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curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)
curl - transfer a URL
curl [options / URLs]
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, MQTT, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTMPS, RTSP, SCP,
SFTP, SMB, SMBS, 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.
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 and quoting the URL as in:
"http://site.{one,two,three}.com"
or you can get sequences of alphanumeric series by using [] as in:
"ftp://ftp.example.com/file[1-100].txt"
"ftp://ftp.example.com/file[001-100].txt" (with leading zeros)
"ftp://ftp.example.com/file[a-z].txt"
Nested sequences are not supported, but you can use several ones next
to each other:
"http://example.com/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 command line options and URLs mixed and in any order on the
command line.
You can specify a step counter for the ranges to get every Nth number
or letter:
"http://example.com/file[1-100:10].txt"
"http://example.com/file[a-z:2].txt"
When using [] or {} sequences when invoked from a command line
prompt, you probably have to put the full URL within double quotes to
avoid the shell from interfering with it. This also goes for other
characters treated special, like for example '&', '?' and '*'.
Provide the IPv6 zone index in the URL with an escaped percentage
sign and the interface name. Like in
"http://[fe80::3%25eth0]/"
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.
curl supports numerous protocols, or put in URL terms: schemes. Your
particular build may not support them all.
DICT Lets you lookup words using online dictionaries.
FILE Read or write local files. curl does not support accessing
file:// URL remotely, but when running on Microsft Windows
using the native UNC approach will work.
FTP(S) curl supports the File Transfer Protocol with a lot of tweaks
and levers. With or without using TLS.
GOPHER Retrieve files.
HTTP(S)
curl supports HTTP with numerous options and variations. It
can speak HTTP version 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 2 and 3 depending on
build options and the correct command line options.
IMAP(S)
Using the mail reading protocol, curl can "download" emails
for you. With or without using TLS.
LDAP(S)
curl can do directory lookups for you, with or without TLS.
MQTT curl supports MQTT version 3. Downloading over MQTT equals
"subscribe" to a topic while uploading/posting equals
"publish" on a topic. MQTT support is experimental and TLS
based MQTT is not supported (yet).
POP3(S)
Downloading from a pop3 server means getting a mail. With or
without using TLS.
RTMP(S)
The Realtime Messaging Protocol is primarily used to server
streaming media and curl can download it.
RTSP curl supports RTSP 1.0 downloads.
SCP curl supports SSH version 2 scp transfers.
SFTP curl supports SFTP (draft 5) done over SSH version 2.
SMB(S) curl supports SMB version 1 for upload and download.
SMTP(S)
Uploading contents to an SMTP server means sending an email.
With or without TLS.
TELNET Telling curl to fetch a telnet URL starts an interactive
session where it sends what it reads on stdin and outputs what
the server sends it.
TFTP curl can do TFTP downloads and uploads.
curl normally displays a progress meter during operations, indicating
the amount of transferred data, transfer speeds and estimated time
left, etc. The progress meter displays number of bytes and the speeds
are in bytes per second. The suffixes (k, M, G, T, P) are 1024 based.
For example 1k is 1024 bytes. 1M is 1048576 bytes.
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 otherwise it would mess
up the output mixing progress meter and response data.
If you want a progress meter for HTTP POST or PUT requests, you need
to redirect the response output to a file, using shell redirect (>),
-o, --output 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, -#,
--progress-bar is your friend. You can also disable the progress
meter completely with the -s, --silent option.
Options start with one or two dashes. Many of the options require an
additional value next to them.
The short "single-dash" form of the options, -d for example, may be
used with or without a space between it and its value, although a
space is a recommended separator. The long "double-dash" form, -d,
--data for example, requires a space between it and its value.
Short version options that don't need any additional values can be
used immediately next to each other, like for example you can specify
all the options -O, -L and -v at once as -OLv.
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.)
--abstract-unix-socket <path>
(HTTP) Connect through an abstract Unix domain socket, instead
of using the network. Note: netstat shows the path of an
abstract socket prefixed with '@', however the <path> argument
should not have this leading character.
Added in 7.53.0.
--alt-svc <file name>
(HTTPS) WARNING: this option is experimental. Do not use in
production.
This option enables the alt-svc parser in curl. If the file
name points to an existing alt-svc cache file, that will be
used. After a completed transfer, the cache will be saved to
the file name again if it has been modified.
Specify a "" file name (zero length) to avoid loading/saving
and make curl just handle the cache in memory.
If this option is used several times, curl will load contents
from all the files but the last one will be used for saving.
Added in 7.64.1.
--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.
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.
Used together with -u, --user.
See also --proxy-anyauth and --basic and --digest.
-a, --append
(FTP SFTP) When used in an upload, this makes curl append to
the target file instead of overwriting it. If the remote file
doesn't exist, it will be created. Note that this flag is
ignored by some SFTP servers (including OpenSSH).
--basic
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP Basic authentication with the
remote host. 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).
Used together with -u, --user.
See also --proxy-basic.
--cacert <file>
(TLS) 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.
(iOS and macOS only) If curl is built against Secure
Transport, then this option is supported for backward
compatibility with other SSL engines, but it should not be
set. If the option is not set, then curl will use the
certificates in the system and user Keychain to verify the
peer, which is the preferred method of verifying the peer's
certificate chain.
(Schannel only) This option is supported for Schannel in
Windows 7 or later with libcurl 7.60 or later. This option is
supported for backward compatibility with other SSL engines;
instead it is recommended to use Windows' store of root
certificates (the default for Schannel).
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--capath <dir>
(TLS) 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.
--cert-status
(TLS) Tells curl to verify the status of the server
certificate by using the Certificate Status Request (aka. OCSP
stapling) TLS extension.
If this option is enabled and the server sends an invalid
(e.g. expired) response, if the response suggests that the
server certificate has been revoked, or no response at all is
received, the verification fails.
This is currently only implemented in the OpenSSL, GnuTLS and
NSS backends.
Added in 7.41.0.
--cert-type <type>
(TLS) Tells curl what type the provided client certificate is
using. PEM, DER, ENG and P12 are recognized types. If not
specified, PEM is assumed.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
See also -E, --cert and --key and --key-type.
-E, --cert <certificate[:password]>
(TLS) 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 PKCS#12 format if using
Secure Transport, or PEM format if using any other engine. 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 client certificate
concatenated! See -E, --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 variable SSL_DIR
(or by default /etc/pki/nssdb). If the NSS PEM PKCS#11 module
(libnsspem.so) is available then PEM files may be loaded. If
you want to use a file from the current 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 curl is built against OpenSSL library, and the engine
pkcs11 is available, then a PKCS#11 URI (RFC 7512) can be used
to specify a certificate located in a PKCS#11 device. A string
beginning with "pkcs11:" will be interpreted as a PKCS#11 URI.
If a PKCS#11 URI is provided, then the --engine option will be
set as "pkcs11" if none was provided and the --cert-type
option will be set as "ENG" if none was provided.
(iOS and macOS only) If curl is built against Secure
Transport, then the certificate string can either be the name
of a certificate/private key in the system or user keychain,
or the path to a PKCS#12-encoded certificate and private key.
If you want to use a file from the current directory, please
precede it with "./" prefix, in order to avoid confusion with
a nickname.
(Schannel only) Client certificates must be specified by a
path expression to a certificate store. (Loading PFX is not
supported; you can import it to a store first). You can use
"<store location>\<store name>\<thumbprint>" to refer to a
certificate in the system certificates store, for example,
"CurrentUser\MY\934a7ac6f8a5d579285a74fa61e19f23ddfe8d7a".
Thumbprint is usually a SHA-1 hex string which you can see in
certificate details. Following store locations are supported:
CurrentUser, LocalMachine, CurrentService, Services,
CurrentUserGroupPolicy, LocalMachineGroupPolicy,
LocalMachineEnterprise.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
See also --cert-type and --key and --key-type.
--ciphers <list of ciphers>
(TLS) 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:
https://curl.haxx.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--compressed-ssh
(SCP SFTP) Enables built-in SSH compression. This is a
request, not an order; the server may or may not do it.
Added in 7.56.0.
--compressed
(HTTP) Request a compressed response using one of the
algorithms curl supports, and automatically decompress the
content. Headers are not modified.
If this option is used and the server sends an unsupported
encoding, curl will report an error.
-K, --config <file>
Specify a text file to read curl arguments from. The command
line arguments found in the text file will be used as if they
were provided on the command line.
Options and their parameters must be specified on the same
line in the file, separated by whitespace, colon, or the
equals sign. Long option names can optionally be given in the
config file without the initial double dashes and if so, the
colon or equals characters can be used as separators. If the
option is specified with one or two dashes, there can be no
colon or equals character between the option and its
parameter.
If the parameter contains whitespace (or starts with : or =),
the parameter must be enclosed within quotes. Within double
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 = "https://curl.haxx.se/docs/"
When curl is invoked, it (unless -q, --disable 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 = "example.com"
output = "curlhere.html"
user-agent = "superagent/1.0"
# and fetch another URL too
url = "example.com/docs/manpage.html"
-O
referer = "http://nowhereatall.example.com/"
# --- End of example file ---
This option can be used multiple times to load multiple config
files.
--connect-timeout <seconds>
Maximum time in seconds that you allow curl's connection to
take. This only limits the connection phase, so if curl
connects within the given period it will continue - if not it
will exit. Since version 7.32.0, this option accepts decimal
values.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
See also -m, --max-time.
--connect-to <HOST1:PORT1:HOST2:PORT2>
For a request to the given HOST1:PORT1 pair, connect to
HOST2:PORT2 instead. This option is suitable to direct
requests at a specific server, e.g. at a specific cluster node
in a cluster of servers. This option is only used to establish
the network connection. It does NOT affect the hostname/port
that is used for TLS/SSL (e.g. SNI, certificate verification)
or for the application protocols. "HOST1" and "PORT1" may be
the empty string, meaning "any host/port". "HOST2" and "PORT2"
may also be the empty string, meaning "use the request's
original host/port".
A "host" specified to this option is compared as a string, so
it needs to match the name used in request URL. It can be
either numerical such as "127.0.0.1" or the full host name
such as "example.org".
This option can be used many times to add many connect rules.
See also --resolve and -H, --header. Added in 7.49.0.
-C, --continue-at <offset>
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.
See also -r, --range.
-c, --cookie-jar <filename>
(HTTP) Specify to which file you want curl to write all
cookies after a completed operation. Curl writes all cookies
from its in-memory cookie storage to the given file at the end
of operations. If no cookies are known, no data 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, --verbose 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.
-b, --cookie <data|filename>
(HTTP) Pass the data to the HTTP server in the Cookie header.
It is supposedly the data previously received from the server
in a "Set-Cookie:" line. The data should be in the format
"NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2".
If no '=' symbol is used in the argument, it is instead
treated as a filename to read previously stored cookie from.
This option also activates the cookie engine which will make
curl record incoming cookies, which may be handy if you're
using this in combination with the -L, --location option or do
multiple URL transfers on the same invoke. If the file name is
exactly a minus ("-"), curl will instead read the contents
from stdin.
The file format of the file to read cookies from should be
plain HTTP headers (Set-Cookie style) or the Netscape/Mozilla
cookie file format.
The file specified with -b, --cookie is only used as input. No
cookies will be written to the file. To store cookies, use the
-c, --cookie-jar option.
Exercise caution if you are using this option and multiple
transfers may occur. If you use the NAME1=VALUE1; format, or
in a file use the Set-Cookie format and don't specify a
domain, then the cookie is sent for any domain (even after
redirects are followed) and cannot be modified by a server-set
cookie. If the cookie engine is enabled and a server sets a
cookie of the same name then both will be sent on a future
transfer to that server, likely not what you intended. To
address these issues set a domain in Set-Cookie (doing that
will include sub domains) or use the Netscape format.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Users very often want to both read cookies from a file and
write updated cookies back to a file, so using both -b,
--cookie and -c, --cookie-jar in the same command line is
common.
--create-dirs
When used in conjunction with the -o, --output option, curl
will create the necessary local directory hierarchy as needed.
This option creates the dirs mentioned with the -o, --output
option, nothing else. If the --output file name uses no dir or
if the dirs it mentions already exist, no dir will be created.
Created dirs are made with mode 0750 on unix style file
systems.
To create remote directories when using FTP or SFTP, try
--ftp-create-dirs.
--crlf (FTP SMTP) Convert LF to CRLF in upload. Useful for MVS
(OS/390).
(SMTP added in 7.40.0)
--crlfile <file>
(TLS) 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.
--data-ascii <data>
(HTTP) This is just an alias for -d, --data.
--data-binary <data>
(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 -d, --data
does, except that newlines and carriage returns are preserved
and conversions are never done.
Like -d, --data the default content-type sent to the server is
application/x-www-form-urlencoded. If you want the data to be
treated as arbitrary binary data by the server then set the
content-type to octet-stream: -H "Content-Type:
application/octet-stream".
If this option is used several times, the ones following the
first will append data as described in -d, --data.
--data-raw <data>
(HTTP) This posts data similarly to -d, --data but without the
special interpretation of the @ character.
See also -d, --data. Added in 7.43.0.
--data-urlencode <data>
(HTTP) This posts data, similar to the other -d, --data
options with the exception that this performs URL-encoding.
To be CGI-compliant, the <data> part should begin with a name
followed by a separator and a content specification. The
<data> 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
syntax match one of the other cases below!
=content
This will make curl URL-encode the content and pass
that on. The preceding = symbol is not included in the
data.
name=content
This will make curl URL-encode the content part and
pass that on. Note that the name part is expected to be
URL-encoded already.
@filename
This will make curl load data from the given file
(including any newlines), URL-encode that data and pass
it on in the POST.
name@filename
This will make curl load data from the given file
(including any newlines), URL-encode that data and pass
it on in the POST. The name part gets an equal sign
appended, resulting in name=urlencoded-file-content.
Note that the name is expected to be URL-encoded
already.
See also -d, --data and --data-raw. Added in 7.18.0.
-d, --data <data>
(HTTP MQTT) Sends the specified data in a POST request to the
HTTP server, in the same way that a browser does when a user
has filled in an HTML form and presses the submit button. This
will cause curl to pass the data to the server using the
content-type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Compare to
-F, --form.
--data-raw is almost the same but does not have a special
interpretation of the @ character. 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. Posting data from a file named 'foobar'
would thus be done with -d, --data @foobar. When -d, --data is
told to read from a file like that, carriage returns and
newlines will be stripped out. If you don't want the @
character to have a special interpretation use --data-raw
instead.
See also --data-binary and --data-urlencode and --data-raw.
This option overrides -F, --form and -I, --head and -T,
--upload-file.
--delegation <LEVEL>
(GSS/kerberos) Set LEVEL to tell the server what it is allowed
to delegate when it comes to user credentials.
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.
If this option is used several times, only the first one is
used.
See also -u, --user and --proxy-digest and --anyauth. This
option overrides --basic and --ntlm and --negotiate.
--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 accessed using IPv6, 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) (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.
-q, --disable
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.
--disallow-username-in-url
(HTTP) This tells curl to exit if passed a url containing a
username.
See also --proto. Added in 7.61.0.
--dns-interface <interface>
(DNS) Tell curl to send outgoing DNS requests through
<interface>. This option is a counterpart to --interface
(which does not affect DNS). The supplied string must be an
interface name (not an address).
See also --dns-ipv4-addr and --dns-ipv6-addr. --dns-interface
requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support c-
ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-ipv4-addr <address>
(DNS) Tell curl to bind to <ip-address> when making IPv4 DNS
requests, so that the DNS requests originate from this
address. The argument should be a single IPv4 address.
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv6-addr. --dns-ipv4-addr
requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support c-
ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-ipv6-addr <address>
(DNS) Tell curl to bind to <ip-address> when making IPv6 DNS
requests, so that the DNS requests originate from this
address. The argument should be a single IPv6 address.
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv4-addr. --dns-ipv6-addr
requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support c-
ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-servers <addresses>
Set the list of DNS servers to be used instead of the system
default. The list of IP addresses should be separated with
commas. Port numbers may also optionally be given as :<port-
number> after each IP address.
--dns-servers requires that the underlying libcurl was built
to support c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--doh-url <URL>
(all) Specifies which DNS-over-HTTPS (DOH) server to use to
resolve hostnames, instead of using the default name resolver
mechanism. The URL must be HTTPS.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.62.0.
-D, --dump-header <filename>
(HTTP FTP) Write the received 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 a better way
to store cookies.
If no headers are received, the use of this option will create
an empty file.
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.
See also -o, --output.
--egd-file <file>
(TLS) Specify the path name to the Entropy Gathering Daemon
socket. The socket is used to seed the random engine for SSL
connections.
See also --random-file.
--engine <name>
(TLS) 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.
--etag-compare <file>
(HTTP) This option makes a conditional HTTP request for the
specific ETag read from the given file by sending a custom If-
None-Match header using the extracted ETag.
For correct results, make sure that specified file contains
only a single line with a desired ETag. An empty file is
parsed as an empty ETag.
Use the option --etag-save to first save the ETag from a
response, and then use this option to compare using the saved
ETag in a subsequent request.
OMPARISON: There are 2 types of comparison or ETags, Weak and
Strong. This option expects, and uses a strong comparison.
Added in 7.68.0.
--etag-save <file>
(HTTP) This option saves an HTTP ETag to the specified file.
Etag is usually part of headers returned by a request. When
server sends an ETag, it must be enveloped by a double quote.
This option extracts the ETag without the double quotes and
saves it into the <file>.
A server can send a week ETag which is prefixed by "W/". This
identifier is not considered, and only relevant ETag between
quotation marks is parsed.
It an ETag wasn't send by the server or it cannot be parsed,
and empty file is created.
Added in 7.68.0.
--expect100-timeout <seconds>
(HTTP) Maximum time in seconds that you allow curl to wait for
a 100-continue response when curl emits an Expects:
100-continue header in its request. By default curl will wait
one second. This option accepts decimal values! When curl
stops waiting, it will continue as if the response has been
received.
See also --connect-timeout. Added in 7.47.0.
--fail-early
Fail and exit on the first detected transfer error.
When curl is used to do multiple transfers on the command
line, it will attempt to operate on each given URL, one by
one. By default, it will ignore errors if there are more URLs
given and the last URL's success will determine the error code
curl returns. So early failures will be "hidden" by subsequent
successful transfers.
Using this option, curl will instead return an error on the
first transfer that fails, independent of the amount of URLs
that are given on the command line. This way, no transfer
failures go undetected by scripts and similar.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for
each use of -:, --next.
This option does not imply -f, --fail, which causes transfers
to fail due to the server's HTTP status code. You can combine
the two options, however note -f, --fail is not global and is
therefore contained by -:, --next.
Added in 7.52.0.
-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).
--false-start
(TLS) Tells curl to use false start during the TLS handshake.
False start is a mode where a TLS client will start sending
application data before verifying the server's Finished
message, thus saving a round trip when performing a full
handshake.
This is currently only implemented in the NSS and Secure
Transport (on iOS 7.0 or later, or OS X 10.9 or later)
backends.
Added in 7.42.0.
--form-string <name=string>
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) Similar to -F, --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 -F, --form if
there's any possibility that the string value may accidentally
trigger the '@' or '<' features of -F, --form.
See also -F, --form.
-F, --form <name=content>
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) For HTTP protocol family, 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.
For SMTP and IMAP protocols, this is the mean to compose a
multipart mail message to transmit.
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.
Tell curl to read content from stdin instead of a file by
using - as filename. This goes for both @ and < constructs.
When stdin is used, the contents is buffered in memory first
by curl to determine its size and allow a possible resend.
Defining a part's data from a named non-regular file (such as
a named pipe or similar) is unfortunately not subject to
buffering and will be effectively read at transmission time;
since the full size is unknown before the transfer starts,
such data is sent as chunks by HTTP and rejected by IMAP.
Example: send an image to an HTTP server, where 'profile' is
the name of the form-field to which the file portrait.jpg will
be the input:
curl -F profile=@portrait.jpg https://example.com/upload.cgi
Example: send your name and shoe size in two text fields to
the server:
curl -F name=John -F shoesize=11 https://example.com/
Example: send your essay in a text field to the server. Send
it as a plain text field, but get the contents for it from a
local file:
curl -F "story=<hugefile.txt" https://example.com/
You can also tell curl what Content-Type to use by using
'type=', in a manner similar to:
curl -F "web=@index.html;type=text/html" example.com
or
curl -F "name=daniel;type=text/foo" example.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" example.com
If filename/path contains ',' or ';', it must be quoted by
double-quotes like:
curl -F "file=@\"localfile\";filename=\"nameinpost\""
example.com
or
curl -F 'file=@"localfile";filename="nameinpost"' example.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.
Quoting must also be applied to non-file data if it contains
semicolons, leading/trailing spaces or leading double quotes:
curl -F 'colors="red; green; blue";type=text/x-myapp'
example.com
You can add custom headers to the field by setting headers=,
like
curl -F "submit=OK;headers=\"X-submit-type: OK\""
example.com
or
curl -F "submit=OK;headers=@headerfile" example.com
The headers= keyword may appear more that once and above notes
about quoting apply. When headers are read from a file, Empty
lines and lines starting with '#' are comments and ignored;
each header can be folded by splitting between two words and
starting the continuation line with a space; embedded
carriage-returns and trailing spaces are stripped. Here is an
example of a header file contents:
# This file contain two headers.
X-header-1: this is a header
# The following header is folded.
X-header-2: this is
another header
To support sending multipart mail messages, the syntax is
extended as follows:
- name can be omitted: the equal sign is the first character
of the argument,
- if data starts with '(', this signals to start a new
multipart: it can be followed by a content type specification.
- a multipart can be terminated with a '=)' argument.
Example: the following command sends an SMTP mime e-mail
consisting in an inline part in two alternative formats: plain
text and HTML. It attaches a text file:
curl -F '=(;type=multipart/alternative' \
-F '=plain text message' \
-F '= <body>HTML message</body>;type=text/html' \
-F '=)' -F '=@textfile.txt' ... smtp://example.com
Data can be encoded for transfer using encoder=. Available
encodings are binary and 8bit that do nothing else than adding
the corresponding Content-Transfer-Encoding header, 7bit that
only rejects 8-bit characters with a transfer error, quoted-
printable and base64 that encodes data according to the
corresponding schemes, limiting lines length to 76 characters.
Example: send multipart mail with a quoted-printable text
message and a base64 attached file:
curl -F '=text message;encoder=quoted-printable' \
-F '=@localfile;encoder=base64' ... smtp://example.com
See further examples and details in the MANUAL.
This option can be used multiple times.
This option overrides -d, --data and -I, --head and -T,
--upload-file.
--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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.13.0.
--ftp-alternative-to-user <command>
(FTP) If authenticating with the USER and PASS commands fails,
send this command. When connecting to Tumbleweed's Secure
Transport server over FTPS using a client certificate, using
"SITE AUTH" will tell the server to retrieve the username from
the certificate.
Added in 7.15.5.
--ftp-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.
See also --create-dirs.
--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.
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.
See also --disable-epsv. Added in 7.11.0.
-P, --ftp-port <address>
(FTP) Reverses the default initiator/listener roles when
connecting with FTP. This option makes curl use active mode.
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.
<address> should be one of:
interface
e.g. "eth0" to specify which interface's IP address you
want to use (Unix only)
IP address
e.g. "192.168.10.1" to specify the exact IP address
host name
e.g. "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++.
Since 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.
See also --ftp-pasv and --disable-eprt.
--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 7.20.0.
--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.
This option has no effect if PORT, EPRT or EPSV is used
instead of PASV.
See also --ftp-pasv. Added in 7.14.2.
--ftp-ssl-ccc-mode <active/passive>
(FTP) 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.
See also --ftp-ssl-ccc. Added in 7.16.2.
--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 also --ssl and --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode. Added in 7.16.1.
--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.
-G, --get
When used, this option will make all data specified with -d,
--data, --data-binary or --data-urlencode 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, --head, 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.
-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.
--happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms <milliseconds>
Happy eyeballs is an algorithm that attempts to connect to
both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for dual-stack hosts, preferring
IPv6 first for the number of milliseconds. If the IPv6 address
cannot be connected to within that time then a connection
attempt is made to the IPv4 address in parallel. The first
connection to be established is the one that is used.
The range of suggested useful values is limited. Happy
Eyeballs RFC 6555 says "It is RECOMMENDED that connection
attempts be paced 150-250 ms apart to balance human factors
against network load." libcurl currently defaults to 200 ms.
Firefox and Chrome currently default to 300 ms.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.59.0.
--haproxy-protocol
(HTTP) Send a HAProxy PROXY protocol v1 header at the
beginning of the connection. This is used by some load
balancers and reverse proxies to indicate the client's true IP
address and port.
This option is primarily useful when sending test requests to
a service that expects this header.
Added in 7.60.0.
-I, --head
(HTTP FTP FILE) Fetch the headers 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.
-H, --header <header/@file>
(HTTP) Extra header to include in the request when sending
HTTP to a server. 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 normally 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.
Starting in 7.55.0, this option can take an argument in
@filename style, which then adds a header for each line in the
input file. Using @- will make curl read the header file from
stdin.
See also the -A, --user-agent and -e, --referer options.
Starting in 7.37.0, you need --proxy-header to send custom
headers intended for a proxy.
Example:
curl -H "X-First-Name: Joe" http://example.com/
WARNING: headers set with this option will be set in all
requests - even after redirects are followed, like when told
with -L, --location. This can lead to the header being sent to
other hosts than the original host, so sensitive headers
should be used with caution combined with following redirects.
This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove
multiple headers.
-h, --help
Usage help. This lists all current command line options with a
short description.
--hostpubmd5 <md5>
(SFTP SCP) 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.
--http0.9
(HTTP) Tells curl to be fine with HTTP version 0.9 response.
HTTP/0.9 is a completely headerless response and therefore you
can also connect with this to non-HTTP servers and still get a
response since curl will simply transparently downgrade - if
allowed.
Since curl 7.66.0, HTTP/0.9 is disabled by default.
-0, --http1.0
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 1.0 instead of using its
internally preferred HTTP version.
This option overrides --http1.1 and --http2.
--http1.1
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 1.1.
This option overrides -0, --http1.0 and --http2. Added in
7.33.0.
--http2-prior-knowledge
(HTTP) Tells curl to issue its non-TLS HTTP requests using
HTTP/2 without HTTP/1.1 Upgrade. It requires prior knowledge
that the server supports HTTP/2 straight away. HTTPS requests
will still do HTTP/2 the standard way with negotiated protocol
version in the TLS handshake.
--http2-prior-knowledge requires that the underlying libcurl
was built to support HTTP/2. This option overrides --http1.1
and -0, --http1.0 and --http2. Added in 7.49.0.
--http2
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 2.
See also --http1.1 and --http3. --http2 requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support HTTP/2. This option
overrides --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2-prior-
knowledge. Added in 7.33.0.
--http3
(HTTP) WARNING: this option is experimental. Do not use in
production.
Tells curl to use HTTP version 3 directly to the host and port
number used in the URL. A normal HTTP/3 transaction will be
done to a host and then get redirected via Alt-SVc, but this
option allows a user to circumvent that when you know that the
target speaks HTTP/3 on the given host and port.
This option will make curl fail if a QUIC connection cannot be
established, it cannot fall back to a lower HTTP version on
its own.
See also --http1.1 and --http2. --http3 requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support HTTP/3. This option
overrides --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2 and
--http2-prior-knowledge. Added in 7.66.0.
--ignore-content-length
(FTP HTTP) For 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.
For FTP (since 7.46.0), skip the RETR command to figure out
the size before downloading a file.
-i, --include
Include the HTTP response headers in the output. The HTTP
response headers can include things like server name, cookies,
date of the document, HTTP version and more...
To view the request headers, consider the -v, --verbose
option.
See also -v, --verbose.
-k, --insecure
(TLS) By default, every SSL connection curl makes is verified
to be secure. This option allows curl to proceed and operate
even for server connections otherwise considered insecure.
The server connection is verified by making sure the server's
certificate contains the right name and verifies successfully
using the cert store.
See this online resource for further details:
https://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html
See also --proxy-insecure and --cacert.
--interface <name>
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 https://www.example.com/
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
On Linux it can be used to specify a VRF, but the binary needs
to either have CAP_NET_RAW or to be run as root. More
information about Linux VRF:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/vrf.txt
See also --dns-interface.
-4, --ipv4
This option tells curl to resolve names to IPv4 addresses
only, and not for example try IPv6.
See also --http1.1 and --http2. This option overrides -6,
--ipv6.
-6, --ipv6
This option tells curl to resolve names to IPv6 addresses
only, and not for example try IPv4.
See also --http1.1 and --http2. This option overrides -4,
--ipv4.
-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.
See also -b, --cookie and -c, --cookie-jar.
--keepalive-time <seconds>
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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used. If unspecified, the option defaults to 60 seconds.
Added in 7.18.0.
--key-type <type>
(TLS) 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.
--key <key>
(TLS 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 curl is built against OpenSSL library, and the engine
pkcs11 is available, then a PKCS#11 URI (RFC 7512) can be used
to specify a private key located in a PKCS#11 device. A string
beginning with "pkcs11:" will be interpreted as a PKCS#11 URI.
If a PKCS#11 URI is provided, then the --engine option will be
set as "pkcs11" if none was provided and the --key-type option
will be set as "ENG" if none was provided.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--krb <level>
(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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--krb requires that the underlying libcurl was built to
support Kerberos.
--libcurl <file>
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 <speed>
Specify the maximum transfer rate you want curl to use - for
both downloads and uploads. This feature is useful if you have
a limited pipe and you'd like your transfer not to use your
entire bandwidth. To make it slower than it otherwise would
be.
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.
If you also use the -Y, --speed-limit option, that option will
take precedence and might cripple the rate-limiting slightly,
to help keeping the speed-limit logic working.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-l, --list-only
(FTP POP3) (FTP) When listing an FTP directory, this switch
forces a name-only view. This is especially useful if the user
wants to machine-parse the contents of an FTP directory since
the normal directory view doesn't use a standard look or
format. When used like this, the option causes a NLST command
to be sent to the server instead of LIST.
Note: Some FTP servers list only files in their response to
NLST; they do not include sub-directories and symbolic links.
(POP3) When retrieving a specific email from POP3, this switch
forces a LIST command to be performed instead of RETR. This is
particularly useful if the user wants to see if a specific
message id exists on the server and what size it is.
Note: When combined with -X, --request, this option can be
used to send an UIDL command instead, so the user may use the
email's unique identifier rather than it's message id to make
the request.
Added in 4.0.
--local-port <num/range>
Set a preferred single number or range (FROM-TO) 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) 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).
See also -u, --user.
-L, --location
(HTTP) 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 if the request is a POST, 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.
You can tell curl to not change POST requests to GET after a
30x response by using the dedicated options for that:
--post301, --post302 and --post303.
The method set with -X, --request overrides the method curl
would otherwise select to use.
--login-options <options>
(IMAP POP3 SMTP) Specify the login options to use during
server authentication.
You can use the login options to specify protocol specific
options that may be used during authentication. At present
only IMAP, POP3 and SMTP support login options. For more
information about the login options please see RFC 2384, RFC
5092 and IETF draft draft-earhart-url-smtp-00.txt
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.34.0.
--mail-auth <address>
(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.
See also --mail-rcpt and --mail-from. Added in 7.25.0.
--mail-from <address>
(SMTP) Specify a single address that the given mail should get
sent from.
See also --mail-rcpt and --mail-auth. Added in 7.20.0.
--mail-rcpt-allowfails
(SMTP) When sending data to multiple recipients, by default
curl will abort SMTP conversation if at least one of the
recipients causes RCPT TO command to return an error.
The default behavior can be changed by passing --mail-rcpt-
allowfails command-line option which will make curl ignore
errors and proceed with the remaining valid recipients.
In case when all recipients cause RCPT TO command to fail,
curl will abort SMTP conversation and return the error
received from to the last RCPT TO command. Added in 7.69.0.
--mail-rcpt <address>
(SMTP) Specify a single address, user name or mailing list
name. Repeat this option several times to send to multiple
recipients.
When performing a mail transfer, the recipient should specify
a valid email address to send the mail to.
When performing an address verification (VRFY command), the
recipient should be specified as the user name or user name
and domain (as per Section 3.5 of RFC5321). (Added in 7.34.0)
When performing a mailing list expand (EXPN command), the
recipient should be specified using the mailing list name,
such as "Friends" or "London-Office". (Added in 7.34.0)
Added in 7.20.0.
-M, --manual
Manual. Display the huge help text.
--max-filesize <bytes>
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.
A size modifier may be used. For example, 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. (Added in 7.58.0)
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.
See also --limit-rate.
--max-redirs <num>
(HTTP) Set maximum number of redirection-followings allowed.
When -L, --location is used, is used to prevent curl from
following redirections too much. By default, the limit is set
to 50 redirections. Set this option to -1 to make it
unlimited.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-m, --max-time <seconds>
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.
Since 7.32.0, this option accepts decimal values, but the
actual timeout will decrease in accuracy as the specified
timeout increases in decimal precision.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
See also --connect-timeout.
--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 -i, --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.
--metalink requires that the underlying libcurl was built to
support metalink. Added in 7.27.0.
--negotiate
(HTTP) Enables Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication.
This option requires a library built with GSS-API or SSPI
support. Use -V, --version to see if your curl supports GSS-
API/SSPI or SPNEGO.
When using this option, you must also provide a fake -u,
--user option to activate the authentication code properly.
Sending a '-u :' is enough as the user name and password from
the -u, --user option aren't actually used.
If this option is used several times, only the first one is
used.
See also --basic and --ntlm and --anyauth and --proxy-
negotiate.
--netrc-file <filename>
This option is similar to -n, --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, the
last one will be used.
It will abide by --netrc-optional if specified.
This option overrides -n, --netrc. Added in 7.21.5.
--netrc-optional
Very similar to -n, --netrc, but this option makes the .netrc
usage optional and not mandatory as the -n, --netrc option
does.
See also --netrc-file. This option overrides -n, --netrc.
-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(5) ftp(1) for details on
the file format. Curl will not complain if that file doesn't
have the right permissions (it should not be either world- or
group-readable). The environment variable "HOME" is used to
find the home directory.
A quick and very simple example of how to setup a .netrc to
allow curl to FTP to the machine host.domain.com with user
name 'myself' and password 'secret' should look similar to:
machine host.domain.com login myself password secret
-:, --next
Tells curl to use a separate operation for the following URL
and associated options. This allows you to send several URL
requests, each with their own specific options, for example,
such as different user names or custom requests for each.
-:, --next will reset all local options and only global ones
will have their values survive over to the operation following
the -:, --next instruction. Global options include -v,
--verbose, --trace, --trace-ascii and --fail-early.
For example, you can do both a GET and a POST in a single
command line:
curl www1.example.com --next -d postthis www2.example.com
Added in 7.36.0.
--no-alpn
(HTTPS) Disable the ALPN TLS extension. ALPN is enabled by
default if libcurl was built with an SSL library that supports
ALPN. ALPN is used by a libcurl that supports HTTP/2 to
negotiate HTTP/2 support with the server during https
sessions.
See also --no-npn and --http2. --no-alpn requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. Added in 7.36.0.
-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.
--no-keepalive
Disables the use of keepalive messages on the TCP connection.
curl otherwise enables them by default.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can
thus use --keepalive to enforce keepalive.
--no-npn
(HTTPS) Disable the NPN TLS extension. NPN is enabled by
default if libcurl was built with an SSL library that supports
NPN. NPN is used by a libcurl that supports HTTP/2 to
negotiate HTTP/2 support with the server during https
sessions.
See also --no-alpn and --http2. --no-npn requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. Added in 7.36.0.
--no-progress-meter
Option to switch off the progress meter output without muting
or otherwise affecting warning and informational messages like
-s, --silent does.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can
thus use --progress-meter to enable the progress meter again.
See also -v, --verbose and -s, --silent. Added in 7.67.0.
--no-sessionid
(TLS) 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.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can
thus use --sessionid to enforce session-ID caching.
Added in 7.16.0.
--noproxy <no-proxy-list>
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.
Since 7.53.0, This option overrides the environment variables
that disable the proxy. If there's an environment variable
disabling a proxy, you can set noproxy list to "" to override
it.
Added in 7.19.4.
--ntlm-wb
(HTTP) Enables NTLM much in the style --ntlm does, but hand
over the authentication to the separate binary ntlmauth
application that is executed when needed.
See also --ntlm and --proxy-ntlm.
--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-engineered by
clever people and implemented in curl based on their efforts.
This kind of behavior should not be endorsed, you should
encourage everyone who uses NTLM to switch to a public and
documented authentication method instead, such as Digest.
If you want to enable NTLM for your proxy authentication, then
use --proxy-ntlm.
If this option is used several times, only the first one is
used.
See also --proxy-ntlm. --ntlm requires that the underlying
libcurl was built to support TLS. This option overrides
--basic and --negotiate and --digest and --anyauth.
--oauth2-bearer <token>
(IMAP POP3 SMTP HTTP) Specify the Bearer Token for OAUTH 2.0
server authentication. The Bearer Token is used in conjunction
with the user name which can be specified as part of the --url
or -u, --user options.
The Bearer Token and user name are formatted according to RFC
6750.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-o, --output <file>
Write output to <file> instead of stdout. If you are using {}
or [] to fetch multiple documents, you should quote the URL
and you can use '#' followed by a number in the <file>
specifier. That variable will be replaced with the current
string for the URL being fetched. Like in:
curl "http://{one,two}.example.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. For example, if you specify two URLs on the same
command line, you can use it like this:
curl -o aa example.com -o bb example.net
and the order of the -o options and the URLs doesn't matter,
just that the first -o is for the first URL and so on, so the
above command line can also be written as
curl example.com example.net -o aa -o bb
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.
See also -O, --remote-name and --remote-name-all and -J,
--remote-header-name.
--parallel-immediate
When doing parallel transfers, this option will instruct curl
that it should rather prefer opening up more connections in
parallel at once rather than waiting to see if new transfers
can be added as multiplexed streams on another connection.
See also -Z, --parallel and --parallel-max. Added in 7.68.0.
--parallel-max
When asked to do parallel transfers, using -Z, --parallel,
this option controls the maximum amount of transfers to do
simultaneously.
The default is 50.
See also -Z, --parallel. Added in 7.66.0.
-Z, --parallel
Makes curl perform its transfers in parallel as compared to
the regular serial manner.
Added in 7.66.0.
--pass <phrase>
(SSH TLS) Passphrase for the private key
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--path-as-is
Tell curl to not handle sequences of /../ or /./ in the given
URL path. Normally curl will squash or merge them according to
standards but with this option set you tell it not to do that.
Added in 7.42.0.
--pinnedpubkey <hashes>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified public key file (or
hashes) to verify the peer. This can be a path to a file which
contains a single public key in PEM or DER format, or any
number of base64 encoded sha256 hashes preceded by ´sha256//´
and separated by ´;´
When negotiating a TLS or SSL connection, the server sends a
certificate indicating its identity. A public key is extracted
from this certificate and if it does not exactly match the
public key provided to this option, curl will abort the
connection before sending or receiving any data.
PEM/DER support:
7.39.0: OpenSSL, GnuTLS and GSKit
7.43.0: NSS and wolfSSL
7.47.0: mbedtls sha256 support:
7.44.0: OpenSSL, GnuTLS, NSS and wolfSSL
7.47.0: mbedtls Other SSL backends not supported.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--post301
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 7231/6.4.2 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.
See also --post302 and --post303 and -L, --location. Added in
7.17.1.
--post302
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 7231/6.4.3 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.
See also --post301 and --post303 and -L, --location. Added in
7.19.1.
--post303
(HTTP) Tells curl to violate RFC 7231/6.4.4 and not convert
POST requests into GET requests when following 303
redirections. A server may require a POST to remain a POST
after a 303 redirection. This option is meaningful only when
using -L, --location.
See also --post302 and --post301 and -L, --location. Added in
7.26.0.
--preproxy [protocol://]host[:port]
Use the specified SOCKS proxy before connecting to an HTTP or
HTTPS -x, --proxy. In such a case curl first connects to the
SOCKS proxy and then connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or
HTTPS proxy. Hence pre proxy.
The pre proxy string should 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 will make curl
default to SOCKS4.
If the port number is not specified in the proxy string, it is
assumed to be 1080.
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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.52.0.
-#, --progress-bar
Make curl display transfer progress as a simple progress bar
instead of the standard, more informational, meter.
This progress bar draws a single line of '#' characters across
the screen and shows a percentage if the transfer size is
known. For transfers without a known size, there will be space
ship (-=o=-) that moves back and forth but only while data is
being transferred, with a set of flying hash sign symbols on
top.
--proto-default <protocol>
Tells curl to use protocol for any URL missing a scheme name.
Example:
curl --proto-default https ftp.mozilla.org
An unknown or unsupported protocol causes error
CURLE_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL (1).
This option does not change the default proxy protocol (http).
Without this option curl would make a guess based on the host,
see --url for details.
Added in 7.45.0.
--proto-redir <protocols>
Tells curl to limit what protocols it may use on redirect.
Protocols denied by --proto are not overridden by this option.
See --proto for how protocols are represented.
Example, allow only HTTP and HTTPS on redirect:
curl --proto-redir -all,http,https http://example.com
By default curl will allow HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS on
redirect (7.65.2). Older versions of curl allowed all
protocols on redirect except several disabled for security
reasons: Since 7.19.4 FILE and SCP are disabled, and since
7.40.0 SMB and SMBS are also disabled. Specifying all or +all
enables all protocols on redirect, including those disabled
for security.
Added in 7.20.2.
--proto <protocols>
Tells curl to limit what protocols it may use in the transfer.
Protocols are evaluated left to right, are comma separated,
and are each a protocol name or 'all', optionally 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 protocol being built into curl
to avoid an error.
This option can be used multiple times, in which case the effect is
the same as concatenating the protocols into one instance of the
option.
See also --proto-redir and --proto-default. Added in 7.20.2.
--proxy-anyauth
Tells curl to pick a suitable authentication method when
communicating with the given HTTP proxy. This might cause an
extra request/response round-trip.
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-basic and --proxy-digest.
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 authentication method curl
uses with proxies.
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-digest.
--proxy-cacert <file>
Same as --cacert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
See also --proxy-capath and --cacert and --capath and -x,
--proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-capath <dir>
Same as --capath but used in HTTPS proxy context.
See also --proxy-cacert and -x, --proxy and --capath. Added in
7.52.0.
--proxy-cert-type <type>
Same as --cert-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-cert <cert[:passwd]>
Same as -E, --cert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-ciphers <list>
Same as --ciphers but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-crlfile <file>
Same as --crlfile but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--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.
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-basic.
--proxy-header <header/@file>
(HTTP) Extra header to include in the request when sending
HTTP to a proxy. You may specify any number of extra headers.
This is the equivalent option to -H, --header but is for proxy
communication only like in CONNECT requests when you want a
separate header sent to the proxy to what is sent to the
actual remote host.
curl will make sure that each header you add/replace is sent
with the proper end-of-line marker, you should thus not add
that as a part of the header content: do not add newlines or
carriage returns, they will only mess things up for you.
Headers specified with this option will not be included in
requests that curl knows will not be sent to a proxy.
Starting in 7.55.0, this option can take an argument in
@filename style, which then adds a header for each line in the
input file. Using @- will make curl read the header file from
stdin.
This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove
multiple headers.
Added in 7.37.0.
--proxy-insecure
Same as -k, --insecure but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-key-type <type>
Same as --key-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-key <key>
Same as --key but used in HTTPS proxy context.
--proxy-negotiate
Tells curl to use HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication when
communicating with the given proxy. Use --negotiate for
enabling HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) with a remote host.
See also --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-basic. 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.
See also --proxy-negotiate and --proxy-anyauth.
--proxy-pass <phrase>
Same as --pass but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-pinnedpubkey <hashes>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified public key file (or
hashes) to verify the proxy. This can be a path to a file
which contains a single public key in PEM or DER format, or
any number of base64 encoded sha256 hashes preceded by
´sha256//´ and separated by ´;´
When negotiating a TLS or SSL connection, the server sends a
certificate indicating its identity. A public key is extracted
from this certificate and if it does not exactly match the
public key provided to this option, curl will abort the
connection before sending or receiving any data.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--proxy-service-name <name>
This option allows you to change the service name for proxy
negotiation.
Added in 7.43.0.
--proxy-ssl-allow-beast
Same as --ssl-allow-beast but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tls13-ciphers <ciphersuite list>
(TLS) Specifies which cipher suites to use in the connection
to your HTTPS proxy when it negotiates TLS 1.3. The list of
ciphers suites must specify valid ciphers. Read up on TLS 1.3
cipher suite details on this URL:
https://curl.haxx.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
This option is currently used only when curl is built to use
OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later. If you are using a different SSL
backend you can try setting TLS 1.3 cipher suites by using the
--proxy-ciphers option.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--proxy-tlsauthtype <type>
Same as --tlsauthtype but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tlspassword <string>
Same as --tlspassword but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tlsuser <name>
Same as --tlsuser but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tlsv1
Same as -1, --tlsv1 but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Added in 7.52.0.
-U, --proxy-user <user:password>
Specify the user name and password to use for proxy
authentication.
If you use a Windows SSPI-enabled curl binary and do either
Negotiate or NTLM authentication then you can tell curl to
select the user name and password from your environment by
specifying a single colon with this option: "-U :".
On systems where it works, curl will hide the given option
argument from process listings. This is not enough to protect
credentials from possibly getting seen by other users on the
same system as they will still be visible for a brief moment
before cleared. Such sensitive data should be retrieved from a
file instead or similar and never used in clear text in a
command line.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-x, --proxy [protocol://]host[:port]
Use the specified proxy.
The proxy string can be specified with a protocol:// prefix.
No protocol specified or http:// will be treated as HTTP
proxy. Use socks4://, socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to
request a specific SOCKS version to be used. (The protocol
support was added in curl 7.21.7)
HTTPS proxy support via https:// protocol prefix was added in
7.52.0 for OpenSSL, GnuTLS and NSS.
Unrecognized and unsupported proxy protocols cause an error
since 7.52.0. Prior versions may ignore the protocol and use
http:// instead.
If the port number is not specified in the proxy string, it is
assumed to be 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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--proxy1.0 <host[:port]>
Use the specified HTTP 1.0 proxy. If the port number is not
specified, it is assumed at port 1080.
The only difference between this and the HTTP proxy option -x,
--proxy, is that attempts to use CONNECT through the proxy
will specify an HTTP 1.0 protocol instead of the default HTTP
1.1.
-p, --proxytunnel
When an HTTP proxy is used -x, --proxy, this option will make
curl tunnel through the proxy. 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.
To suppress proxy CONNECT response headers when curl is set to
output headers use --suppress-connect-headers.
See also -x, --proxy.
--pubkey <key>
(SFTP SCP) 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, --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.
Prefix the command with an asterisk (*) to make curl continue
even if the command fails as by default curl will stop at
first failure.
This option can be used multiple times.
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 spaces 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.
--random-file <file>
Specify the path name to file containing what will be
considered as random data. The data may be used to seed the
random engine for SSL connections. See also the --egd-file
option.
-r, --range <range>
(HTTP FTP SFTP FILE) Retrieve a byte range (i.e. a partial
document) from an 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(*)(HTTP)
100-199,500-599
specifies two separate 100-byte ranges(*) (HTTP)
(*) = 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.
--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.
-e, --referer <URL>
(HTTP) Sends the "Referrer 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 -e, --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 -e,
--referer.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
See also -A, --user-agent and -H, --header.
-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.
If the server specifies a file name and a file with that name
already exists in the current working directory it will not be
overwritten and an error will occur. If the server doesn't
specify a file name then this option has no effect.
There's no attempt to decode %-sequences (yet) in the provided
file name, so this option may provide you with rather
unexpected file names.
WARNING: Exercise judicious use of this option, especially on
Windows. A rogue server could send you the name of a DLL or
other file that could possibly be loaded automatically by
Windows or some third party software.
--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.
-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 file will be saved in the current working directory. If
you want the file saved in a different directory, make sure
you change the current working directory before invoking curl
with this option.
The remote file name to use for saving is extracted from the
given URL, nothing else, and if it already exists it will be
overwritten. If you want the server to be able to choose the
file name refer to -J, --remote-header-name which can be used
in addition to this option. If the server chooses a file name
and that name already exists it will not be overwritten.
There is no URL decoding done on the file name. If it has %20
or other URL encoded parts of the name, they will end up as-is
as file name.
You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs
you have.
-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.
--request-target
(HTTP) Tells curl to use an alternative "target" (path)
instead of using the path as provided in the URL. Particularly
useful when wanting to issue HTTP requests without leading
slash or other data that doesn't follow the regular URL
pattern, like "OPTIONS *".
Added in 7.55.0.
-X, --request <command>
(HTTP) Specifies a custom request method to use when
communicating with the HTTP server. The specified request
method 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.
The method string you set with -X, --request will be used for
all requests, which if you for example use -L, --location may
cause unintended side-effects when curl doesn't change request
method according to the HTTP 30x response codes - and similar.
(FTP) Specifies a custom FTP command to use instead of LIST
when doing file lists with FTP.
(POP3) Specifies a custom POP3 command to use instead of LIST
or RETR. (Added in 7.26.0)
(IMAP) Specifies a custom IMAP command to use instead of LIST.
(Added in 7.30.0)
(SMTP) Specifies a custom SMTP command to use instead of HELP
or VRFY. (Added in 7.34.0)
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--resolve <host:port:addr[,addr]...>
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.
By specifying '*' as host you can tell curl to resolve any
host and specific port pair to the specified address. Wildcard
is resolved last so any --resolve with a specific host and
port will be used first.
The provided address set by this option will be used even if
-4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6 is set to make curl use another IP
version.
Support for providing the IP address within [brackets] was
added in 7.57.0.
Support for providing multiple IP addresses per entry was
added in 7.59.0.
Support for resolving with wildcard was added in 7.64.0.
This option can be used many times to add many host names to
resolve.
Added in 7.21.3.
--retry-all-errors
Retry on any error. This option is used together with --retry.
This option is the "sledgehammer" of retrying. Do not use this
option by default (eg in curlrc), there may be unintended
consequences such as sending or receiving duplicate data. Do
not use with redirected input or output. You'd be much better
off handling your unique problems in shell script. Please read
the example below.
Warning: For server compatibility curl attempts to retry
failed flaky transfers as close as possible to how they were
started, but this is not possible with redirected input or
output. For example, before retrying it removes output data
from a failed partial transfer that was written to an output
file. However this is not true of data redirected to a | pipe
or > file, which are not reset. We strongly suggest don't
parse or record output via redirect in combination with this
option, since you may receive duplicate data.
Added in 7.71.0.
--retry-connrefused
In addition to the other conditions, consider ECONNREFUSED as
a transient error too for --retry. This option is used
together with --retry.
Added in 7.52.0.
--retry-delay <seconds>
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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.12.3.
--retry-max-time <seconds>
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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.12.3.
--retry <num>
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 408 or 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.
Since curl 7.66.0, curl will comply with the Retry-After:
response header if one was present to know when to issue the
next retry.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.12.3.
--sasl-authzid <identity>
Use this authorisation identity (authzid), during SASL PLAIN
authentication, in addition to the authentication identity
(authcid) as specified by -u, --user.
If the option isn't specified, the server will derive the
authzid from the authcid, but if specified, and depending on
the server implementation, it may be used to access another
user's inbox, that the user has been granted access to, or a
shared mailbox for example.
Added in 7.66.0.
--sasl-ir
Enable initial response in SASL authentication.
Added in 7.31.0.
--service-name <name>
This option allows you to change the service name for SPNEGO.
Examples: --negotiate --service-name sockd would use
sockd/server-name.
Added in 7.43.0.
-S, --show-error
When used with -s, --silent, it makes curl show an error
message if it fails.
-s, --silent
Silent or quiet mode. Don't show progress meter or error
messages. Makes Curl mute. It will still output the data you
ask for, potentially even to the terminal/stdout unless you
redirect it.
Use -S, --show-error in addition to this option to disable
progress meter but still show error messages.
See also -v, --verbose and --stderr.
--socks4 <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS4 proxy. 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 socks4 proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks4:// protocol
prefix.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy
at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS proxy.
In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then
connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS proxy.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.15.2.
--socks4a <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS4a proxy. 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 socks4a proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks4a:// protocol
prefix.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy
at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS proxy.
In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then
connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS proxy.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.18.0.
--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-nec
As part of the GSS-API 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.
--socks5-gssapi-service <name>
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
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 <host[:port]>
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.
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.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy
at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS proxy.
In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then
connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS proxy.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
Added in 7.18.0.
--socks5 <host[:port]>
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.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy
at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS proxy.
In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then
connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS proxy.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
This option (as well as --socks4) does not work with IPV6,
FTPS or LDAP.
Added in 7.18.0.
-Y, --speed-limit <speed>
If a download is slower than this given speed (in bytes per
second) for speed-time seconds it gets aborted. speed-time is
set with -y, --speed-time and is 30 if not set.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-y, --speed-time <seconds>
If a download is slower than speed-limit bytes per second
during a speed-time period, the download gets aborted. If
speed-time is used, the default speed-limit will be 1 unless
set with -Y, --speed-limit.
This option controls transfers and thus will not affect slow
connects etc. If this is a concern for you, try the --connect-
timeout option.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--ssl-allow-beast
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 workarounds 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.
--ssl-no-revoke
(Schannel) This option tells curl to disable certificate
revocation checks. WARNING: this option loosens the SSL
security, and by using this flag you ask for exactly that.
Added in 7.44.0.
--ssl-reqd
(FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP) Require SSL/TLS for the connection.
Terminates the connection if the server doesn't support
SSL/TLS.
This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl-reqd.
Added in 7.20.0.
--ssl-revoke-best-effort
(Schannel) This option tells curl to ignore certificate
revocation checks when they failed due to missing/offline
distribution points for the revocation check lists.
Added in 7.70.0.
--ssl (FTP IMAP POP3 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.
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.
Added in 7.20.0.
-2, --sslv2
(SSL) Forces curl to use SSL version 2 when negotiating with a
remote SSL server. Sometimes curl is built without SSLv2
support. SSLv2 is widely considered insecure (see RFC 6176).
See also --http1.1 and --http2. -2, --sslv2 requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This option
overrides -3, --sslv3 and -1, --tlsv1 and --tlsv1.1 and
--tlsv1.2.
-3, --sslv3
(SSL) Forces curl to use SSL version 3 when negotiating with a
remote SSL server. Sometimes curl is built without SSLv3
support. SSLv3 is widely considered insecure (see RFC 7568).
See also --http1.1 and --http2. -3, --sslv3 requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This option
overrides -2, --sslv2 and -1, --tlsv1 and --tlsv1.1 and
--tlsv1.2.
--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.
See also -v, --verbose and -s, --silent.
--styled-output
Enables the automatic use of bold font styles when writing
HTTP headers to the terminal. Use --no-styled-output to switch
them off.
Added in 7.61.0.
--suppress-connect-headers
When -p, --proxytunnel is used and a CONNECT request is made
don't output proxy CONNECT response headers. This option is
meant to be used with -D, --dump-header or -i, --include which
are used to show protocol headers in the output. It has no
effect on debug options such as -v, --verbose or --trace, or
any statistics.
See also -D, --dump-header and -i, --include and -p,
--proxytunnel.
--tcp-fastopen
Enable use of TCP Fast Open (RFC7413).
Added in 7.49.0.
--tcp-nodelay
Turn on the TCP_NODELAY option. See the curl_easy_setopt(3)
man page for details about this option.
Since 7.50.2, curl sets this option by default and you need to
explicitly switch it off if you don't want it on.
Added in 7.11.2.
-t, --telnet-option <opt=val>
Pass options to the telnet protocol. Supported options are:
TTYPE=<term> Sets the terminal type.
XDISPLOC=<X display> Sets the X display location.
NEW_ENV=<var,val> Sets an environment variable.
--tftp-blksize <value>
(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.
--tftp-no-options
(TFTP) Tells curl not to send TFTP options requests.
This option improves interop with some legacy servers that do
not acknowledge or properly implement TFTP options. When this
option is used --tftp-blksize is ignored.
Added in 7.48.0.
-z, --time-cond <time>
(HTTP FTP) Request a file that has been modified later than
the given time and date, or one that has been modified before
that time. The <date expression> can be all sorts of date
strings or if it doesn't match any internal ones, it is taken
as a filename and tries to get the modification date (mtime)
from <file> instead. See the curl_getdate(3) man pages for
date expression details.
Start the date expression with a dash (-) to make it request
for a document that is older than the given date/time, default
is a document that is newer than the specified date/time.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--tls-max <VERSION>
(SSL) VERSION defines maximum supported TLS version. The
minimum acceptable version is set by tlsv1.0, tlsv1.1, tlsv1.2
or tlsv1.3.
If the connection is done without TLS, this option has no
effect. This includes QUIC-using (HTTP/3) transfers.
default
Use up to recommended TLS version.
1.0 Use up to TLSv1.0.
1.1 Use up to TLSv1.1.
1.2 Use up to TLSv1.2.
1.3 Use up to TLSv1.3.
See also --tlsv1.0 and --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3. --tls-
max requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS.
Added in 7.54.0.
--tls13-ciphers <ciphersuite list>
(TLS) Specifies which cipher suites to use in the connection
if it negotiates TLS 1.3. The list of ciphers suites must
specify valid ciphers. Read up on TLS 1.3 cipher suite details
on this URL:
https://curl.haxx.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
This option is currently used only when curl is built to use
OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later. If you are using a different SSL
backend you can try setting TLS 1.3 cipher suites by using the
--ciphers option.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
--tlsauthtype <type>
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". This option works only if the
underlying libcurl is built with TLS-SRP support, which
requires OpenSSL or GnuTLS with TLS-SRP support.
Added in 7.21.4.
--tlspassword
Set password for use with the TLS authentication method
specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlsuser also be
set.
This doesn't work with TLS 1.3.
Added in 7.21.4.
--tlsuser <name>
Set username for use with the TLS authentication method
specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlspassword also
is set.
This doesn't work with TLS 1.3.
Added in 7.21.4.
--tlsv1.0
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.0 or later when
connecting to a remote TLS server.
In old versions of curl this option was documented to allow
_only_ TLS 1.0, but behavior was inconsistent depending on the
TLS library. Use --tls-max if you want to set a maximum TLS
version.
Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.1
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.1 or later when
connecting to a remote TLS server.
In old versions of curl this option was documented to allow
_only_ TLS 1.1, but behavior was inconsistent depending on the
TLS library. Use --tls-max if you want to set a maximum TLS
version.
Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.2
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.2 or later when
connecting to a remote TLS server.
In old versions of curl this option was documented to allow
_only_ TLS 1.2, but behavior was inconsistent depending on the
TLS library. Use --tls-max if you want to set a maximum TLS
version.
Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.3
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.3 or later when
connecting to a remote TLS server.
If the connection is done without TLS, this option has no
effect. This includes QUIC-using (HTTP/3) transfers.
Note that TLS 1.3 is not supported by all TLS backends.
Added in 7.52.0.
-1, --tlsv1
(SSL) Tells curl to use at least TLS version 1.x when
negotiating with a remote TLS server. That means TLS version
1.0 or higher
See also --http1.1 and --http2. -1, --tlsv1 requires that the
underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This option
overrides --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3.
--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-ascii <file>
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.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
This option overrides --trace and -v, --verbose.
--trace-time
Prepends a time stamp to each trace or verbose line that curl
displays.
Added in 7.14.0.
--trace <file>
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. Use "%"
as filename to have the output sent to stderr.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
This option overrides -v, --verbose and --trace-ascii.
--unix-socket <path>
(HTTP) Connect through this Unix domain socket, instead of
using the network.
Added in 7.40.0.
-T, --upload-file <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, --upload-file for each URL on the
command line. Each -T, --upload-file + URL pair specifies what
to upload and to where. curl also supports "globbing" of the
-T, --upload-file 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 --upload-file "{file1,file2}" http://www.example.com
or even
curl -T "img[1-1000].png" ftp://ftp.example.com/upload/
When uploading to an SMTP server: the uploaded data is assumed
to be RFC 5322 formatted. It has to feature the necessary set
of headers and mail body formatted correctly by the user as
curl will not transcode nor encode it further in any way.
--url <url>
Specify a URL to fetch. This option is mostly handy when you
want to specify URL(s) in a config file.
If the given URL is missing a scheme name (such as "http://"
or "ftp://" etc) then curl will make a guess based on the
host. If the outermost sub-domain name matches DICT, FTP,
IMAP, LDAP, POP3 or SMTP then that protocol will be used,
otherwise HTTP will be used. Since 7.45.0 guessing can be
disabled by setting a default protocol, see --proto-default
for details.
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.
Warning: On Windows, particular file:// accesses can be
converted to network accesses by the operating system. Beware!
-B, --use-ascii
(FTP LDAP) Enable ASCII transfer. For FTP, this can also be
enforced by using a URL that ends with ";type=A". This option
causes data sent to stdout to be in text mode for win32
systems.
-A, --user-agent <name>
(HTTP) Specify the User-Agent string to send to the HTTP
server. To encode blanks in the string, surround the string
with single quote marks. This header can also be set with the
-H, --header or the --proxy-header options.
If you give an empty argument to -A, --user-agent (""), it
will remove the header completely from the request. If you
prefer a blank header, you can set it to a single space (" ").
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-u, --user <user:password>
Specify the user name and password to use for server
authentication. Overrides -n, --netrc and --netrc-optional.
If you simply specify the user name, curl will prompt for a
password.
The user name and passwords are split up on the first colon,
which makes it impossible to use a colon in the user name with
this option. The password can, still.
On systems where it works, curl will hide the given option
argument from process listings. This is not enough to protect
credentials from possibly getting seen by other users on the
same system as they will still be visible for a brief moment
before cleared. Such sensitive data should be retrieved from a
file instead or similar and never used in clear text in a
command line.
When using Kerberos V5 with a Windows based server you should
include the Windows domain name in the user name, in order for
the server to successfully obtain a Kerberos Ticket. If you
don't then the initial authentication handshake may fail.
When using NTLM, the user name can be specified simply as the
user name, without the domain, if there is a single domain and
forest in your setup for example.
To specify the domain name use either Down-Level Logon Name or
UPN (User Principal Name) formats. For example, EXAMPLE\user
and user@example.com respectively.
If you use a Windows SSPI-enabled curl binary and perform
Kerberos V5, Negotiate, NTLM or Digest authentication then you
can tell curl to select the user name and password from your
environment by specifying a single colon with this option: "-u
:".
If this option is used several times, the last one will be
used.
-v, --verbose
Makes curl verbose during the operation. Useful for debugging
and seeing what's going on "under the hood". 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.
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.
Use -s, --silent to make curl really quiet.
See also -i, --include. This option overrides --trace and
--trace-ascii.
-V, --version
Displays information about curl and the libcurl version it
uses.
The first line includes the full version of curl, libcurl and
other 3rd party libraries linked with the executable.
The second line (starts with "Protocols:") shows all protocols
that libcurl reports to support.
The third line (starts with "Features:") shows specific
features libcurl reports to offer. Available features include:
alt-svc
Support for the Alt-Svc: header is provided.
AsynchDNS
This curl uses asynchronous name resolves. Asynchronous
name resolves can be done using either the c-ares or
the threaded resolver backends.
brotli Support for automatic brotli compression over HTTP(S).
CharConv
curl was built with support for character set
conversions (like EBCDIC)
Debug This curl uses a libcurl built with Debug. This enables
more error-tracking and memory debugging etc. For curl-
developers only!
GSS-API
GSS-API is supported.
HTTP2 HTTP/2 support has been built-in.
HTTP3 HTTP/3 support has been built-in.
HTTPS-proxy
This curl is built to support HTTPS proxy.
IDN This curl supports IDN - international domain names.
IPv6 You can use IPv6 with this.
krb4 Krb4 for FTP is supported.
Largefile
This curl supports transfers of large files, files
larger than 2GB.
libz Automatic decompression of compressed files over HTTP
is supported.
Metalink
This curl supports Metalink
MultiSSL
This curl supports multiple TLS backends.
NTLM NTLM authentication is supported.
NTLM NTLM authentication is supported.
PSL PSL is short for Public Suffix List and means that this
curl has been built with knowledge about "public
suffixes".
SPNEGO SPNEGO authentication is supported.
SSL SSL versions of various protocols are supported, such
as HTTPS, FTPS, POP3S and so on.
SSPI SSPI is supported.
TLS-SRP
SRP (Secure Remote Password) authentication is
supported for TLS.
UnixSockets
Unix sockets support is provided.
-w, --write-out <format>
Make curl display information on stdout after a completed
transfer. The format is a string that may contain plain text
mixed with any number of variables. The format can be
specified as a literal "string", or you can have curl read the
format from a file with "@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 %{variable_name} and to output
a normal % you just write them as %%. You can output a newline
by using \n, a carriage return with \r and a tab space with
\t.
The output will be written to standard output, but this can be
switched to standard error by using %{stderr}.
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 -O, --remote-name or
-o, --output option. It's most useful in
combination with the -J, --remote-header-name
option. (Added in 7.26.0)
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)
http_version The http version that was effectively used.
(Added in 7.50.0)
json A JSON object with all available keys.
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)
method The http method used in the most recent HTTP
request (Added in 7.72.0)
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)
proxy_ssl_verify_result
The result of the HTTPS proxy's SSL peer
certificate verification that was requested. 0
means the verification was successful. (Added
in 7.52.0)
redirect_url When an HTTP request was made without -L,
--location to follow redirects (or when --max-
redir is met), this variable will show the
actual URL a redirect would have gone 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)
response_code The numerical response code that was found in
the last transfer (formerly known as
"http_code"). (Added in 7.18.2)
scheme The URL scheme (sometimes called protocol) that
was effectively used (Added in 7.52.0)
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)
stderr From this point on, the -w, --write-out output
will be written to standard error. (Added in
7.63.0)
stdout From this point on, the -w, --write-out output
will be written to standard output. This is
the default, but can be used to switch back
after switching to stderr. (Added in 7.63.0)
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 including 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.
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.
--xattr
When saving output to a file, this option tells curl to store
certain file metadata in extended 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.
~/.curlrc
Default config file, see -K, --config for details.
The environment variables can be specified in lower case or upper
case. The lower case version has precedence. http_proxy is an
exception as it is only available in lower case.
Using an environment variable to set the proxy has the same effect as
using the -x, --proxy option.
http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for HTTP.
HTTPS_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for HTTPS.
[url-protocol]_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for [url-protocol], where the
protocol is a protocol that curl supports and as specified in
a URL. FTP, FTPS, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, LDAP etc.
ALL_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is
set.
NO_PROXY <comma-separated list of hosts/domains>
list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy. If set
to an asterisk '*' only, it matches all hosts. Each name in
this list is matched as either a domain name which contains
the hostname, or the hostname itself.
This environment variable disables use of the proxy even when
specified with the -x, --proxy option. That is
NO_PROXY=direct.example.com curl -x http://proxy.example.com
http://direct.example.com accesses the target URL directly,
and NO_PROXY=direct.example.com curl -x
http://proxy.example.com http://somewhere.example.com accesses
the target URL through the proxy.
The list of host names can also be include numerical IP
addresses, and IPv6 versions should then be given without
enclosing brackets.
CURL_SSL_BACKEND <TLS backend>
If curl was built with support for "MultiSSL", meaning that it
has built-in support for more than one TLS backend, this
environment variable can be set to the case insensitive name
of the particular backend to use when curl is invokved.
Setting a name that isn't a built-in alternative, will make
curl stay with the default.
QLOGDIR <directory name>
If curl was built with HTTP/3 support, setting this
environment variable to a local directory will make curl
produce qlogs in that directory, using file names named after
the destination connection id (in hex). Do note that these
files can become rather large. Works with both QUIC backends.
SSLKEYLOGFILE <file name>
If you set this environment variable to a file name, curl will
store TLS secrets from its connections in that file when
invoked to enable you to analyze the TLS traffic in real time
using network analyzing tools such as Wireshark. This works
with the following TLS backends: OpenSSL, libressl, BoringSSL,
GnuTLS, NSS and wolfSSL.
Since curl version 7.21.7, the proxy string may be specified with a
protocol:// prefix to specify alternative proxy protocols.
If no protocol is specified in the proxy string or if the string
doesn't match a supported one, the proxy will be treated as an HTTP
proxy.
The supported proxy protocol prefixes are as follows:
http://
Makes it use it as an HTTP proxy. The default if no scheme
prefix is used.
https://
Makes it treated as an HTTPS proxy.
socks4://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks4
socks4a://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks4a
socks5://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks5
socks5h://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks5-hostname
There are a bunch of different error codes and their corresponding
error messages that may appear during bad conditions. At the time of
this writing, the exit codes are:
1 Unsupported protocol. This build of curl has no support for
this protocol.
2 Failed to initialize.
3 URL malformed. The syntax was not correct.
4 A feature or option that was needed to perform the desired
request was not enabled or was explicitly disabled at build-
time. To make curl able to do this, you probably need another
build of libcurl!
5 Couldn't resolve proxy. The given proxy host could not be
resolved.
6 Couldn't resolve host. The given remote host was not resolved.
7 Failed to connect to host.
8 Weird server reply. The server sent data curl couldn't parse.
9 FTP access denied. The server denied login or denied access to
the particular resource or directory you wanted to reach. Most
often you tried to change to a directory that doesn't exist on
the server.
10 FTP accept failed. While waiting for the server to connect
back when an active FTP session is used, an error code was
sent over the control connection or similar.
11 FTP weird PASS reply. Curl couldn't parse the reply sent to
the PASS request.
12 During an active FTP session while waiting for the server to
connect back to curl, the timeout expired.
13 FTP weird PASV reply, Curl couldn't parse the reply sent to
the PASV request.
14 FTP weird 227 format. Curl couldn't parse the 227-line the
server sent.
15 FTP can't get host. Couldn't resolve the host IP we got in the
227-line.
16 HTTP/2 error. A problem was detected in the HTTP2 framing
layer. This is somewhat generic and can be one out of several
problems, see the error message for details.
17 FTP couldn't set binary. Couldn't change transfer method to
binary.
18 Partial file. Only a part of the file was transferred.
19 FTP couldn't download/access the given file, the RETR (or
similar) command failed.
21 FTP quote error. A quote command returned error from the
server.
22 HTTP page not retrieved. The requested url was not found or
returned another error with the HTTP error code being 400 or
above. This return code only appears if -f, --fail is used.
23 Write error. Curl couldn't write data to a local filesystem or
similar.
25 FTP couldn't STOR file. The server denied the STOR operation,
used for FTP uploading.
26 Read error. Various reading problems.
27 Out of memory. A memory allocation request failed.
28 Operation timeout. The specified time-out period was reached
according to the conditions.
30 FTP PORT failed. The PORT command failed. Not all FTP servers
support the PORT command, try doing a transfer using PASV
instead!
31 FTP couldn't use REST. The REST command failed. This command
is used for resumed FTP transfers.
33 HTTP range error. The range "command" didn't work.
34 HTTP post error. Internal post-request generation error.
35 SSL connect error. The SSL handshaking failed.
36 Bad download resume. Couldn't continue an earlier aborted
download.
37 FILE couldn't read file. Failed to open the file. Permissions?
38 LDAP cannot bind. LDAP bind operation failed.
39 LDAP search failed.
41 Function not found. A required LDAP function was not found.
42 Aborted by callback. An application told curl to abort the
operation.
43 Internal error. A function was called with a bad parameter.
45 Interface error. A specified outgoing interface could not be
used.
47 Too many redirects. When following redirects, curl hit the
maximum amount.
48 Unknown option specified to libcurl. This indicates that you
passed a weird option to curl that was passed on to libcurl
and rejected. Read up in the manual!
49 Malformed telnet option.
51 The peer's SSL certificate or SSH MD5 fingerprint was not OK.
52 The server didn't reply anything, which here is considered an
error.
53 SSL crypto engine not found.
54 Cannot set SSL crypto engine as default.
55 Failed sending network data.
56 Failure in receiving network data.
58 Problem with the local certificate.
59 Couldn't use specified SSL cipher.
60 Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with known CA
certificates.
61 Unrecognized transfer encoding.
62 Invalid LDAP URL.
63 Maximum file size exceeded.
64 Requested FTP SSL level failed.
65 Sending the data requires a rewind that failed.
66 Failed to initialise SSL Engine.
67 The user name, password, or similar was not accepted and curl
failed to log in.
68 File not found on TFTP server.
69 Permission problem on TFTP server.
70 Out of disk space on TFTP server.
71 Illegal TFTP operation.
72 Unknown TFTP transfer ID.
73 File already exists (TFTP).
74 No such user (TFTP).
75 Character conversion failed.
76 Character conversion functions required.
77 Problem with reading the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?).
78 The resource referenced in the URL does not exist.
79 An unspecified error occurred during the SSH session.
80 Failed to shut down the SSL connection.
82 Could not load CRL file, missing or wrong format (added in
7.19.0).
83 Issuer check failed (added in 7.19.0).
84 The FTP PRET command failed
85 RTSP: mismatch of CSeq numbers
86 RTSP: mismatch of Session Identifiers
87 unable to parse FTP file list
88 FTP chunk callback reported error
89 No connection available, the session will be queued
90 SSL public key does not matched pinned public key
91 Invalid SSL certificate status.
92 Stream error in HTTP/2 framing layer.
93 An API function was called from inside a callback.
94 An authentication function returned an error.
95 A problem was detected in the HTTP/3 layer. This is somewhat
generic and can be one out of several problems, see the error
message for details.
96 QUIC connection error. This error may be caused by an SSL
library error. QUIC is the protocol used for HTTP/3 transfers.
XX More error codes will appear here in future releases. The
existing ones are meant to never change.
Daniel Stenberg is the main author, but the whole list of
contributors is found in the separate THANKS file.
https://curl.haxx.se
ftp(1), wget(1)
This page is part of the curl (Command line tool and library for
transferring data with URLs) project. Information about the project
can be found at ⟨https://curl.haxx.se/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see ⟨https://curl.haxx.se/docs/bugs.html⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/curl/curl.git⟩ on 2020-08-13. (At that time, the
date of the most recent commit that was found in the repository was
2020-08-12.) If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-
date source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to
the information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Curl 7.52.0 16 Dec 2016 curl(1)
Pages that refer to this page: curl-config(1) , git-config(1) , mk-ca-bundle(1) , pmwebapi(3) , PMWEBAPI(3) , systemd-socket-proxyd(8)