header. This is particularly 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...
-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 an FTP or FILE
file, curl displays the file size and last modification time only.
--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.
-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 connections are attempted to be made secure by using the CA certifi‐
cate bundle installed by default. This makes all connections considered "insecure" fail unless -k, --insecure is used.
See this online resource for further details: http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html
-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 and their parameters must be specified on the same config file line, separated by whitespace, colon, the equals sign or any com‐
bination thereof (however, the preferred separator is the equals sign). If the parameter is to contain whitespace, the parameter must be enclosed within quotes. Within dou‐
ble quotes, the following 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 variables. 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 executable 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"
-O
referer = "http://nowhereatall.com/"
# --- End of example file ---
This option can be used multiple times to load multiple config files.
--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 several times, the last one will be used. If unspecified, the option defaults to 60 seconds.
--key
(SSL/SSH) Private key file name. Allows you to provide your private key in this separate file. For SSH, if not specified, curl tries the following candidates in order:
'~/.ssh/id_rsa', '~/.ssh/id_dsa', './id_rsa', './id_dsa'.
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 common. Use -V, --version to see if your curl supports it.
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.
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.
-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 different 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.
--libcurl
Append this option to any ordinary curl command line, and you will get a libcurl-using C source code written to the file that does the equivalent of what your command-line
operation does!
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.
--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)
--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 plaintext in the case of HTTP Basic authentication).
-m, --max-time
Maximum time in seconds that you allow the whole operation 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.
--mail-auth
(SMTP) Specify a single address. This will be used to specify the authentication address (identity) of a submitted message that is being relayed to another server.
(Added in 7.25.0)
--mail-from
(SMTP) Specify a single address that the given mail should get sent from.
(Added in 7.20.0)
--max-filesize
Specify the maximum size (in bytes) of a file to download. 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 download, 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.
--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)
--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.
--metalink
This option can tell curl to parse and process a given URI as Metalink file (both version 3 and 4 (RFC 5854) are supported) and make use of the mirrors listed within for
failover if there are errors (such as the file or server not being available). It will also verify the hash of the file after the download completes. The Metalink file
itself is downloaded and processed in memory and not stored in the local file system.
Example to use a remote Metalink file:
curl --metalink http://www.example.com/example.metalink
To use a Metalink file in the local file system, use FILE protocol (file://):
curl --metalink file://example.metalink
Please note that if FILE protocol is disabled, there is no way to use a local Metalink file at the time of this writing. Also note that if --metalink and --include are used
together, --include will be ignored. This is because including headers in the response will break Metalink parser and if the headers are included in the file described in
Metalink file, hash check will fail.
(Added in 7.27.0, if built against the libmetalink library.)
-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 simi‐
lar to:
machine host.domain.com login myself password secret
-N, --no-buffer
Disables the buffering of the output stream. In normal work situations, curl will use a standard buffered output stream that will have the effect that it will output 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.
--netrc-file
This option is similar to --netrc, except that you provide the path (absolute or relative) to the netrc file that Curl should use. You can only specify one netrc file per
invocation. If several --netrc-file options are provided, only the last one will be used. (Added in 7.21.5)
This option overrides any use of --netrc as they are mutually exclusive. It will also abide by --netrc-optional if specified.
--netrc-optional
Very similar to --netrc, but this option makes the .netrc usage optional and not mandatory as the --netrc option does.
--negotiate
(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 authentication, then use --proxy-negotiate.
This option requires a library built with GSSAPI support. 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 pass‐
word from the -u option aren't actually used.
If this option is used several times, only the first one is used.
--no-keepalive
Disables the use of keepalive messages on the TCP connection, 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 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 authentication method was designed by Microsoft and is used by IIS web servers. It is a proprietary protocol, reverse-engi‐
neered 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 authentication, 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, only the first one is used.
-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.
-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.
Consequentially, the file will be saved in the current working directory. If you want the file saved in a different directory, make sure you change current working direc‐
tory before you invoke curl with the -O, --remote-name flag!
You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have.
-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 opera‐
tions. 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.
-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 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.
--pass
(SSL/SSH) Passphrase for the private key
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--post301
(HTTP) 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
(HTTP) 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)
--post303
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 2616/10.3.2 and not convert POST requests into GET requests when following a 303 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 7.26.0)
--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', option‐
ally prefixed by zero or more modifiers. Available modifiers are:
+ Permit this protocol in addition to protocols already permitted (this is the default if no modifier 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 potentially dangerous protocols, without relying upon support for that pro‐
tocol 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 communicating with the given proxy. Use --basic for enabling HTTP Basic with a remote host. Basic is the default authenti‐
cation method curl uses with proxies.
--proxy-digest
Tells curl to use HTTP Digest authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use --digest for enabling 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 communicating 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.
--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.
(As of 7.39.0, curl attempts to automatically extract the public key from the private key file, so passing this option is generally not required. Note that this public key
extraction requires libcurl to be linked against a copy of libssh2 1.2.8 or higher that is itself linked against OpenSSL.)
-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 command 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 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 commands as RFC 959 defines to FTP servers, or one of
the commands listed below to SFTP servers. This option can be used multiple times. When speaking to an FTP server, prefix the command with an asterisk (*) to make curl
continue even if the command fails as by default curl will stop at first failure.
SFTP is a binary protocol. Unlike for FTP, curl interprets SFTP quote commands itself before sending them to the server. File names may be quoted shell-style to embed spa‐
ces or special characters. Following is the list of all supported SFTP quote commands:
chgrp group file
The chgrp command sets the group ID of the file named by the file operand to the group ID specified 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.
-r, --range
(HTTP/FTP/SFTP/FILE) Retrieve a byte range (i.e a 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 forward
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 configuration.
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.
-R, --remote-time
When used, this will make curl attempt to figure out the timestamp of the remote file, and if that is available make the local file get that same timestamp.
--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.
--raw (HTTP) 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)
--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)
--resolve
Provide a custom address for a specific host and port pair. Using this, you can make the curl requests(s) use a specified address and prevent the otherwise normally
resolved address to be used. Consider it a sort of /etc/hosts alternative provided on the command line. The port number should be the number used for the specific protocol
the host will be used for. It means you need several entries if you want to provide address for the same host but different ports.
This option can be used many times to add many host names to resolve.
(Added in 7.21.3)
--retry
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 several times, the last one will be used.
--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 several times, the last one will be used.
--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 several times, the last one will be used.
-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.
--ssl (FTP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP) Try to use SSL/TLS for the connection. 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 encryption required. (Added in 7.20.0)
This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl (Added in 7.11.0). That option name can still be used but will be removed in a future version.
--ssl-reqd
(FTP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP) Require SSL/TLS for the connection. 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). That option name can still be used but will be removed in a future version.
--ssl-allow-beast
(SSL) This option tells curl to not work around a security flaw in the SSL3 and TLS1.0 protocols known as BEAST. If this option isn't used, the SSL layer may use work-
arounds known to cause interoperability problems with some older SSL implementations. WARNING: this option loosens the SSL security, and by using this flag you ask for
exactly that. (Added in 7.25.0)
--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.
Since 7.21.7, this option is superfluous since you can specify a socks4 proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks4:// protocol prefix.
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.
Since 7.21.7, this option is superfluous since you can specify a socks4a proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks4a:// protocol prefix.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--socks5-basic
Tells curl to use username/password authentication when connecting to a SOCKS5 proxy. The username/password authentication is enabled by default. Use --socks5-gssapi to
force GSS-API authentication to SOCKS5 proxies. (Added in 7.55.0)
--socks5-gssapi
Tells curl to use GSS-API authentication when connecting to a SOCKS5 proxy. The GSS-API authentication is enabled by default (if curl is compiled with GSS-API support).
Use --socks5-basic to force username/password authentication to SOCKS5 proxies. (Added in 7.55.0)
--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.
Since 7.21.7, this option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 hostname proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks5h:// protocol prefix.
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.
Since 7.21.7, this option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks5:// protocol prefix.
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 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 principal name. (Added in 7.19.4).
--socks5-gssapi-nec
As part of the gssapi negotiation a protection mode is negotiated. RFC 1961 says in section 4.3/4.4 it should be protected, but the NEC reference implementation does not.
The option --socks5-gssapi-nec allows the unprotected exchange of the protection mode negotiation. (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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-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.
-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 an 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 argument, meaning
that you can upload multiple files to a single URL by using the same URL globbing style supported 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/
--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)
--tftp-blksize
(TFTP) Set TFTP BLKSIZE option (must be >512). This is the block size that curl will try to use when transferring 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)
--tlsauthtype
Set TLS authentication type. Currently, the only supported option is "SRP", for TLS-SRP (RFC 5054). If --tlsuser and --tlspassword are specified but --tlsauthtype is not,
then this option defaults to "SRP". (Added in 7.21.4)
--tlspassword
Set password for use with the TLS authentication method specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlsuser also be set. (Added in 7.21.4)
--tlsuser
Set username for use with the TLS authentication method specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlspassword also be set. (Added in 7.21.4)
--tlsv1.0
(SSL) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.0 when negotiating with a remote TLS server. (Added in 7.34.0)
--tlsv1.1
(SSL) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.1 when negotiating with a remote TLS server. (Added in 7.34.0)
--tlsv1.2
(SSL) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.2 when negotiating with a remote TLS server. (Added in 7.34.0)
--tr-encoding
(HTTP) Request a compressed Transfer-Encoding response using one of the algorithms curl supports, and uncompress the data while receiving it.
(Added in 7.21.6)
--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 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)
--unix-socket
(HTTP) Connect through this UNIX domain socket, instead of using the network. (Added in 7.40.0)
-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 useful for debugging. A line starting with '>' means "header data" sent by curl, '<' means "header data" 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.
-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 substituted by the value or text that curl thinks fit, as described below. All variables are specified as %{vari‐
able_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 are:
content_type The Content-Type of the requested document, if there was any.
filename_effective
The ultimate filename that curl writes out to. This is only meaningful if curl is told to write to a file with the --remote-name or --output option. It's
most useful in combination with the --remote-header-name option. (Added in 7.25.1)
ftp_entry_path The initial path curl ended up in when logging on to the remote FTP server. (Added in 7.15.4)
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)
local_ip The IP address of the local end of the most recently done connection - can be either IPv4 or IPv6 (Added in 7.29.0)
local_port The local port number of the most recently done connection (Added in 7.29.0)
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 an 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)
remote_ip The remote IP address of the most recently done connection - can be either IPv4 or IPv6 (Added in 7.29.0)
remote_port The remote port number of the most recently done connection (Added in 7.29.0)
size_download The total amount of bytes that were downloaded.
size_header The total amount of bytes of the downloaded headers.
size_request The total amount of bytes that were sent in the HTTP request.
size_upload The total amount of bytes that were uploaded.
speed_download The average download speed that curl measured for the complete download. Bytes per second.
speed_upload The average upload speed that curl measured for the complete upload. Bytes per second.
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)
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_connect The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the TCP connect to the remote host (or proxy) was completed.
time_namelookup
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the name resolving was completed.
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 execution 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.
time_total The total time, in seconds, that the full operation lasted. The time will be displayed with millisecond resolution.
url_effective The URL that was fetched last. This is most meaningful if you've told curl to follow location: headers.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-x, --proxy <[protocol://][user:password@]proxyhost[:port]>
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.
All operations that are performed over an 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 one with the -p, --proxytunnel option.
User and password that might be provided in the proxy string are URL decoded by curl. This allows you to pass in special characters such as @ by using %40 or pass in a
colon with %3a.
The proxy host can be specified the exact same way as the proxy environment variables, including the protocol prefix (http://) and the embedded user + password.
From 7.21.7, the proxy string may be specified with a protocol:// prefix to specify alternative proxy protocols. Use socks4://, socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to
request the specific SOCKS version to be used. No protocol specified, http:// and all others will be treated as HTTP proxies.
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 specification for details and explanations. Common additional HTTP requests include PUT and DELETE, but related technologies like WebDAV
offers PROPFIND, COPY, MOVE and more.
Normally you don't need this option. All sorts of GET, HEAD, POST and PUT requests are rather invoked by using dedicated command line options.
This option only changes the actual word used in the HTTP request, it does not alter the way curl behaves. So for example if you want to make a proper HEAD request, using
-X HEAD will not suffice. You need to use the -I, --head option.
(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.
--xattr
When saving output to a file, this option tells curl to store certain file metadata in extened file attributes. Currently, the URL is stored in the xdg.origin.url attribute
and, for HTTP, the content type is stored in the mime_type attribute. If the file system does not support extended attributes, a warning is issued.
-y, --speed-time