SYNOPSIS
lynx [options] [path or URL]
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."
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).
- If the argument is only '-', then Lynx expects to receive the
arguments from stdin. This is to allow for the potentially very
long command line that can be associated with the -get_data or
-post_data arguments (see below). It can also be used to avoid
having sensitive information in the invoking command line (which
would be visible to other processes on most systems), especially
when the -auth or -pauth options are used.
-accept_all_cookies
accept all cookies.
-anonymous
apply restrictions for anonymous account, see also
-restrictions.
-assume_charset=MIMEname
charset for documents that don't specify it.
-assume_local_charset=MIMEname
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.
-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.
key the character value, in printable form. Cursor and other
special keys are given as names, e.g., "Down Arrow".
Printable 7-bit ASCII codes are given as-is, and hexadecimal
values represent other 8-bit codes.
set followed by a "name=value" allows one to override values set
-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 stdout.
-curses_pads
toggles the use of curses "pad" feature which supports
left/right scrolling of the display.
-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 in <pre> when -dump'ing and -crawl'ing,
mark wrapped lines in interactive session.
-dump dumps the formatted output of the default document or one
specified on the command line to standard output. This can be
used in the following way:
lynx -dump http://www.subir.com/lynx.html
-editor=EDITOR
enable external editing, using the specified EDITOR. (vi, ed,
emacs, etc.)
-emacskeys
-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 stdin
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.
-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
-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.
-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.
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.
-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
-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 stdin
and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a line that
starts with '---'.
-preparsed
show HTML source preparsed and reformatted when used with
-source or in source view.
-prettysrc
show HTML source view with lexical elements and tags in color.
-print enable print functions. (default)
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.
externals - disallow some "EXTERNAL" configuration lines if
support for passing URLs to external applications (with the
EXTERN command) is compiled in.
file_url - disallow using G)oto, served links or bookmarks for
file: URLs.
goto - disable the 'g' (goto) command.
inside_ftp - disallow ftps for people coming from inside your
domain (utmp required for selectivity).
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.
-resubmit_posts
toggles forced resubmissions (no-cache) of forms with method
POST when the documents they returned are sought with the
PREV_DOC command or from the History List.
-rlogin
disable recognition of rlogin commands.
-scrollbar
toggles showing scrollbar.
-scrollbar_arrow
toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar.
-selective
require .www_browsable files to browse directories.
-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.
-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.
-stack_dump
disable SIGINT cleanup handler
-startfile_ok
allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate.
-stdin read the startfile from standard input (UNIX only).
-syslog=text
information for syslog call.
-tagsoup
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=config (lynx.cfg and .lynxrc contents)
16=binary string copy/append, used in form data construction.
-use_mouse
turn on mouse support, if available. Clicking the left mouse
button on a link traverses it. Clicking the right mouse button
pops back. Click on the top line to scroll up. Click on the
bottom line to scroll down. The first few positions in the top
and bottom line may invoke additional functions. Lynx must be
compiled with ncurses or slang to support this feature. If
ncurses is used, clicking the 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.
-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.
-with_backspaces
emit backspaces in output if -dump'ing or -crawl'ing (like 'man'
does)
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,
COLORTERM If set, color capability for the terminal is forced
on at startup time. The actual value assigned to
the variable is ignored. This variable is only
meaningful if Lynx was built using the slang
screen-handling library.
LYNX_CFG This variable, if set, will override the default
location and name of the global configuration file
(normally, lynx.cfg) that was defined by the
LYNX_CFG_FILE constant in the userdefs.h file,
during installation. See the userdefs.h file for
more information.
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.
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_DATE This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function,
to the Date: 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
Date" under VMS.
LYNX_PRINT_LASTMOD This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function,
to the Last Mod: 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
LastMod" under VMS.
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
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
REMOTE_ADDR
REMOTE_HOST
REQUEST_METHOD
SERVER_SOFTWARE
Other environment variables are not inherited by the script, unless
they are provided via a LYNXCGI_ENVIRONMENT statement in the
configuration file. See the lynx.cfg file, and the (draft) CGI 1.1
Specification <http://Web.Golux.Com/coar/cgi/draft-coar-cgi-v11-00.txt>
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 v2.8.4 Release
If you wish to contribute to the further development of Lynx, subscribe
to our mailing list. Send email to <majordomo@sig.net> with "subscribe
lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of your message.
Send bug reports, comments, suggestions to <lynx-dev@sig.net> after
subscribing.
Unsubscribe by sending email to <majordomo@sig.net> 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 plat-
form 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 sub-
ject", rather than "man subject").
A section shown as (?) denotes that documentation on the topic exists,
but is not part of an established documentation retrieval system (see
since the departures of Lou Montulli and Garrett Blythe from the Uni-
versity of Kansas in the summer of 1994 through the release of v2.7.2,
and to everyone on the net who has contributed to Lynx's development
either directly (through patches, comments or bug reports) or indirect-
ly (through inspiration and development of other systems).
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
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