Sometimes, you might need to download a file with wget command in Linux. For example, maybe someone posted a text document on Pastebin that has an encrypted password inside it. Maybe someone sent you the key and asked for this data to be retrieved from their server. Whatever the situation may be, downloading files with wget is easy!
The “wget command not found” is a problem that has been present for a while. The “wget command in Linux” will help you find the wget command, and how to use it.
Wget is a command-line utility that allows you to download files from the internet and save them to your Linux system. It takes a variety of arguments that change the nature of the file download, such as storing the file under a new name, downloading the file to a place on the Linux system other than the current working directory, restricting bandwidth, and so on.
On this tutorial, we’ll look at how to use the wget program in Linux.
Installing Wget on a Linux System
Most recent Linux distributions will have the wget tool by default. However, you can come across a Linux system that is missing the wget program.
Run the following command to see whether the wget command is installed:
$ wget
If you don’t have it installed, you’ll see an error like this.
-bash: wget: command not found 
Wget Command Not Found
Don’t be concerned if this describes your circumstance. Using your distribution’s package management, you may quickly install the wget program. The wget command may be installed in a variety of Linux variants.
[On Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint] $ sudo apt install wget [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky Linux/AlmaLinux] $ sudo yum install wget [On Gentoo Linux] $ sudo emerge -a net-misc/wget [On Arch Linux] $ sudo pacman -S wget [On OpenSUSE] $ sudo zypper install wget
Syntax of the Wget Command
The wget command accepts the syntax shown.
$ wget [url] [options]
The flags or command-line parameters used with the wget command to specify how the command will be performed are referred to as options.
The domain or link to the resource or file to be downloaded is the URL.
Let’s go through some wget command usages and parameters without further ado.
1. In Linux, use the Wget command to download a file.
The Wget program just downloads the file from the URL specified without any command arguments. We’re downloading the most recent Go binary file to our current working directory in this example.
$ wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.18.linux-amd64.tar.gz 
Wget Download File in Linux
2. Using the Wget Command, rename a file while it is being downloaded
You may use the -O option to store the file you’re downloading under a different name. We’re downloading the Go binary file and storing it as go.tar.gz in this example.
$ wget -O go.tar.gz https://go.dev/dl/go1.18.linux-amd64.tar.gz 
Wget Download File with a Different Name
3. Use the Wget command to download a file to a certain directory.
The files in the current working directory have been downloaded in earlier instances. To download the file to a separate directory, use the -P option (uppercase P).
The Go binary is being downloaded to the /tmp location in this case.
https://go.dev/dl/go1.18.linux-amd64.tar.gz $ wget -P /tmp/
Run the following command to validate this:
$ ls /tmp | grep -i go 
Wget Download File to Different Directory
4. Using the Wget Command to Download Multiple Files
Instead of downloading files one by one, you may store the URLs of the resources to be downloaded in a text file that will be read by the wget command as an input file.
The URLs in the input file are read by the Wget program, which then downloads or gets the resources from the internet.
We’ve stored URLs in the download files.txt text file in the example below. Without any interaction, we’ll download the binary files for WordPress, Go, and Node.JS in order.
Downloadable URLs List
Use the -i option to provide an input file containing the URLs of the resources to be downloaded to download all of them.
$ wget -i download_files.txt 
Wget Download Multiple Files
5. Use the Wget command to resume a broken file download.
A file download might be interrupted by a network outage or a service outage. This frequently results in a corrupted file. Thankfully, instead of beginning afresh, the ‘-c’ option may be used to continue a file download.
The -c option is used to resume an interrupted download of the Download Rocky Linux ISO image in the example below.
wget -c wget -c wget -c wget https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8/isos/x86 64/Rocky-8.4-x86 64-minimal.iso
6. Use the Wget command to download files in the background.
Downloading a large file might take a long time, which is frustrating when you have a lot on your plate. The remedy is to free up some space on the terminal so you can continue working.
The -b option downloads files in the background, freeing up your terminal so you may concentrate on other important activities.
$ wget -b https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.15.5.tar.xz 
Wget Download File in Background
The output is stored in the wget-log log file. View the log file as indicated to see the download’s output.
$ tail wget-log 
View Wget Logs
The file was successfully downloaded, according to the result.
7. Use the Wget command to slow down file downloads.
The —limit-rate option may be used to limit or cap the download speed. This prevents bandwidth depletion, particularly when other concurrent operations, such as streaming or gaming, are utilizing the same connection.
The target speed may be specified in terms of kilobytes (k), megabytes (m), or gigabytes (gb) (g). The download speed for the Alpine Linux ISO has been set to 400 Kilobytes in the following example.
$ wget –limit-rate=100k https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/releases/x86_64/alpine-standard-3.15.3-x86_64.iso 
Wget Limit File Download Speed
8. Using the Wget Command to Mirror a Website
You may use the -m option to mirror or download a website for local viewing.
wget -m wget -m wget -m wget https://www.website.com/
For better viewing of the downloaded site, more criteria may be specified. Let’s look at another case.
wget -m -k -p wget -m -k -p wget -m -k -p wget -m -k https://www.website.com/
We have two more possibilities here: -m, -k, and -p. The -k option translates downloaded document links into a format that may be seen. The -p option downloads the CSS, JS, and any other files necessary for offline viewing of HTML pages.
9. Use the WGet command to increase the number of file retries.
When a connection is lost due to a network or bandwidth problem, the wget command normally comes to the rescue and tries to re-establish the connection.
By default, it attempts 20 times to finish the download successfully. You may define the number of retry attempts using the ‘—tries’ parameter. We’ve set the number of retries to 30 in this example.
—tries=30 wget https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.15/releases/x86 64/alpine-standard-3.15.3-x86 64.iso
10. Use the Wget Command to Ignore SSL Certificate Errors
If an invalid certificate stops the download from continuing, use the —no-check-certificate option to bypass the SSL certificate check.
—no-check-certificate wget https://website-with-invalid-ssl.com
The most popular methods to use the wget command to download files on a Linux system are listed here. Additional wget command parameters may be found in the official documentation.
The “wget command example” is a way to download files with the wget command in Linux. The command has many different options that can be used to customize your downloads.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I download files using wget?
A: If you are trying to download a file using wget, the first step is to find out what the name of that file is. To do this, type in ls -la and then press enter on your keyboard. This will show you a list of files with names similar to those used by popular websites such as Wikipedia and YouTube. In order for these types of downloads to work properly through wget, it must be able
How do I download wget on Linux?
A: You can download wget on Linux by installing a package called wget. It should be available for your distribution.
How do I download a file from Linux command line?
A: In order to download a file from the Linux command line, you must use one of two methods. The first is using wget on the command-line which will prompt for your password and send what it downloads to standard output. Alternatively, there are several GUI tools that can accomplish this task in a more user friendly manner such as Filezilla or Cyberduck.
Related Tags
- wget options
- wget windows
- install wget
- wget download file from url
- man wget
