wget

Name

Wget - The non-interactive network downloader.

Purpose

Download files over a network.

You can use it to download files over private networks like your home, school, or work network.

You can use it to download files over public networks like the internet.

Note

You will only be seeing examples of downloading files over the internet.

Usage

wget [url]

Using wget you can download the file using its unique URL. The downloaded file can be any format.

Some examples:

  • HTML File: .html
  • Debian Package File: .deb
  • Comma Separated Values: .csv
  • Python: .py
  • Shell: .sh
  • Zipped Directory: .zip
  • Archived Directory: .tar.gz
  • Image: .png, .jpeg, .jpg
  • etc…

Example

Make a wget request for the file at https://www.launchcode.org:

wget https://www.launchcode.org

Results:

wget launchcode.org wget launchcode.org

After making the wget request you can see a new file was downloaded and exists in the pictured user’s home directory: index.html.

Bonus

You can explore the contents of the newly downloaded index.html with the cat command.

Practice Files

For your convenience we have provided files for you to practice on directly with this curriculum.

Practice Files

By hovering over the files you can see the URL of the specific resource, in the bottom left corner of your web browser.

hover for URL hover for URL

The url from the picture above is: localhost:1313/userspace-applications/walkthrough/wget/_index.files/hello.py

Warning

The URL has the following format: protocol://domain/path to future proof this curriculum we will simply provide the path to each of the files, you will be responsible for providing the protocol & domain. So the example picture from above would be: /userspace-applications/walkthrough/wget/_index.files/hello.py, however you would need to add the protocol, and domain before executing the command.

Download hello.txt

Craft a wget request to download the hello.txt file:

wget [protocol]://[domain]/userspace-applications/walkthrough/wget/_index.files/hello.txt

Command output:

wget hello.txt wget hello.txt

Validation

Check the contents of the downloaded file with cat:

cat hello.txt

Command output:

cat hello.txt cat hello.txt

Download hello.sh

Craft a wget request to download the hello.sh file:

wget [protocol]://[domain]/userspace-applications/walkthrough/wget/_index.files/hello.sh

Command output:

wget hello.sh wget hello.sh

Validation

Check the contents of the downloaded file with cat:

cat hello.sh

Command output:

cat hello.sh cat hello.sh

This file happens to be a bash script that you can execute with the bash command:

bash hello.sh

Command output:

bash hello.sh bash hello.sh

Download hello.py

Craft a wget request to download the hello.py file:

wget [protocol]://[domain]/userspace-applications/walkthrough/wget/_index.files/hello.py`

Command output:

wget hello.py wget hello.py

Validation

Check the contents of the downloaded file with cat:

cat hello.py

cat hello.py cat hello.py

This file happens to be a python script that you can execute with the python3 interpreter:

python3 hello.py

Command output:

python3 hello.py python3 hello.py

Download roster.csv

Craft a wget request to download the roster.csv file:

wget [protocol]://[domain]/userspace-applications/walkthrough/wget/_index.files/roster.csv

Command output:

wget roster.csv wget roster.csv

Validation

Check the contents of the file with cat:

cat roster.csv

cat roster.csv cat roster.csv

Outside Example (Imgur)

Let’s find the link for a grumpy cat photo: https://imgur.com/gallery/Xl0W2iX , open dev tools, find src= of the image which is: https://i.imgur.com/Xl0W2iX.jpeg.

Let’s request that specific file with wget.

wget https://i.imgur.com/Xl0W2iX.jpeg

wget imgur wget imgur

Validation

wget downloaded a file named Xl0W2iX.jpeg, let’s open it in Firefox and see the photo.

browser rendered PNG browser rendered PNG

Note

To open a file in Firefox, first open the browser, then hit ctrl + o to open a new file, then select the file you just downloaded in your home directory: Xl0W2iX.jpeg.

Recap

We can use the wget tool to download files from the internet.