How to download a file using the Command Line

H

How Can We Help?

How to download a file using the Command Line

If you need to download a file via the command line of Linux (eg. If you are logged in via SSH and need to download something). Please follow the steps below in order to download using the command line.

STEP 1

We use the wget command in order to download a file.

Most Linux distributions already have the wget command installed, if not we need to install it.

To check if wget is installed enter the following command. which wget after entering it press enter and then you should see something like this if it’s installed /usr/bin/wget

STEP 2

If wget is installed skip this step and proceed to Step 3

How to install wget (Different distributions use different methods to install)

DEBIAN/UBUNTU

COMMAND: apt-get install wget

FEDORA / CENTOS

COMMAND: yum install wget

STEP 3

Now we proceed to the actual download

Downloading a single page

COMMAND:  wget http://www.sitename.co.za/test.pdf

Downloading a entire site we use the recursive option

COMMAND: wget -r http://www.sitename.co.za

Downloading only certain file types from the site you wish to download using the -A option

COMMAND: wget -r -A pdf,jpg http://www.sitename.co.za

Downloading only external links, usually wget does not do this, here we can use -H option.

COMMAND: wget -r -H -A pdf,jpg http://www.sitename.co.za

By default wget will follow 5 levels when using -r option, we can change this behaviour with the -l option.

COMMAND: wget -r -l 4

About the author

Ian Carnaghan

I am a software developer and online educator who likes to keep up with all the latest in technology. I also manage cloud infrastructure, continuous monitoring, DevOps processes, security, and continuous integration and deployment.

About Author

Ian Carnaghan

I am a software developer and online educator who likes to keep up with all the latest in technology. I also manage cloud infrastructure, continuous monitoring, DevOps processes, security, and continuous integration and deployment.

Follow Me