LYNX(1) General Commands Manual LYNX(1)
NAME
lynx - a general purpose distributed information browser for the World Wide Web
SYNOPSIS
lynx [options] [path or URL]
lynx [options] [path or URL] -get_data
data
--
lynx [options] [path or URL] -post_data
data
--
Use "lynx -help" to display a complete list of current options.
DESCRIPTION
Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for users running cursor-addressable, character-cell
display devices (e.g., vt100 terminals, vt100 emulators running on Windows 95/NT or Macintoshes, or any other
"curses-oriented" display). It will display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents containing links to
files residing on the local system, as well as files residing on remote systems running Gopher, HTTP, FTP,
WAIS, and NNTP servers. Current versions of Lynx run on Unix, VMS, Windows 95/NT, 386DOS and OS/2 EMX.
Lynx can be used to access information on the World Wide Web, or to build information systems intended
primarily for local access. For example, Lynx has been used to build several Campus Wide Information Systems
(CWIS). In addition, Lynx can be used to build systems isolated within a single LAN.
OPTIONS
At start up, Lynx will load any local file or remote URL specified at the command line. For help with URLs,
press "?" or "H" while running Lynx. Then follow the link titled, "Help on URLs."
If more than one local file or remote URL is listed on the command line, Lynx will open only the last
interactively. All of the names (local files and remote URLs) are added to the G)oto history.
Lynx uses only long option names. Option names can begin with double dash as well, underscores and dashes can
be intermixed in option names (in the reference below options are with one dash before them and with
underscores).
Lynx provides many command-line options. Some options require a value (string, number or keyword). These are
noted in the reference below. The other options set boolean values in the program. There are three types of
boolean options: set, unset and toggle. If no option value is given, these have the obvious meaning: set (to
true), unset (to false), or toggle (between true/false). For any of these, an explicit value can be given in
different forms to allow for operating system constraints, e.g.,
-center:off
-center=off
-center-
Lynx recognizes "1", "+", "on" and "true" for true values, and "0", "-", "off" and "false" for false values.
Other option-values are ignored.
The default boolean, number and string option values that are compiled into Lynx are displayed in the help-
message provided by lynx -help. Some of those may differ according to how Lynx was built; see the help
message itself for these values. The -help option is processed in the third pass of options-processing, so
any option which sets a value, as well as runtime configuration values are reflected in the help-message.
- If the argument is only '-', then Lynx expects to receive the arguments from the standard input. This
is to allow for the potentially very long command line that can be associated with the -get_data or
-assume_local_charset=MIMEname
charset assumed for local files, i.e., files which Lynx creates such as internal pages for the options
menu.
-assume_unrec_charset=MIMEname
use this instead of unrecognized charsets.
-auth=ID:PASSWD
set authorization ID and password for protected documents at startup. Be sure to protect any script
files which use this switch.
-base prepend a request URL comment and BASE tag to text/html outputs for -source dumps.
-bibhost=URL
specify a local bibp server (default http://bibhost/).
-blink forces high intensity background colors for color mode, if available and supported by the terminal.
This applies to the slang library (for a few terminal emulators), or to OS/2 EMX with ncurses.
-book use the bookmark page as the startfile. The default or command line startfile is still set for the
Main screen command, and will be used if the bookmark page is unavailable or blank.
-buried_news
toggles scanning of news articles for buried references, and converts them to news links. Not
recommended because email addresses enclosed in angle brackets will be converted to false news links,
and uuencoded messages can be trashed.
-cache=NUMBER
set the NUMBER of documents cached in memory. The default is 10.
-case enable case-sensitive string searching.
-center
Toggle center alignment in HTML TABLE.
-cfg=FILENAME
specifies a Lynx configuration file other than the default lynx.cfg.
-child exit on left-arrow in startfile, and disable save to disk and associated print/mail options.
-child_relaxed
exit on left-arrow in startfile, but allow save to disk and associated print/mail options.
-cmd_log=FILENAME
write keystroke commands and related information to the specified file.
-cmd_script=FILENAME
read keystroke commands from the specified file. You can use the data written using the -cmd_log
option. Lynx will ignore other information which the command-logging may have written to the logfile.
Each line of the command script contains either a comment beginning with "#", or a keyword:
exit
causes the script to stop, and forces Lynx to exit immediately.
be compiled with the slang library for this flag, it is equivalent to setting the COLORTERM environment
variable. (If color support is instead provided by a color-capable curses library like ncurses, Lynx
relies completely on the terminal description to determine whether color mode is possible, and this
flag is not needed and thus unavailable.) A saved show_color=always setting found in a .lynxrc file at
startup has the same effect. A saved show_color=never found in .lynxrc on startup is overridden by
this flag.
-connect_timeout=N
Sets the connection timeout, where N is given in seconds.
-cookie_file=FILENAME
specifies a file to use to read cookies. If none is specified, the default value is ~/.lynx_cookies
for most systems, but ~/cookies for MS-DOS.
-cookie_save_file=FILENAME
specifies a file to use to store cookies. If none is specified, the value given by -cookie_file is
used.
-cookies
toggles handling of Set-Cookie headers.
-core toggles forced core dumps on fatal errors. Turn this option off to ask Lynx to force a core dump if a
fatal error occurs.
-crawl with -traversal, output each page to a file. with -dump, format output as with -traversal, but to the
standard output.
-curses_pads
toggles the use of curses "pad" feature which supports left/right scrolling of the display. The
feature is normally available for curses configurations, but inactive. To activate it, use the "|"
character or the LINEWRAP_TOGGLE command. Toggling this option makes the feature altogether
unavailable.
-debug_partial
separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs delay
-delay add DebugSecs delay after each progress-message
-display=DISPLAY
set the display variable for X rexec-ed programs.
-display_charset=MIMEname
set the charset for the terminal output.
-dont_wrap_pre
inhibit wrapping of text when -dump'ing and -crawl'ing, mark wrapped lines of <pre> in interactive
session.
-dump dumps the formatted output of the default document or those specified on the command line to standard
output. Unlike interactive mode, all documents are processed. This can be used in the following way:
lynx -dump http://www.subir.com/lynx.html
-editor=EDITOR
-exec enable local program execution (normally not configured).
-fileversions
include all versions of files in local VMS directory listings.
-find_leaks
toggle memory leak-checking. Normally this is not compiled-into your executable, but when it is, it
can be disabled for a session.
-force_empty_hrefless_a
force HREF-less 'A' elements to be empty (close them as soon as they are seen).
-force_html
forces the first document to be interpreted as HTML.
-force_secure
toggles forcing of the secure flag for SSL cookies.
-forms_options
toggles whether the Options Menu is key-based or form-based.
-from toggles transmissions of From headers.
-ftp disable ftp access.
-get_data
properly formatted data for a get form are read in from the standard input and passed to the form.
Input is terminated by a line that starts with '---'.
-head send a HEAD request for the mime headers.
-help print the Lynx command syntax usage message, and exit.
-hiddenlinks=[option]
control the display of hidden links.
merge
hidden links show up as bracketed numbers and are numbered together with other links in the sequence
of their occurrence in the document.
listonly
hidden links are shown only on L)ist screens and listings generated by -dump or from the P)rint
menu, but appear separately at the end of those lists. This is the default behavior.
ignore
hidden links do not appear even in listings.
-historical
toggles use of '>' or '-->' as a terminator for comments.
-homepage=URL
set homepage separate from start page.
-image_links
-listonly
for -dump, show only the list of links.
-localhost
disable URLs that point to remote hosts.
-locexec
enable local program execution from local files only (if Lynx was compiled with local execution
enabled).
-lss=FILENAME
specify filename containing color-style information. The default is lynx.lss. If you give an empty
filename, lynx uses a built-in monochrome scheme which imitates the non-color-style configuration.
-mime_header
prints the MIME header of a fetched document along with its source.
-minimal
toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing.
-nested_tables
toggles nested-tables logic (for debugging).
-newschunksize=NUMBER
number of articles in chunked news listings.
-newsmaxchunk=NUMBER
maximum news articles in listings before chunking.
-nobold
disable bold video-attribute.
-nobrowse
disable directory browsing.
-nocc disable Cc: prompts for self copies of mailings. Note that this does not disable any CCs which are
incorporated within a mailto URL or form ACTION.
-nocolor
force color mode off, overriding terminal capabilities and any -color flags, COLORTERM variable, and
saved .lynxrc settings.
-noexec
disable local program execution. (DEFAULT)
-nofilereferer
disable transmissions of Referer headers for file URLs.
-nolist
disable the link list feature in dumps.
-nolog disable mailing of error messages to document owners.
disable link- and field-numbering. This overrides -number_fields and -number_links.
-nopause
disable forced pauses for statusline messages.
-noprint
disable most print functions.
-noredir
prevents automatic redirection and prints a message with a link to the new URL.
-noreferer
disable transmissions of Referer headers.
-noreverse
disable reverse video-attribute.
-nosocks
disable SOCKS proxy usage by a SOCKSified Lynx.
-nostatus
disable the retrieval status messages.
-notitle
disable title and blank line from top of page.
-nounderline
disable underline video-attribute.
-number_fields
force numbering of links as well as form input fields
-number_links
force numbering of links.
-partial
toggles display partial pages while loading.
-partial_thres=NUMBER
number of lines to render before repainting display with partial-display logic
-passive-ftp
toggles passive ftp connections.
-pauth=ID:PASSWD
set authorization ID and password for a protected proxy server at startup. Be sure to protect any
script files which use this switch.
-popup toggles handling of single-choice SELECT options via popup windows or as lists of radio buttons.
-post_data
properly formatted data for a post form are read in from the standard input and passed to the form.
Input is terminated by a line that starts with '---'.
-realm restricts access to URLs in the starting realm.
-read_timeout=N
Sets the read-timeout, where N is given in seconds.
-reload
flushes the cache on a proxy server (only the first document affected).
-restrictions=[option][,option][,option]...
allows a list of services to be disabled selectively. Dashes and underscores in option names can be
intermixed. The following list is printed if no options are specified.
all
restricts all options listed below.
bookmark
disallow changing the location of the bookmark file.
bookmark_exec
disallow execution links via the bookmark file.
change_exec_perms
disallow changing the eXecute permission on files (but still allow it for directories) when local
file management is enabled.
default
same as command line option -anonymous. Disables default services for anonymous users. Set to all
restricted, except for: inside_telnet, outside_telnet, inside_ftp, outside_ftp, inside_rlogin,
outside_rlogin, inside_news, outside_news, telnet_port, jump, mail, print, exec, and goto. The
settings for these, as well as additional goto restrictions for specific URL schemes that are also
applied, are derived from definitions within userdefs.h.
dired_support
disallow local file management.
disk_save
disallow saving to disk in the download and print menus.
dotfiles
disallow access to, or creation of, hidden (dot) files.
download
disallow some downloaders in the download menu (does not imply disk_save restriction).
editor
disallow external editing.
exec
disable execution scripts.
exec_frozen
disallow the user from changing the local execution option.
inside_news
disallow USENET news posting for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for
selectivity).
inside_rlogin
disallow rlogins for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).
inside_telnet
disallow telnets for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).
jump
disable the 'j' (jump) command.
multibook
disallow multiple bookmarks.
mail
disallow mail.
news_post
disallow USENET News posting.
options_save
disallow saving options in .lynxrc.
outside_ftp
disallow ftps for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).
outside_news
disallow USENET news reading and posting for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required
for selectivity). This restriction applies to "news", "nntp", "newspost", and "newsreply" URLs, but
not to "snews", "snewspost", or "snewsreply" in case they are supported.
outside_rlogin
disallow rlogins for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).
outside_telnet
disallow telnets for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).
print
disallow most print options.
shell
disallow shell escapes and lynxexec or lynxprog G)oto's.
suspend
disallow Unix Control-Z suspends with escape to shell.
telnet_port
disallow specifying a port in telnet G)oto's.
useragent
disallow modifications of the User-Agent header.
toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar.
-selective
require .www_browsable files to browse directories.
-session=FILENAME
resumes from specified file on startup and saves session to that file on exit.
-sessionin=FILENAME
resumes session from specified file.
-sessionout=FILENAME
saves session to specified file.
-short_url
show very long URLs in the status line with "..." to represent the portion which cannot be displayed.
The beginning and end of the URL are displayed, rather than suppressing the end.
-show_cfg
Print the configuration settings, e.g., as read from "lynx.cfg", and exit.
-show_cursor
If enabled the cursor will not be hidden in the right hand corner but will instead be positioned at the
start of the currently selected link. Show cursor is the default for systems without FANCY_CURSES
capabilities. The default configuration can be changed in userdefs.h or lynx.cfg. The command line
switch toggles the default.
-show_rate
If enabled the transfer rate is shown in bytes/second. If disabled, no transfer rate is shown. Use
lynx.cfg or the options menu to select KB/second and/or ETA.
-soft_dquotes
toggles emulation of the old Netscape and Mosaic bug which treated '>' as a co-terminator for double-
quotes and tags.
-source
works the same as dump but outputs HTML source instead of formatted text. For example
lynx -source . >foo.html
generates HTML source listing the files in the current directory. Each file is marked by an HREF
relative to the parent directory. Add a trailing slash to make the HREF's relative to the current
directory:
lynx -source ./ >foo.html
-stack_dump
disable SIGINT cleanup handler
-startfile_ok
allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate.
-stderr
When dumping a document using -dump or -source, Lynx normally does not display alert (error) messages
initialize parser, using Tag Soup DTD rather than SortaSGML.
-telnet
disable recognition of telnet commands.
-term=TERM
tell Lynx what terminal type to assume it is talking to. (This may be useful for remote execution,
when, for example, Lynx connects to a remote TCP/IP port that starts a script that, in turn, starts
another Lynx process.)
-timeout=N
For win32, sets the network read-timeout, where N is given in seconds.
-tlog toggles between using a Lynx Trace Log and stderr for trace output from the session.
-tna turns on "Textfields Need Activation" mode.
-trace turns on Lynx trace mode. Destination of trace output depends on -tlog.
-trace_mask=value
turn on optional traces, which may result in very large trace files. Logically OR the values to
combine options:
1 SGML character parsing states
2 color-style
4 TRST (table layout)
8 configuration (lynx.cfg, .lynxrc, .lynx-keymaps, mime.types and mailcap contents)
16 binary string copy/append, used in form data construction.
32 cookies
64 character sets
128
GridText parsing
256
timing
-traversal
traverse all http links derived from startfile. When used with -crawl, each link that begins with the
same string as startfile is output to a file, intended for indexing. See CRAWL.announce for more
information.
-trim_input_fields
trim input text/textarea fields in forms.
-underline_links
toggles use of underline/bold attribute for links.
middle mouse button pops up a simple menu. Mouse clicks may only work reliably while Lynx is idle
waiting for input.
-useragent=Name
set alternate Lynx User-Agent header.
-validate
accept only http URLs (for validation). Complete security restrictions also are implemented.
-verbose
toggle [LINK], [IMAGE] and [INLINE] comments with filenames of these images.
-version
print version information, and exit.
-vikeys
enable vi-like key movement.
-wdebug
enable Waterloo tcp/ip packet debug (print to watt debugfile). This applies only to DOS versions
compiled with WATTCP or WATT-32.
-width=NUMBER
number of columns for formatting of dumps, default is 80. This is limited by the number of columns
that Lynx could display, typically 1024 (the MAX_LINE symbol).
-with_backspaces
emit backspaces in output if -dump'ing or -crawl'ing (like 'man' does)
-xhtml_parsing
tells Lynx that it can ignore certain tags which have no content in an XHTML 1.0 document. For example
"<p/>" will be discarded.
COMMANDS
o Use Up arrow and Down arrow to scroll through hypertext links.
o Right arrow or Return will follow a highlighted hypertext link.
o Left Arrow will retreat from a link.
o Type "H" or "?" for online help and descriptions of key-stroke commands.
o Type "K" for a complete list of the current key-stroke command mappings.
ENVIRONMENT
In addition to various "standard" environment variables such as HOME, PATH, USER, DISPLAY, TMPDIR, etc, Lynx
utilizes several Lynx-specific environment variables, if they exist.
Others may be created or modified by Lynx to pass data to an external program, or for other reasons. These
are listed separately below.
See also the sections on SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT and NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT, below.
Note: Not all environment variables apply to all types of platforms supported by Lynx, though most do.
LYNX_HELPFILE If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in URL and configuration file URL for the
Lynx help file.
LYNX_LOCALEDIR If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in location of the locale directory which
contains native language (NLS) message text.
LYNX_LSS This variable, if set, specifies the location of the default Lynx character style sheet
file. [Currently only meaningful if Lynx was built using experimental color style
support.]
LYNX_SAVE_SPACE This variable, if set, will override the default path prefix for files saved to disk that
is defined in the lynx.cfg SAVE_SPACE: statement. See the lynx.cfg file for more
information.
LYNX_TEMP_SPACE This variable, if set, will override the default path prefix for temporary files that was
defined during installation, as well as any value that may be assigned to the TMPDIR
variable.
MAIL This variable specifies the default inbox Lynx will check for new mail, if such checking
is enabled in the lynx.cfg file.
NEWS_ORGANIZATION This variable, if set, provides the string used in the Organization: header of USENET news
postings. It will override the setting of the ORGANIZATION environment variable, if it is
also set (and, on UNIX, the contents of an /etc/organization file, if present).
NNTPSERVER If set, this variable specifies the default NNTP server that will be used for USENET news
reading and posting with Lynx, via news: URL's.
ORGANIZATION This variable, if set, provides the string used in the Organization: header of USENET news
postings. On UNIX, it will override the contents of an /etc/organization file, if
present.
PROTOCOL_proxy Lynx supports the use of proxy servers that can act as firewall gateways and caching
servers. They are preferable to the older gateway servers (see WWW_access_GATEWAY,
below). Each protocol used by Lynx, (http, ftp, gopher, etc), can be mapped separately by
setting environment variables of the form PROTOCOL_proxy (literally: http_proxy,
ftp_proxy, gopher_proxy, etc), to "http://some.server.dom:port/". See Lynx Users Guide
for additional details and examples.
SSL_CERT_DIR Set to the directory containing trusted certificates.
SSL_CERT_FILE Set to the full path and filename for your file of trusted certificates.
WWW_access_GATEWAY Lynx still supports use of gateway servers, with the servers specified via
"WWW_access_GATEWAY" variables (where "access" is lower case and can be "http", "ftp",
"gopher" or "wais"), however most gateway servers have been discontinued. Note that you
do not include a terminal '/' for gateways, but do for proxies specified by PROTOCOL_proxy
environment variables. See Lynx Users Guide for details.
WWW_HOME This variable, if set, will override the default startup URL specified in any of the Lynx
configuration files.
Environment Variables Set or Modified By Lynx:
LYNX_PRINT_TITLE This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Linkname: string seen in the
document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external
program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not
exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No Title"
under VMS.
LYNX_PRINT_URL This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the URL: string seen in the
document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external
program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not
exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No URL" under
VMS.
LYNX_TRACE If set, causes Lynx to write a trace file as if the -trace option were supplied.
LYNX_TRACE_FILE If set, overrides the compiled-in name of the trace file, which is either Lynx.trace or
LY-TRACE.LOG (the latter on the DOS platform). The trace file is in either case relative
to the home directory.
LYNX_VERSION This variable is always set by Lynx, and may be used by an external program to determine
if it was invoked by Lynx. See also the comments in the distribution's sample mailcap
file, for notes on usage in such a file.
TERM Normally, this variable is used by Lynx to determine the terminal type being used to
invoke Lynx. If, however, it is unset at startup time (or has the value "unknown"), or if
the -term command-line option is used (see OPTIONS section above), Lynx will set or modify
its value to the user specified terminal type (for the Lynx execution environment). Note:
If set/modified by Lynx, the values of the LINES and/or COLUMNS environment variables may
also be changed.
SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT
If built with the cgi-links option enabled, Lynx allows access to a cgi script directly without the need for
an http daemon.
When executing such "lynxcgi scripts" (if enabled), the following variables may be set for simulating a CGI
environment:
CONTENT_LENGTH
CONTENT_TYPE
DOCUMENT_ROOT
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE
HTTP_USER_AGENT
PATH_INFO
PATH_TRANSLATED
QUERY_STRING
The CGI Specification, and other associated documentation, should be consulted for general information on CGI
script programming.
NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT
If configured and installed with Native Language Support, Lynx will display status and other messages in your
local language. See the file ABOUT_NLS in the source distribution, or at your local GNU site, for more
information about internationalization.
The following environment variables may be used to alter default settings:
LANG This variable, if set, will override the default message language. It is an ISO 639 two-
letter code identifying the language. Language codes are NOT the same as the country
codes given in ISO 3166.
LANGUAGE This variable, if set, will override the default message language. This is a GNU
extension that has higher priority for setting the message catalog than LANG or LC_ALL.
LC_ALL and
LC_MESSAGES These variables, if set, specify the notion of native language formatting style. They are
POSIXly correct.
LINGUAS This variable, if set prior to configuration, limits the installed languages to specific
values. It is a space-separated list of two-letter codes. Currently, it is hard-coded to
a wish list.
NLSPATH This variable, if set, is used as the path prefix for message catalogs.
NOTES
This is the Lynx v2.8.7 Release; development is in progress for 2.8.8.
If you wish to contribute to the further development of Lynx, subscribe to our mailing list. Send email to
<[email protected]> with "subscribe lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of your message.
Send bug reports, comments, suggestions to <[email protected]> after subscribing.
Unsubscribe by sending email to <[email protected]> with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" as the only line in
the body of your message. Do not send the unsubscribe message to the lynx-dev list, itself.
SEE ALSO
catgets(3), curses(3), environ(7), execve(2), ftp(1), gettext(GNU), localeconv(3), ncurses(3), setlocale(3),
slang(?), termcap(5), terminfo(5), wget(GNU)
Note that man page availability and section numbering is somewhat platform dependent, and may vary from the
above references.
A section shown as (GNU), is intended to denote that the topic may be available via an info page, instead of a
man page (i.e., try "info subject", rather than "man subject").
A section shown as (?) denotes that documentation on the topic exists, but is not part of an established docu‐
mentation retrieval system (see the distribution files associated with the topic, or contact your System Ad‐
ministrator for further information).
AUTHORS
Lou Montulli, Garrett Blythe, Craig Lavender, Michael Grobe, Charles Rezac
Academic Computing Services
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66047
Foteos Macrides
Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts 01545
Thomas E. Dickey
<[email protected]>
LYNX(1)
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