is a tool for transferring data from or to a server using URLs. It
supports these protocols: DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, GOPHERS, HTTP, HTTPS,
IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, MQTT, MQTTS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTMPS, RTSP, SCP,
SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET, TFTP, WS and WSS.
The URL syntax is protocol-dependent. You can find a detailed description in
RFC 3986.
You can specify any amount of URLs on the command line. They are fetched in a
sequential manner in the specified order unless you use --parallel. You can
specify command line options and URLs mixed and in any order on the command
line.
curl attempts to reuse connections when doing multiple transfers, so that
getting many files from the same server do not use multiple connects and setup
handshakes. This improves speed. Connection reuse can only be done for URLs
specified for a single command line invocation and cannot be performed between
separate curl runs.
Provide an IPv6 zone id in the URL with an escaped percentage sign. Like in
Everything provided on the command line that is not a command line option or
its argument, curl assumes is a URL and treats it as such.
You can specify multiple URLs or parts of URLs by writing lists within braces
or ranges within brackets. We call this "globbing".
Nested sequences are not supported, but you can use several ones next to each
other:
You can specify a step counter for the ranges to get every Nth number or
letter:
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 aq&aq, aq?aq and aq*aq.
curl supports command line variables (added in 8.3.0). Set variables with
(where "file" can be stdin if
set to a single dash (-)).
Variable contents can be expanded in option parameters using "{{name}}" if the
option name is prefixed with "--expand-". This gets the contents of the
variable "name" inserted, or a blank if the name does not exist as a
variable. Insert "{{" verbatim in the string by prefixing it with a backslash,
like "{{".
Example: get the USER environment variable and expand into the URL, fail if
USER is not set:
When expanding variables, curl supports a set of functions that can make the
variable contents more convenient to use. It can trim leading and trailing
white space with "trim", output the contents as a JSON quoted string with
"json", URL encode the string with "url", base64 encode it with "b64" and
base64 decode it with "64dec". To apply functions to a variable expansion, add
them colon separated to the right side of the variable. Variable content
holding null bytes that are not encoded when expanded causes an error.
Example: get the contents of a file called $HOME/.secret into a variable
called "fix". Make sure that the content is trimmed and percent-encoded when
sent as POST data:
Command line variables and expansions were added in 8.3.0.
If not told otherwise, curl writes the received data to stdout. It can be
instructed to instead save that data into a local file, using the
options. If curl is given multiple URLs to transfer on the
command line, it similarly needs multiple options for where to save them.
curl does not parse or otherwise "understand" the content it gets or writes as
output. It does no encoding or decoding, unless explicitly asked to with
dedicated command line options.
curl supports numerous protocols, or put in URL terms: schemes. Your
particular build may not support them all.
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 the transfer rate in bytes per second. The used
suffixes ("k" for kilo, "M" for mega, "G" for giga, "T" for tera, "P" for peta
and "E" for exa) are 1024 based. For example 1k is 1024 bytes. 1M is 1048576
bytes. Strictly speaking this makes the units kibibyte and mebibyte etc.
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 (>), --output or
similar.
This does not apply to FTP upload as that operation does not spit out any
response data to the terminal.
This man page describes curl 8.19.0. If you use a later version, chances
are this man page does not fully document it. If you use an earlier version,
this document tries to include version information about which specific
version that introduced changes.
Options start with one or two dashes. Many of the options require an
additional value next to them. If provided text does not start with a dash, it
is presumed to be and treated as a URL.
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, --data for example, requires a space
between it and its value.
Short version options that do not 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.
If the long option name ends with an equals sign ("="), the argument is the
text following on its right side. (Added in 8.16.0)
The first argument that is exactly two dashes ("--"), marks the end of
options; any argument after the end of options is interpreted as a URL
argument even if it starts with a dash.
curl does little to no verification of the contents of command line arguments.
Passing in "creative octets" like newlines might trigger unexpected results.
- --abstract-unix-socket <path>
-
(HTTP) Connect to the server 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.
If --abstract-unix-socket is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-abstrac-uni-socket socketpath https://example.com
See also --unix-socket.
- --alt-svc <filename>
-
(HTTPS) Enable the alt-svc parser. If the filename points to an existing alt-svc cache
file, that gets used. After a completed transfer, the cache is saved to the
filename again if it has been modified.
Specify a "" filename (zero length) to avoid loading/saving and make curl
handle the cache in memory.
You may want to restrict your umask to prevent other users on the same system
to access the created file.
If this option is used several times, curl loads contents from all the
files but the last one is used for saving.
--alt-svc can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-al-svc svc.txt https://example.com
See also --resolve and --connect-to.
- --anyauth
-
(HTTP) Figure out authentication method automatically, 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 option 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 fails.
Used together with --user.
Example:
curl-anyauth-user me:pwd https://example.com
See also --proxy-anyauth, --basic and --digest.
- -a, --append
-
(FTP SFTP) When used in an upload, this option makes curl append to the target file
instead of overwriting it. If the remote file does not exist, it is
created. Note that this flag is ignored by some SFTP servers (including
OpenSSH).
Providing --append multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-append.
Example:
curl-uploa-file local-append ftp://example.com/
See also --range and --continue-at.
- --aws-sigv4 <provider1[:prvdr2[:reg[:srv]]]>
-
(HTTP) Use AWS V4 signature authentication in the transfer.
The provider argument is a string that is used by the algorithm when creating
outgoing authentication headers.
The region argument is a string that points to a geographic area of
a resources collection (region-code) when the region name is omitted from
the endpoint.
The service argument is a string that points to a function provided by a cloud
(service-code) when the service name is omitted from the endpoint.
If --aws-sigv4 is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-aw-sigv4 "aws:amz:u-eas-2:es"-user "key:secret" https://example.com
Added in 7.75.0. See also --basic and --user.
- --basic
-
(HTTP) Use HTTP Basic authentication with the remote host. This method 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 --user.
Providing --basic multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-basic.
Example:
curl-u name:password-basic https://example.com
See also --proxy-basic.
- --ca-native
-
(TLS) Use the operating systemaqs native CA store for certificate verification.
This option is independent of other CA certificate locations set at run time or
build time. Those locations are searched in addition to the native CA store.
This option works with OpenSSL and its forks (LibreSSL, BoringSSL, etc) on
Windows (Added in 7.71.0) and on Apple OS when libcurl is built with
Apple SecTrust enabled. (Added in 8.17.0)
This option works with wolfSSL on Windows, Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo,
Fedora, RHEL), macOS, Android and iOS. (Added in 8.3.0)
This option works with GnuTLS (Added in 8.5.0) and also uses Apple
SecTrust when libcurl is built with it. (Added in 8.17.0)
This option works with Rustls on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. On Linux it
is equivalent to using the Mozilla CA certificate bundle. When used with Rustls
_only_ the native CA store is consulted, not other locations set at run time or
build time. (Added in 8.13.0)
This option currently has no effect for Schannel. This is the native TLS
library from Microsoft, that by default uses the native CA store for
verification unless overridden by a CA certificate location setting.
Providing --ca-native multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-c-native.
Example:
curl-c-native https://example.com
Added in 8.2.0. See also --cacert, --capath, --dump-ca-embed, --insecure and --proxy-ca-native.
- --cacert <file>
-
(TLS) 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 aqCURL_CA_BUNDLEaq if it is set
and the TLS backend is not Schannel, and uses the given path as a path to a CA
cert bundle. This option overrides that variable.
(Windows) curl automatically looks for a CA certs file named
aqcurl-ca-bundle.crtaq, either in the same directory as curl.exe, or in the
Current Working Directory, or in any folder along your PATH.
curl 8.11.0 added a build-time option to disable this search behavior, and
another option to restrict search to the applicationaqs directory.
(Schannel) This option is supported for Schannel in Windows 7 or later (added
in 7.60.0). This option is supported for backward compatibility with other SSL
engines; instead it is recommended to use Windowsaq store of root certificates
(the default for Schannel).
If --cacert is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-cacert C-file.txt https://example.com
See also --capath, --dump-ca-embed and --insecure.
- --capath <dir>
-
(TLS) Use the specified certificate directory to verify the peer. If curl is built against
OpenSSL, multiple paths can be provided by separating them with the appropriate platform-specific
separator (e.g. "path1:path2:path3" on Unix-style platforms for "path1;path2;path3" on Windows).
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 is ignored.
If --capath is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-capath /local/directory https://example.com
See also --cacert, --dump-ca-embed and --insecure.
- -E, --cert <certificate[:password]>
-
(TLS) Use the specified client certificate file when getting a file with HTTPS, FTPS
or another SSL-based protocol. The certificate must be PEM format. If the
optional password is not specified, it is queried for on the terminal. Note
that this option assumes a certificate file that is the private key and the
client certificate concatenated. See --cert and --key to specify them
independently.
In the <certificate> portion of the argument, you must escape the character
":" as ":" so that it is not recognized as the password delimiter. Similarly,
you must escape the double quote character as " so that it is not recognized
as an escape character.
If curl is built against OpenSSL, and the engine pkcs11 or pkcs11
provider 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:" is
interpreted as a PKCS#11 URI. If a PKCS#11 URI is provided, then the --engine
option is set as "pkcs11" if none was provided and the --cert-type option is
set as "ENG" or "PROV" if none was provided (depending on OpenSSL version).
If curl is built against GnuTLS, a PKCS#11 URI can be used to specify
a certificate located in a PKCS#11 device. A string beginning with "pkcs11:"
is interpreted as a PKCS#11 URI.
(Schannel) 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,
"CurrentUserMY934a7ac6f8a5d579285a74fa61e19f23ddfe8d7a". 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 and LocalMachineEnterprise.
If --cert is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-cert certfile-key keyfile https://example.com
See also --cert-type, --key and --key-type.
- --cert-status
-
(TLS) 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 support is currently only implemented in the OpenSSL and GnuTLS backends.
Providing --cert-status multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-cer-status.
Example:
curl-cer-status https://example.com
See also --pinnedpubkey.
- --cert-type <type>
-
(TLS) Set type of the provided client certificate. PEM, DER, ENG, PROV and P12 are
recognized types.
The default type depends on the TLS backend and is usually PEM. For Schannel
it is P12. If --cert is a pkcs11: URI then ENG or PROV is the default type
(depending on OpenSSL version).
If --cert-type is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-cer-type PEM-cert file https://example.com
See also --cert, --key and --key-type.
- --ciphers <list>
-
(TLS) Specify which cipher suites to use in the connection if it negotiates TLS 1.2
(1.1, 1.0). The list of ciphers suites must specify valid ciphers. Read up on
cipher suite details on this URL:
https://curl.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
If --ciphers is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ciphers ECDH-ECDS-AES12-GC-SHA256:ECDH-RS-AES12-GC-SHA256 https://example.com
See also --tls13-ciphers, --proxy-ciphers and --curves.
- --compressed
-
(HTTP) Request a compressed response using one of the algorithms curl supports, and
automatically decompress the content.
Response headers are not modified when saved, so if they are "interpreted"
separately again at a later point they might appear to be saying that the
content is (still) compressed; while in fact it has already been decompressed.
If this option is used and the server sends an unsupported encoding, curl
reports an error. This is a request, not an order; the server may or may not
deliver data compressed.
WARNING: when decompressing data, even tiny transfers might be expanded
and generate a huge amount of bytes.
Providing --compressed multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-compressed.
Example:
curl-compressed https://example.com
See also --compressed-ssh.
- --compressed-ssh
-
(SCP SFTP) Enable SSH compression. This is a request, not an order; the server may or may
not do it. This allows the data to be sent compressed over the wire, and
automatically decompressed in the receiving end, to save bandwidth.
Providing --compressed-ssh multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-compresse-ssh.
Example:
curl-compresse-ssh sftp://example.com/
See also --compressed.
- -K, --config <file>
-
Specify a text file to read curl arguments from. The command line arguments
found in the text file are 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 a colon (:) or equals sign
(=), it must be specified enclosed within double quotes ("like this"). 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 non-blank column of a config line is a aq#aq character, that line
is treated as a comment.
Only write one option per physical line in the config file. A single line is
required to be no more than 10 megabytes (since 8.2.0).
Specify the filename to --config as minus "-" 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 writing the URL on its own line.
It could look similar to this:
url = "https://curl.se/docs/"
# --- 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 ---
When curl is invoked, it (unless --disable is used) checks for a default
config file and uses it if found, even when --config is used. The default
config file is checked for in the following places in this order:
1) "$CURL_HOME/.curlrc"
2) "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/curlrc" (Added in 7.73.0)
3) "$HOME/.curlrc"
4) Windows: "%USERPROFILE%.curlrc"
5) Windows: "%APPDATA%.curlrc"
6) Windows: "%USERPROFILE%Application Data.curlrc"
7) Non-Windows: use getpwuid to find the home directory
8) On Windows, if it finds no .curlrc file in the sequence described above, it
checks for one in the same directory the curl executable is placed.
On Windows two filenames are checked per location: .curlrc and _curlrc,
preferring the former. Older versions on Windows checked for _curlrc only.
--config can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-config file.txt https://example.com
See also --disable.
- --connect-timeout <seconds>
-
Maximum time in seconds that you allow curlaqs connection to take. This only
limits the connection phase, so if curl connects within the given period it
continues - if not it exits.
This option accepts decimal values. The decimal value needs
to be provided using a dot (.) as decimal separator - not the local version
even if it might be using another separator.
The connection phase is considered complete when the DNS lookup and requested
TCP, TLS or QUIC handshakes are done.
If --connect-timeout is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-connec-timeout 20 https://example.com
curl-connec-timeout 3.14 https://example.com
See also --max-time.
- --connect-to <HOST1:PORT1:HOST2:PORT2>
-
For a request intended for the "HOST1:PORT1" pair, connect to "HOST2:PORT2"
instead. This option is only used to establish the network connection. It does
NOT affect the hostname/port number that is used for TLS/SSL (e.g. SNI,
certificate verification) or for the application protocols.
"HOST1" and "PORT1" may be empty strings, meaning any host or any port number.
"HOST2" and "PORT2" may also be empty strings, meaning use the requestaqs
original hostname and port number.
A hostname specified to this option is compared as a string, so it needs to
match the name used in the request URL. It can be either numerical such as
"127.0.0.1" or the full host name such as "example.org".
Example: redirect connects from the example.com hostname to 127.0.0.1
independently of port number:
curl --connect-to example.com::127.0.0.1: https://example.com/
Example: redirect connects from all hostnames to 127.0.0.1 independently of
port number:
curl --connect-to ::127.0.0.1: http://example.com/
--connect-to can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-connec-to example.com:443:example.net:8443 https://example.com
See also --resolve and --header.
- -C, --continue-at <offset>
-
Resume a previous transfer from the given byte offset. The given offset is the
exact number of bytes that are 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 is not used by curl.
Use "-C -" to instruct curl to automatically find out where/how to resume the
transfer. It then uses the given output/input files to figure that out.
When using this option for HTTP uploads using POST or PUT, functionality is
not guaranteed. The HTTP protocol has no standard interoperable resume upload
and curl uses a set of headers for this purpose that once proved working for
some servers and have been left for those who find that useful.
This command line option is mutually exclusive with --range: you can only use
one of them for a single transfer.
The --no-clobber and --remove-on-error options cannot be used together with
--continue-at.
If --continue-at is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-C- https://example.com
curl-C 400 https://example.com
See also --range.
- -b, --cookie <data|filename>
-
(HTTP) This option has two slightly separate cookie sending functions.
Either: pass the exact data to send to the HTTP server in the Cookie header.
It is supposedly data previously received from the server in a "Set-Cookie:"
line. The data should be in the format "NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2". When
given a set of specific cookies, curl populates its cookie header with this
content explicitly in all outgoing request(s). If multiple requests are done
due to authentication, followed redirects or similar, they all get this cookie
header passed on.
Or: 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 makes curl record incoming cookies, which may be handy if
you are using this in combination with the --location option or do multiple
URL transfers on the same invoke.
If the filename is a single minus ("-"), curl reads the contents from stdin.
If the filename is an empty string ("") and is the only cookie input, curl
activates the cookie engine without any cookies.
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 --cookie is only used as input. No cookies are written
to that file. To store cookies, use the --cookie-jar option.
If you use the Set-Cookie file format and do not specify a domain then the
cookie is not sent since the domain never matches. To address this, set a
domain in Set-Cookie line (doing that includes subdomains) or preferably: use
the Netscape format.
Users often want to both read cookies from a file and write updated cookies
back to a file, so using both --cookie and --cookie-jar in the same command
line is common.
If curl is built with PSL (Public Suffix List) support, it detects and
discards cookies that are specified for such suffix domains that should not be
allowed to have cookies. If curl is not built with PSL support, it has no
ability to stop super cookies.
--cookie can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-b "" https://example.com
curl-b cookiefile https://example.com
curl-b cookiefile-c cookiefile https://example.com
curl-b name=Jane https://example.com
See also --cookie-jar and --junk-session-cookies.
- -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. Even if no cookies are known, a file is
created so that it removes any formerly existing cookies from the file. The
file uses the Netscape cookie file format. If you set the filename to a single
minus, "-", the cookies are written to stdout.
The file specified with --cookie-jar is only used for output. No cookies are
read from the file. To read cookies, use the --cookie option. Both options
can specify the same file.
This command line option activates the cookie engine that makes curl record
and use cookies. The --cookie option also activates it.
If the cookie jar cannot be created or written to, the whole curl operation
does not fail or even report an error clearly. Using --verbose gets a warning
displayed, but that is the only visible feedback you get about this possibly
lethal situation.
You may want to restrict your umask to prevent other users on the same system
to access the created file.
If --cookie-jar is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-c stor-here.txt https://example.com
curl-c stor-here.txt-b rea-these https://example.com
See also --cookie and --junk-session-cookies.
- --create-dirs
-
When used in conjunction with the --output option, curl creates the necessary
local directory hierarchy as needed. This option creates the directories
mentioned with the --output option combined with the path possibly set with
--output-dir. If the combined output filename uses no directory, or if the
directories it mentions already exist, no directories are created.
Created directories are made with mode 0750 on Unix-style file systems.
To create remote directories when using FTP or SFTP, try --ftp-create-dirs.
Providing --create-dirs multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-creat-dirs.
Example:
curl-creat-dirs-output local/dir/file https://example.com
See also --ftp-create-dirs and --output-dir.
- --create-file-mode <mode>
-
(SFTP SCP FILE) When curl is used to create files remotely using one of the supported
protocols, this option allows the user to set which aqmodeaq to set on the file
at creation time, instead of the default 0644.
This option takes an octal number as argument.
If --create-file-mode is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-creat-fil-mode 0777-T localfile sftp://example.com/new
Added in 7.75.0. See also --ftp-create-dirs.
- --crlf
-
(FTP SMTP) Convert line feeds to carriage return plus line feeds in upload. Useful for
MVS (OS/390).
Providing --crlf multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-crlf.
Example:
curl-crlf-T file ftp://example.com/
See also --use-ascii.
- --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 --crlfile is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-crlfile rejects.txt https://example.com
See also --cacert and --capath.
- --curves <list>
-
(TLS) Set specific curves to use during SSL session establishment according to RFC
8422, 5.1. Multiple algorithms can be provided by separating them with ":"
(e.g. "X25519:P-521"). The parameter is available identically in the OpenSSL
"s_client" and "s_server" utilities.
--curves allows a OpenSSL powered curl to make SSL-connections with exactly
the (EC) curve requested by the client, avoiding nontransparent client/server
negotiations.
If this option is set, the default curves list built into OpenSSL are ignored.
If --curves is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-curves X25519 https://example.com
Added in 7.73.0. See also --ciphers.
- -d, --data <data>
-
(HTTP MQTT) Send 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 option makes curl pass the data to the server using the
content-type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Compared to --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 are merged with a separating &-symbol. Thus, using
aq-d name=daniel -d skill=lousyaq would generate a post chunk that looks like
aqname=daniel&skill=lousyaq.
If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename to read
the data from, or - if you want curl to read the data from stdin. Posting data
from a file named aqfoobaraq would thus be done with --data @foobar. When --data
is told to read from a file like that, carriage returns, newlines and null
bytes are stripped out. If you do not want the @ character to have a special
interpretation use --data-raw instead.
The data for this option is passed on to the server exactly as provided on the
command line. curl does not convert, change or improve it. It is up to the
user to provide the data in the correct form.
--data can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-d "name=curl" https://example.com
curl-d "name=curl"-d "tool=cmdline" https://example.com
curl-d @filename https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --form, --head and --upload-file.
See also --data-binary, --data-urlencode and --data-raw.
- --data-ascii <data>
-
(HTTP) This option is an alias for --data.
--data-ascii can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-dat-ascii @file https://example.com
See also --data-binary, --data-raw and --data-urlencode.
- --data-binary <data>
-
(HTTP) Post data exactly as specified with no extra processing whatsoever.
If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename.
"@-" makes curl read the data from stdin. Data is posted in a similar
manner as --data does, except that newlines and carriage returns are
preserved and conversions are never done.
Like --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 append
data as described in --data.
--data-binary can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-dat-binary @filename https://example.com
See also --data-ascii.
- --data-raw <data>
-
(HTTP) Post data similarly to --data but without the special interpretation of the @
character.
--data-raw can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-dat-raw "hello" https://example.com
curl-dat-raw "@at@at@" https://example.com
See also --data.
- --data-urlencode <data>
-
(HTTP) Post data, similar to the other --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
-
URL-encode the content and pass that on. Be careful so that the content does
not contain any "=" or "@" symbols, as that makes the syntax match one of the
other cases below.
- =content
-
URL-encode the content and pass that on. The preceding "=" symbol is not
included in the data.
- name=content
-
URL-encode the content part and pass that on. Note that the name part is
expected to be URL-encoded already.
- @filename
-
load data from the given file (including any newlines), URL-encode that data
and pass it on in the POST. Using "@-" makes curl read the data from stdin.
- name@filename
-
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.
-
--data-urlencode can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-dat-urlencode name=val https://example.com
curl-dat-urlencode =encodethis https://example.com
curl-dat-urlencode name@file https://example.com
curl-dat-urlencode @fileonly https://example.com
See also --data and --data-raw.
- --delegation <LEVEL>
-
(GSS/kerberos) Set LEVEL what curl is allowed to delegate when it comes to user credentials.
-
- none
-
Do not 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.
-
If --delegation is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-delegation "none" https://example.com
See also --insecure and --ssl.
- --digest
-
(HTTP) Enable HTTP Digest authentication. This authentication scheme avoids sending
the password over the wire in clear text. Use this in combination with the
normal --user option to set username and password.
Providing --digest multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-digest.
Example:
curl-u name:password-digest https://example.com
See also --user, --proxy-digest and --anyauth.
- -q, --disable
-
If used as the first parameter on the command line, the curlrc config
file is not read or used. See the --config for details on the default config
file search path.
Providing --disable multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-disable.
Example:
curl-q https://example.com
See also --config.
- --disable-eprt
-
(FTP) Disable the use of the EPRT and LPRT commands when doing active FTP transfers.
curl normally first attempts to use EPRT before using PORT, but with this
option, it uses PORT right away. EPRT is an extension to the original FTP
protocol, and does not work on all servers, but enables 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 has 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 --ftp-port or force it with --ftp-pasv.
Providing --disable-eprt multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-disabl-eprt.
Example:
curl-disabl-eprt ftp://example.com/
See also --disable-epsv and --ftp-port.
- --disable-epsv
-
(FTP) Disable the use of the EPSV command when doing passive FTP transfers. curl
normally first attempts to use EPSV before PASV, but with this option, it does
not try 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 has 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 --ftp-port.
Providing --disable-epsv multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-disabl-epsv.
Example:
curl-disabl-epsv ftp://example.com/
See also --disable-eprt and --ftp-port.
- --disallow-username-in-url
-
Exit with error if passed a URL containing a username. Probably most useful
when the URL is being provided at runtime or similar.
Accepting and using credentials in a URL is normally considered a security
hazard as they are easily leaked that way.
Providing --disallow-username-in-url multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-disallo-usernam-i-url.
Example:
curl-disallo-usernam-i-url https://example.com
See also --proto.
- --dns-interface <interface>
-
(DNS) Send outgoing DNS requests through the given interface. This option is a
counterpart to --interface (which does not affect DNS). The supplied string
must be an interface name (not an address).
If --dns-interface is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-dn-interface eth0 https://example.com
For --dns-interface to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support -ares.
See also --dns-ipv4-addr and --dns-ipv6-addr.
- --dns-ipv4-addr <address>
-
(DNS) Bind to a specific IP address when making IPv4 DNS requests, so that the DNS
requests originate from this address. The argument should be a single IPv4
address.
If --dns-ipv4-addr is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-dn-ipv-addr 10.1.2.3 https://example.com
For --dns-ipv4-addr to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support -ares.
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv6-addr.
- --dns-ipv6-addr <address>
-
(DNS) Bind to a specific IP address when making IPv6 DNS requests, so that the DNS
requests originate from this address. The argument should be a single IPv6
address.
If --dns-ipv6-addr is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-dn-ipv-addr 2a04:4e42::561 https://example.com
For --dns-ipv6-addr to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support -ares.
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv4-addr.
- --dns-servers <addresses>
-
(DNS) 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, appended to the IP address separated with a colon.
If --dns-servers is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-dn-servers 192.168.0.1,192.168.0.2 https://example.com
curl-dn-servers 10.0.0.1:53 https://example.com
For --dns-servers to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support -ares.
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv4-addr.
- --doh-cert-status
-
(DNS) Same as --cert-status but used for DoH (DNS-over-HTTPS).
Verify the status of the DoH serversaq certificate by using the Certificate
Status Request (aka. OCSP stapling) TLS extension.
If this option is enabled and the DoH 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 support is currently only implemented in the OpenSSL and GnuTLS backends.
Providing --doh-cert-status multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-do-cer-status.
Example:
curl-do-cer-status-do-url https://doh.example https://example.com
Added in 7.76.0. See also --doh-insecure.
- --doh-insecure
-
(DNS) By default, every connection curl makes to a DoH server is verified to be
secure before the transfer takes place. This option tells curl to skip the
verification step and proceed without checking.
WARNING: using this option makes the DoH transfer and name resolution
insecure.
This option is equivalent to --insecure and --proxy-insecure but used for DoH
(DNS-over-HTTPS) only.
Providing --doh-insecure multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-do-insecure.
Example:
curl-do-insecure-do-url https://doh.example https://example.com
Added in 7.76.0. See also --doh-url, --insecure and --proxy-insecure.
- --doh-url <URL>
-
(DNS) Specify which DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) server to use to resolve hostnames, instead
of using the default name resolver mechanism. The URL must be HTTPS.
Some SSL options that you set for your transfer also apply to DoH since the
name lookups take place over SSL. The certificate verification settings are
not inherited but are controlled separately via --doh-insecure and
--doh-cert-status.
By default, DoH is bypassed when initially looking up DNS records of the DoH server. You can specify the IP address(es) of the DoH server with --resolve to avoid this.
This option is unset if an empty string "" is used as the URL.
(Added in 7.85.0)
If --doh-url is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-do-url https://doh.example https://example.com
curl-do-url https://doh.example-resolve doh.example:443:192.0.2.1 https://example.com
See also --doh-insecure.
- --dump-ca-embed
-
(TLS) Write the CA bundle embedded in curl to standard output, then quit.
If curl was not built with a default CA bundle embedded, the output is empty.
Providing --dump-ca-embed multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-dum-c-embed.
Example:
curl-dum-c-embed
Added in 8.10.0. See also --ca-native, --cacert, --capath, --proxy-ca-native, --proxy-cacert and --proxy-capath.
- -D, --dump-header <filename>
-
(HTTP FTP) Write the received protocol headers to the specified file. If no headers are
received, the use of this option creates an empty file. Specify "-" as
filename (a single minus) to have it written to stdout.
Starting in curl 8.10.0, specify "%" (a single percent sign) as filename
writes the output to stderr.
When used in FTP, the FTP server response lines are considered being "headers"
and thus are saved there.
Starting in curl 8.11.0, using the --create-dirs option can also create
missing directory components for the path provided in --dump-header.
Having multiple transfers in one set of operations (i.e. the URLs in one
--next clause), appends them to the same file, separated by a blank line.
If --dump-header is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-dum-header store.txt https://example.com
curl-dum-header- https://example.com-o save
See also --output.
- --ech <config>
-
(HTTPS) Specify how to do ECH (Encrypted Client Hello).
The values allowed for <config> can be:
-
- false
-
Do not attempt ECH. The is the default.
- grease
-
Send a GREASE ECH extension
- true
-
Attempt ECH if possible, but do not fail if ECH is not attempted.
(The connection fails if ECH is attempted but fails.)
- hard
-
Attempt ECH and fail if that is not possible. ECH only works with TLS 1.3 and
also requires using DoH or providing an ECHConfigList on the command line.
- ecl:<b64val>
-
A base64 encoded ECHConfigList that is used for ECH.
- pn:<name>
-
A name to use to over-ride the "public_name" field of an ECHConfigList (only
available with OpenSSL TLS support)
-
Most ECH related errors cause error CURLE_ECH_REQUIRED (101).
If --ech is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ech true https://example.com
Added in 8.8.0. See also --doh-url.
- --egd-file <file>
-
(TLS) Deprecated option (added in 7.84.0). Prior to that it only had an effect on
curl if built to use old versions of OpenSSL.
Specify the path name to the Entropy Gathering Daemon socket. The socket is
used to seed the random engine for SSL connections.
If --egd-file is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-eg-file /random/here https://example.com
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 (and
possibly none) of the engines may be available at runtime.
The OpenSSL concept "engines" has been superseded by "providers" in OpenSSL 3,
and this option should work fine to specify such as well.
If --engine is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-engine flavor https://example.com
See also --ciphers and --curves.
- --etag-compare <file>
-
(HTTP) Make a conditional HTTP request for the specific ETag read from the given file
by sending a custom If-None-Match header using the stored ETag.
For correct results, make sure that the specified file contains only a single
line with the desired ETag. A non-existing or empty file is treated as an
empty ETag.
Use the option --etag-save to first save the ETag from a response, and then
use this option to compare against the saved ETag in a subsequent request.
Use this option with a single URL only.
If --etag-compare is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-eta-compare etag.txt https://example.com
Added in 7.68.0. See also --etag-save and --time-cond.
- --etag-save <file>
-
(HTTP) Save an HTTP ETag to the specified file. An ETag is a caching related header,
usually returned in a response. Use this option with a single URL only.
If no ETag is sent by the server, an empty file is created.
In many situations you want to use an existing etag in the request to avoid
downloading the same resource again but also save the new etag if it has
indeed changed, by using both etag options --etag-save and --etag-compare with
the same filename, in the same command line.
Starting in curl 8.12.0, using the --create-dirs option can also create
missing directory components for the path provided in --etag-save.
If --etag-save is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-eta-save storetag.txt https://example.com
Added in 7.68.0. See also --etag-compare.
- --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 waits one second. This option accepts decimal values. When curl
stops waiting, it continues as if a response was received.
The decimal value needs to be provided using a dot (".") as decimal separator -
not the local version even if it might be using another separator.
If --expect100-timeout is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-expect10-timeout 2.5-T file https://example.com
See also --connect-timeout.
- -f, --fail
-
(HTTP) Fail with error code 22 and with no response body output at all for HTTP
transfers returning HTTP response codes at 400 or greater.
In normal cases when an HTTP server fails to deliver a document, it returns a
body of text stating so (which often also describes why and more) and a 4xx
HTTP response code. This command line option prevents curl from outputting
that data and instead returns error 22 early. By default, curl does not
consider HTTP response codes to indicate failure.
To get both the error code and also save the content, use --fail-with-body
instead.
This method is not fail-safe and there are occasions where non-successful
response codes slip through, especially when authentication is involved
(response codes 401 and 407).
Providing --fail multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-fail.
Example:
curl-fail https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --fail-with-body.
See also --fail-with-body and --fail-early.
- --fail-early
-
Fail and exit on the first detected transfer error.
When curl is used to do multiple transfers on the command line, it attempts to
operate on each given URL, one by one. By default, it ignores errors if there
are more URLs given and the last URLaqs success determines the error code curl
returns. Early failures are "hidden" by subsequent successful transfers.
Using this option, curl instead returns 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 does not imply --fail, which causes transfers to fail due to the
serveraqs HTTP status code. You can combine the two options, however note --fail
is not global and is therefore contained by --next.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --fail-early multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-fai-early.
Example:
curl-fai-early https://example.com https://two.example
See also --fail and --fail-with-body.
- --fail-with-body
-
(HTTP) Return an error on server errors where the HTTP response code is 400 or
greater). 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 option allows curl to output and save that content but also to return
error 22.
This is an alternative option to --fail which makes curl fail for the same
circumstances but without saving the content.
Providing --fail-with-body multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-fai-wit-body.
Example:
curl-fai-wit-body https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --fail.
Added in 7.76.0. See also --fail and --fail-early.
- --false-start
-
(TLS) No TLS backend currently supports this feature.
Use false start during the TLS handshake. False start is a mode where a TLS
client starts sending application data before verifying the serveraqs Finished
message, thus saving a round trip when performing a full handshake.
Providing --false-start multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-fals-start.
Example:
curl-fals-start https://example.com
See also --tcp-fastopen.
- --follow
-
(HTTP) Instructs curl to follow HTTP redirects and to do the custom request method
set with --request when following redirects as the HTTP specification says.
The method string set with --request is used in subsequent requests for the
status codes 307 or 308, but may be reset to GET for 301, 302 and 303.
This is subtly different than --location, as that option always set the custom
method in all subsequent requests independent of response code.
Restrict which protocols a redirect is accepted to follow with --proto-redir.
Providing --follow multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-follow.
Example:
curl-X POST-follow https://example.com
Added in 8.16.0. See also --request, --location, --proto-redir and --max-redirs.
- -F, --form <name=content>
-
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) For the HTTP protocol family, emulate a filled-in form in which a user has
pressed the submit button. This makes curl POST data using the Content-Type
multipart/form-data according to RFC 2388.
For SMTP and IMAP protocols, this composes a multipart mail message to
transmit.
This enables uploading of binary files etc. To force the aqcontentaq part to be
a file, prefix the filename with an @ sign. To get the content part from a
file, prefix the filename 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 gets the contents for that text field from a
file.
Read content from stdin instead of a file by using a single "-" 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 partaqs data from a named non-regular file (such as a named
pipe or similar) is not subject to buffering and is instead 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 aqprofileaq is the name of the
form-field to which the file portrait.jpg is 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 instruct 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 aq,aq or aq;aq, it must be quoted by double-quotes like:
curl -F "file=@"local,file";filename="name;in;post""
https://example.com
or
curl -F aqfile=@"local,file";filename="name;in;post"aq
https://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 aqcolors="red; green; blue";type=text/x-myappaq
https://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 than once and above notes about quoting
apply. When headers are read from a file, empty lines and lines starting
with aq#aq are 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 contains 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 aq(aq, this signals to start a new multipart: it can be
followed by a content type specification.
- a multipart can be terminated with a aq=)aq argument.
Example: the following command sends an SMTP mime email consisting in an
inline part in two alternative formats: plain text and HTML. It attaches a
text file:
curl -F aq=(;type=multipart/alternativeaq
-F aq=plain text messageaq
-F aq= <body>HTML message</body>;type=text/htmlaq
-F aq=)aq -F aq=@textfile.txtaq ... 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 aq=text message;encoder=quoted-printableaq
-F aq=@localfile;encoder=base64aq ... smtp://example.com
--form can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-form "name=curl"-form "file=@loadthis" https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --data, --head and --upload-file.
See also --data, --form-string and --form-escape.
- --form-escape
-
(HTTP IMAP SMTP) Pass on names of multipart form fields and files using backslash-escaping
instead of percent-encoding.
If --form-escape is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-for-escape-F 'fieldname=curl'-F 'file=@load"this' https://example.com
Added in 7.81.0. See also --form.
- --form-string <name=string>
-
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) Similar to --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 --form if there is any
possibility that the string value may accidentally trigger the @ or <
features of --form.
--form-string can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-for-string "name=data" https://example.com
See also --form.
- --ftp-account <data>
-
(FTP) When an FTP server asks for "account data" after username and password has
been provided, this data is sent off using the ACCT command.
If --ftp-account is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ft-account "mr.robot" ftp://example.com/
See also --user.
- --ftp-alternative-to-user <command>
-
(FTP) If authenticating with the USER and PASS commands fails, send this command.
When connecting to Tumbleweedaqs Secure Transport server over FTPS using a
client certificate, using "SITE AUTH" tells the server to retrieve the
username from the certificate.
If --ftp-alternative-to-user is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ft-alternativ-t-user "U53r" ftp://example.com
See also --ftp-account and --user.
- --ftp-create-dirs
-
(FTP SFTP) When an FTP or SFTP URL/operation uses a path that does not currently exist on
the server, the standard behavior of curl is to fail. Using this option, curl
instead attempts to create missing directories.
Providing --ftp-create-dirs multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ft-creat-dirs.
Example:
curl-ft-creat-dirs-T file ftp://example.com/remote/path/file
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
-
Do a single CWD operation for each path part in the given URL. For deep
hierarchies this means many commands. This is how RFC 1738 says it should be
done. This is the default but the slowest behavior.
- nocwd
-
Do no CWD at all. curl does SIZE, RETR, STOR etc and gives the full path to
the server for each of these commands. This is the fastest behavior.
- singlecwd
-
Do one CWD with the full target directory and then operate on the file
"normally" (like in the multicwd case). This is somewhat more standards
compliant than "nocwd" but without the full penalty of "multicwd".
-
If --ftp-method is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-ft-method multicwd ftp://example.com/dir1/dir2/file
curl-ft-method nocwd ftp://example.com/dir1/dir2/file
curl-ft-method singlecwd ftp://example.com/dir1/dir2/file
See also --list-only.
- --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 --ftp-port
option.
Reversing an enforced passive really is not doable but you must then instead
enforce the correct --ftp-port again.
Passive mode means that curl tries the EPSV command first and then PASV,
unless --disable-epsv is used.
Providing --ftp-pasv multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-ft-pasv ftp://example.com/
This option is mutually exclusive with --ftp-port.
See also --disable-epsv.
- -P, --ftp-port <address>
-
(FTP) Reverse the default initiator/listener roles when connecting with FTP. This
option makes curl use active mode. curl then commands the server to connect
back to the clientaqs 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 interfaceaqs IP address you want to use (Unix only)
- IP address
-
e.g. 192.168.10.1 to specify the exact IP address
- hostname
-
e.g. my.host.domain to specify the machine
- -
-
make curl pick the same IP address that is already used for the control
connection. This is the recommended choice.
-
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++.
You can also 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.
If --ftp-port is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-P- ftp:/example.com
curl-P eth0 ftp:/example.com
curl-P 192.168.0.2 ftp:/example.com
See also --ftp-pasv and --disable-eprt.
- --ftp-pret
-
(FTP) 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.
Providing --ftp-pret multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ft-pret.
Example:
curl-ft-pret ftp://example.com/
See also --ftp-port and --ftp-pasv.
- --ftp-skip-pasv-ip
-
(FTP) Do not use the IP address the server suggests in its response to curlaqs PASV
command when curl connects the data connection. Instead curl reuses the same
IP address it already uses for the control connection.
This option is enabled by default (added in 7.74.0).
This option has no effect if PORT, EPRT or EPSV is used instead of PASV.
Providing --ftp-skip-pasv-ip multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ft-ski-pas-ip.
Example:
curl-ft-ski-pas-ip ftp://example.com/
See also --ftp-pasv.
- --ftp-ssl-ccc
-
(FTP) Use CCC (Clear Command Channel) Shuts down the SSL/TLS layer after
authenticating. The rest of the control channel communication is
unencrypted. This allows NAT routers to follow the FTP transaction. The
default mode is passive.
Providing --ftp-ssl-ccc multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ft-ss-ccc.
Example:
curl-ft-ss-ccc ftps://example.com/
See also --ssl and --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode.
- --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode <active/passive>
-
(FTP) Set the CCC mode. The passive mode does not initiate the shutdown, but instead
waits for the server to do it, and does not reply to the shutdown from the
server. The active mode initiates the shutdown and waits for a reply from the
server.
Providing --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ft-ss-cc-mode.
Example:
curl-ft-ss-cc-mode active-ft-ss-ccc ftps://example.com/
See also --ftp-ssl-ccc.
- --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 does not support SSL/TLS.
Providing --ftp-ssl-control multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ft-ss-control.
Example:
curl-ft-ss-control ftp://example.com
See also --ssl.
- -G, --get
-
(HTTP) When used, this option makes all data specified with --data, --data-binary or
--data-urlencode to be used in an HTTP GET request instead of the POST request
that otherwise would be used. curl appends the provided data to the URL as a
query string.
If used in combination with --head, the POST data is instead appended to the
URL with a HEAD request.
Providing --get multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-get.
Examples:
curl-get https://example.com
curl-get-d "tool=curl"-d "age=old" https://example.com
curl-get-I-d "tool=curl" https://example.com
See also --data and --request.
- -g, --globoff
-
Switch off the URL globbing function. When you set this option, you can
specify URLs that contain the letters {}[] without having curl itself
interpret them. Note that these letters are not normal legal URL contents but
they should be encoded according to the URI standard.
curl detects numerical IPv6 addresses when used in URLs and excludes them from
the treatment, so they can still be used without having to disable globbing.
Providing --globoff multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-globoff.
Example:
curl-g "https://example.com/{[]}}}}"
See also --config and --disable.
- --happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms <ms>
-
Set the timeout for Happy Eyeballs.
Happy Eyeballs is an algorithm that attempts to connect to both IPv4 and IPv6
addresses for dual-stack hosts, giving IPv6 a head-start of the specified
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 --happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-happ-eyeball-timeou-ms 500 https://example.com
See also --max-time and --connect-timeout.
- --haproxy-clientip <ip>
-
(HTTP) Set a client IP in HAProxy PROXY protocol v1 header at the beginning of the
connection.
For valid requests, IPv4 addresses must be indicated as a series of exactly
4 integers in the range [0..255] inclusive written in decimal representation
separated by exactly one dot between each other. Heading zeroes are not
permitted in front of numbers in order to avoid any possible confusion
with octal numbers. IPv6 addresses must be indicated as series of 4 hexadecimal
digits (upper or lower case) delimited by colons between each other, with the
acceptance of one double colon sequence to replace the largest acceptable range
of consecutive zeroes. The total number of decoded bits must be exactly 128.
Otherwise, any string can be accepted for the client IP and get sent.
It replaces --haproxy-protocol if used, it is not necessary to specify both flags.
If --haproxy-clientip is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-haprox-clientip $IP
Added in 8.2.0. See also --proxy.
- --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
clientaqs true IP address and port.
This option is primarily useful when sending test requests to a service that
expects this header.
Providing --haproxy-protocol multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-haprox-protocol.
Example:
curl-haprox-protocol https://example.com
See also --proxy.
- -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 URL,
curl displays the file size and last modification time only.
Providing --head multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-head.
Example:
curl-I https://example.com
See also --get, --verbose and --trace-ascii.
- -H, --header <header/@file>
-
(HTTP IMAP SMTP) Extra header to include in information sent. When used within an HTTP request,
it is added to the regular request headers.
For an IMAP or SMTP MIME uploaded mail built with --form options, it is
prepended to the resulting MIME document, effectively including it at the mail
global level. It does not affect raw uploaded mails.
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 is 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 are
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 makes 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 only mess things up for
you. curl passes on the verbatim string you give it without any filter or
other safe guards. That includes white space and control characters.
This option can take an argument in @filename style, which then adds a header
for each line in the input file. Using @- makes curl read the header file from
stdin.
Please note that most anti-spam utilities check the presence and value of
several MIME mail headers: these are "From:", "To:", "Date:" and "Subject:"
among others and should be added with this option.
You need --proxy-header to send custom headers intended for an HTTP proxy.
Passing on a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header when doing an HTTP request
with a request body, makes curl send the data using chunked encoding.
WARNING: headers set with this option are set in all HTTP requests - even
after redirects are followed, like when told with --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.
"Authorization:" and "Cookie:" headers are explicitly not passed on in HTTP
requests when following redirects to other origins, unless --location-trusted
is used.
--header can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-H "-Firs-Name: Joe" https://example.com
curl-H "Use-Agent: ye-please/2000" https://example.com
curl-H "Host:" https://example.com
curl-H @headers.txt https://example.com
See also --user-agent, --referer and --proxy-header.
- -h, --help <subject>
-
Usage help. Provide help for the subject given as an optional argument.
If no argument is provided, curl displays the most important command line
arguments.
The argument can either be a category or a command line option. When a
category is provided, curl shows all command line options within the given
category. Specify category "all" to list all available options.
If "category" is specified, curl displays all available help categories.
If the provided subject is instead an existing command line option, specified
either in its short form with a single dash and a single letter, or in the
long form with two dashes and a longer name, curl displays a help text for
that option in the terminal.
The help output is extensive for some options.
If the provided command line option is not known, curl says so.
Examples:
curl-help all
curl-help-insecure
curl-help-f
See also --verbose.
- --hostpubmd5 <md5>
-
(SFTP SCP) Pass a string containing 32 hexadecimal digits. The string should be the 128
bit MD5 checksum of the remote hostaqs public key, curl refuses the
connection with the host unless the checksums match.
If --hostpubmd5 is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-hostpubmd5 e5c1c49020640a5ab0f2034854c321a8 sftp://example.com/
See also --hostpubsha256.
- --hostpubsha256 <sha256>
-
(SFTP SCP) Pass a string containing a Base64-encoded SHA256 hash of the remote hostaqs
public key. curl refuses the connection with the host unless the hashes match.
This feature requires libcurl to be built with libssh2 and does not work with
other SSH backends.
If --hostpubsha256 is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-hostpubsha256 NDVkMTQxMGQ1ODdmMjQ3MjczYjAyOTY5MmRkMjVmNDQ= sftp://example.com/
Added in 7.80.0. See also --hostpubmd5.
- --hsts <filename>
-
(HTTPS) Enable HSTS for the transfer. If the filename points to an existing HSTS cache
file, that is used. After a completed transfer, the cache is saved to the
filename again if it has been modified.
If curl is told to use HTTP:// for a transfer involving a hostname that exists
in the HSTS cache, it upgrades the transfer to use HTTPS. Each HSTS cache
entry has an individual lifetime after which the upgrade is no longer
performed.
Specify a "" filename (zero length) to avoid loading/saving and make curl
handle HSTS in memory.
You may want to restrict your umask to prevent other users on the same system
to access the created file.
If this option is used several times, curl loads contents from all the
files but the last one is used for saving.
--hsts can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-hsts cache.txt https://example.com
Added in 7.74.0. See also --proto.
- --http0.9
-
(HTTP) Accept an HTTP version 0.9 response.
HTTP/0.9 is a response without headers and therefore you can also connect with
this to non-HTTP servers and still get a response since curl
transparently downgrades - if allowed.
HTTP/0.9 is disabled by default (added in 7.66.0)
Providing --http0.9 multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-http0.9.
Example:
curl-http0.9 https://example.com
See also --http1.1, --http2 and --http3.
- -0, --http1.0
-
(HTTP) Use HTTP version 1.0 instead of using its internally preferred HTTP version.
Providing --http1.0 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-http1.0 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --http1.1, --http2, --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3.
See also --http0.9 and --http1.1.
- --http1.1
-
(HTTP) Use HTTP version 1.1. This is the default with HTTP:// URLs.
Providing --http1.1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-http1.1 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --http1.0, --http2, --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3.
See also --http1.0 and --http0.9.
- --http2
-
(HTTP) Use HTTP/2.
For HTTPS, this means curl negotiates HTTP/2 in the TLS handshake. curl does
this by default.
For HTTP, this means curl attempts to upgrade the request to HTTP/2 using the
Upgrade: request header.
When curl uses HTTP/2 over HTTPS, it does not itself insist on TLS 1.2 or
higher even though that is required by the specification. A user can add this
version requirement with --tlsv1.2.
Providing --http2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-http2 https://example.com
For --http2 to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support HTTP/2.
This option is mutually exclusive with --http1.1, --http1.0, --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3.
See also --http1.1, --http3, --no-alpn and --proxy-http2.
- --http2-prior-knowledge
-
(HTTP) Issue a non-TLS HTTP request using HTTP/2 directly without HTTP/1.1 Upgrade.
It requires prior knowledge that the server supports HTTP/2 straight away.
HTTPS requests still do HTTP/2 the standard way with negotiated protocol
versions in the TLS handshake.
Since 8.10.0 if this option is set for an HTTPS request then the application
layer protocol version (ALPN) offered to the server is only HTTP/2. Prior to
that both HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 were offered.
Providing --http2-prior-knowledge multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-http-prio-knowledge.
Example:
curl-http-prio-knowledge https://example.com
For --http2-prior-knowledge to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support HTTP/2.
This option is mutually exclusive with --http1.1, --http1.0, --http2 and --http3.
See also --http2 and --http3.
- --http3
-
(HTTP) Attempt HTTP/3 to the host in the URL, but fallback to earlier HTTP versions
if the HTTP/3 connection establishment fails or is slow. HTTP/3 is only
available for HTTPS and not for HTTP URLs.
This option allows a user to avoid using the Alt-Svc method of upgrading to
HTTP/3 when you know or suspect that the target speaks HTTP/3 on the given
host and port.
When asked to use HTTP/3, curl issues a separate attempt to use older HTTP
versions with a slight delay, so if the HTTP/3 transfer fails or is slow, curl
still tries to proceed with an older HTTP version. The fallback performs the
regular negotiation between HTTP/1 and HTTP/2.
Use --http3-only for similar functionality without a fallback.
curl cannot do HTTP/3 over any proxy.
Providing --http3 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-http3 https://example.com
For --http3 to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support HTTP/3.
This option is mutually exclusive with --http1.1, --http1.0, --http2, --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3-only.
Added in 7.66.0. See also --http1.1 and --http2.
- --http3-only
-
(HTTP) Instruct curl to use HTTP/3 to the host in the URL, with no fallback to
earlier HTTP versions. HTTP/3 can only be used for HTTPS and not for HTTP
URLs. For HTTP, this option triggers an error.
This option allows a user to avoid using the Alt-Svc method of upgrading to
HTTP/3 when you know that the target speaks HTTP/3 on the given host and port.
This option makes curl fail if a QUIC connection cannot be established, it
does not attempt any other HTTP versions on its own. Use --http3 for similar
functionality with a fallback.
Providing --http3-only multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-http-only https://example.com
For --http3-only to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support HTTP/3.
This option is mutually exclusive with --http1.1, --http1.0, --http2, --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3.
Added in 7.88.0. See also --http1.1, --http2 and --http3.
- --ignore-content-length
-
(FTP HTTP) For HTTP, ignore the Content-Length header. This is particularly useful for
servers running Apache 1.x, which reports incorrect Content-Length for files
larger than 2 gigabytes.
For FTP, this makes curl skip the SIZE command to figure out the size before
downloading a file.
Providing --ignore-content-length multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ignor-conten-length.
Example:
curl-ignor-conten-length https://example.com
See also --ftp-skip-pasv-ip.
- -k, --insecure
-
(TLS SFTP SCP) By default, every secure connection curl makes is verified to be secure before
the transfer takes place. This option makes curl skip the verification step
and proceed without checking.
When this option is not used for protocols using TLS, curl verifies the
serveraqs TLS certificate before it continues: that the certificate contains
the right name which matches the hostname used in the URL and that the
certificate has been signed by a CA certificate present in the cert store. See
this online resource for further details:
https://curl.se/docs/sslcerts.html
For SFTP and SCP, this option makes curl skip the known_hosts verification.
known_hosts is a file normally stored in the useraqs home directory in the
".ssh" subdirectory, which contains hostnames and their public keys.
WARNING: using this option makes the transfer insecure.
When curl uses secure protocols it trusts responses and allows for example
HSTS and Alt-Svc information to be stored and used subsequently. Using
--insecure can make curl trust and use such information from malicious
servers.
Providing --insecure multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-insecure.
Example:
curl-insecure https://example.com
See also --proxy-insecure, --cacert and --capath.
- --interface <name>
-
Perform the operation using a specified interface. You can enter interface
name, IP address or hostname. If you prefer to be specific, you can use the
following special syntax:
-
- if!<name>
-
Interface name. If the provided name does not match an existing interface,
curl returns with error 45.
- host!<name>
-
IP address or hostname.
- ifhost!<interface>!<host>
-
Interface name and IP address or hostname. This syntax requires libcurl 8.9.0
or later.
If the provided name does not match an existing interface, curl returns with
error 45.
-
curl does not support using network interface names for this option on
Windows.
That name resolve operation if a hostname is provided does not use
DNS-over-HTTPS even if --doh-url is set.
On Linux this option can be used to specify a VRF (Virtual Routing and
Forwarding) device, but the binary then needs to either have the
CAP_NET_RAW capability set or to be run as root.
If --interface is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-interface eth0 https://example.com
curl-interface "host!10.0.0.1" https://example.com
curl-interface "if!enp3s0" https://example.com
See also --dns-interface.
- --ip-tos <string>
-
Set Type of Service (TOS) for IPv4 or Traffic Class for IPv6.
The values allowed for <string> can be a numeric value between 1 and 255
or one of the following:
CS0, CS1, CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, CS7, AF11, AF12, AF13, AF21, AF22, AF23,
AF31, AF32, AF33, AF41, AF42, AF43, EF, VOICE-ADMIT, ECT1, ECT0, CE, LE,
LOWCOST, LOWDELAY, THROUGHPUT, RELIABILITY, MINCOST
If --ip-tos is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-i-tos CS5 https://example.com
Added in 8.9.0. See also --tcp-nodelay and --vlan-priority.
- --ipfs-gateway <URL>
-
(IPFS) Specify which gateway to use for IPFS and IPNS URLs. Not specifying this
instead makes curl check if the IPFS_GATEWAY environment variable is set, or
if a "~/.ipfs/gateway" file holding the gateway URL exists.
If you run a local IPFS node, this gateway is by default available under
"http://localhost:8080". A full example URL would look like:
curl --ipfs-gateway http://localhost:8080
ipfs://bafybeigagd5nmnn2iys2f3
There are many public IPFS gateways. See for example:
https://ipfs.github.io/public-gateway-checker/
If you opt to go for a remote gateway you need to be aware that you completely
trust the gateway. This might be fine in local gateways that you host
yourself. With remote gateways there could potentially be malicious actors
returning you data that does not match the request you made, inspect or even
interfere with the request. You may not notice this when using curl. A
mitigation could be to go for a "trustless" gateway. This means you locally
verify the data. Consult the docs page on trusted vs trustless:
https://docs.ipfs.tech/reference/http/gateway/#trusted-vs-trustless
If --ipfs-gateway is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ipf-gateway https://example.com ipfs://
Added in 8.4.0. See also --help and --manual.
- -4, --ipv4
-
Request only IPv4 addresses when resolving hostnames, and not for example any
IPv6.
Providing --ipv4 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-ipv4 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --ipv6.
See also --http1.1 and --http2.
- -6, --ipv6
-
Request only IPv6 addresses when resolving hostnames, and not for example any
IPv4.
Your resolver may still respond to an IPv6-only resolve request by returning
IPv6 addresses that contain "mapped" IPv4 addresses for compatibility purposes.
macOS is known to do this.
Providing --ipv6 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-ipv6 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --ipv4.
See also --http1.1 and --http2.
- --json <data>
-
(HTTP) Send the specified JSON data in a POST request to the HTTP server. --json
works as a shortcut for passing on these three options:
--data-binary [arg]--header "Content-Type: application/json"--header "Accept: application/json"
There is no verification that the passed in data is actual JSON or that
the syntax is correct.
If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename to read
the data from, or a single dash (-) if you want curl to read the data from
stdin. Posting data from a file named aqfoobaraq would thus be done with --json
@foobar and to instead read the data from stdin, use --json @-.
If this option is used more than once on the same command line, the additional
data pieces are concatenated to the previous before sending.
The headers this option sets can be overridden with --header as usual.
--json can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-json '{ "drink": "coffee" }' https://example.com
curl-json '{ "drink":'-json ' "coffee" }' https://example.com
curl-json @prepared https://example.com
curl-json - https://example.com < json.txt
This option is mutually exclusive with --form, --head and --upload-file.
Added in 7.82.0. See also --data-binary and --data-raw.
- -j, --junk-session-cookies
-
(HTTP) When curl is told to read cookies from a given file, this option makes it
discard all session cookies. This has the same effect as if a new session is
started. Typical browsers discard session cookies when they are closed down.
Session cookies are cookies without a set expiry time. They are meant to only
last for "a session".
Providing --junk-session-cookies multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-jun-sessio-cookies.
Example:
curl-jun-sessio-cookies-b cookies.txt https://example.com
See also --cookie and --cookie-jar.
- --keepalive-cnt <integer>
-
Set the maximum number of keepalive probes TCP should send but get no response
before dropping the connection. This option is usually used in conjunction
with --keepalive-time.
This option is supported on Linux, *BSD/macOS, Windows >=10.0.16299, Solaris
11.4, and recent AIX, HP-UX and more. This option has no effect if
--no-keepalive is used.
If unspecified, the option defaults to 9.
If --keepalive-cnt is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-keepaliv-cnt 3 https://example.com
Added in 8.9.0. See also --keepalive-time and --no-keepalive.
- --keepalive-time <seconds>
-
Set 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, *BSD/macOS, Windows, Solaris, and recent AIX, HP-UX and more).
Keepalive is used by the TCP stack to detect broken networks on idle connections.
The number of missed keepalive probes before declaring the connection down is OS
dependent and is commonly 8 (*BSD/macOS/AIX), 9 (Linux/AIX) or 5/10 (Windows), and
this number can be changed by specifying the curl option "keepalive-cnt".
Note that this option has no effect if --no-keepalive is used.
If unspecified, the option defaults to 60 seconds.
If --keepalive-time is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-keepaliv-time 20 https://example.com
See also --no-keepalive, --keepalive-cnt and --max-time.
- --key <key>
-
(TLS SCP SFTP) Private key filename. 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 or pkcs11
provider 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:" is
interpreted as a PKCS#11 URI. If a PKCS#11 URI is provided, then the --engine
option is set as "pkcs11" if none was provided and the --key-type option is
set as "ENG" or "PROV" if none was provided (depending on OpenSSL version).
If curl is built against Schannel then this option is ignored for TLS
protocols (HTTPS, etc). That backend expects the private key to be already
present in the keychain or PKCS#12 file containing the certificate.
If --key is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-cert certificate-key here https://example.com
See also --key-type and --cert.
- --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 --key-type is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ke-type DER-key here https://example.com
See also --key.
- --knownhosts <file>
-
(SCP SFTP) When doing SCP and SFTP transfers, curl automatically checks a database
containing identification for all hosts it has ever been used with to verify
that the host it connects to is the same as previously. Host keys are stored
in such a known hosts file. curl uses the ~/.ssh/known_hosts in the useraqs
home directory by default.
This option lets a user specify a specific file to check the host against.
The known hosts check can be disabled with --insecure, but that makes the
transfer insecure and is strongly discouraged.
If --knownhosts is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-knownhosts filename-key here https://example.com
Added in 8.17.0. See also --hostpubsha256, --hostpubmd5, --insecure and --key.
- --krb <level>
-
(FTP) Deprecated option (added in 8.17.0). It has no function anymore.
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" is used.
If --krb is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-krb clear ftp://example.com/
For --krb to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support Kerberos.
See also --delegation and --ssl.
- --libcurl <file>
-
Append this option to any ordinary curl command line, and you get
libcurl-using C source code written to the file that does the equivalent of
what your command-line operation does.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --libcurl is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-libcurl client.c https://example.com
See also --verbose.
- --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 would
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 aqkaq or aqKaq counts the number as kilobytes, aqmaq or aqMaq makes it
megabytes etc. The supported suffixes (k, M, G, T, P) are 1024-based. For
example 1k is 1024. Examples: 200K, 3m and 1G.
The rate limiting logic works on averaging the transfer speed to no more than
the set threshold over a period of multiple seconds.
If you also use the --speed-limit option, that option takes precedence and
might cripple the rate-limiting slightly, to help keep the speed-limit
logic working.
Starting in curl 8.19.0, the rate can be specified using a fraction as in
"2.5M" for two and a half megabytes per second. It only works with a period
(".") delimiter, independent of what your locale might prefer.
If --limit-rate is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-limi-rate 123.45K https://example.com
curl-limi-rate 1000 https://example.com
curl-limi-rate 10M https://example.com
curl-limi-rate 200K-ma-time 60 https://example.com
See also --rate, --speed-limit and --speed-time.
- -l, --list-only
-
(FTP POP3 SFTP FILE) When listing an FTP directory, force a name-only view. Maybe particularly
useful if the user wants to machine-parse the contents of an FTP directory
since the normal directory view does not use a standard look or format. When
used like this, the option causes an 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 subdirectories and symbolic links.
When listing an SFTP directory, this switch forces a name-only view, one per
line. This is especially useful if the user wants to machine-parse the
contents of an SFTP directory since the normal directory view provides more
information than filenames.
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.
For FILE, this option has no effect yet as directories are always listed in
this mode.
Note: When combined with --request, this option can be used to send a UIDL
command instead, so the user may use the emailaqs unique identifier rather than
its message-id to make the request.
Providing --list-only multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-lis-only.
Example:
curl-lis-only ftp://example.com/dir/
See also --quote and --request.
- --local-port <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
so setting this range to something too narrow might cause unnecessary
connection setup failures.
If --local-port is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-loca-port 100-3000 https://example.com
See also --globoff.
- -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 makes curl redo the request to the new place. If used together with
--show-headers or --head, headers from all requested pages are shown.
When authentication is used, or when sending a cookie with "-H Cookie:", curl
only sends its credentials to the initial host. If a redirect takes curl to a
different host, it does not get the credentials passed on. See
--location-trusted on how to change this.
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 sends 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 resends 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 --request overrides the method curl would otherwise select
to use.
Restrict which protocols a redirect is accepted to follow with --proto-redir.
Providing --location multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-location.
Example:
curl-L https://example.com
See also --resolve, --alt-svc, --follow, --proto-redir and --max-redirs.
- --location-trusted
-
(HTTP) Instruct curl to follow HTTP redirects like --location, but permit curl to
send credentials and other secrets along to other hosts than the initial one.
This may or may not introduce a security breach if the site redirects you to a
site to which you send this sensitive data to. Another host means that one or
more of hostname, protocol scheme or port number changed.
This option also allows curl to pass long cookies set explicitly with --header.
Providing --location-trusted multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-locatio-trusted.
Examples:
curl-locatio-trusted-u user:password https://example.com
curl-locatio-trusted-H "Cookie: session=abc" https://example.com
See also --user and --follow.
- --login-options <options>
-
(IMAP LDAP POP3 SMTP) Specify the login options to use during server authentication.
You can use 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 login options please see RFC 2384,
RFC 5092 and the IETF draft
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-earhart-url-smtp-00
Since 8.2.0, IMAP supports the login option "AUTH=+LOGIN". With this option,
curl uses the plain (not SASL) "LOGIN IMAP" command even if the server
advertises SASL authentication. Care should be taken in using this option, as
it sends your password over the network in plain text. This does not work if
the IMAP server disables the plain "LOGIN" (e.g. to prevent password
snooping).
If --login-options is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-logi-options 'AUTH=*' imap://example.com
See also --user.
- --mail-auth <address>
-
(SMTP) Specify a single address. This is used to specify the authentication address
(identity) of a submitted message that is being relayed to another server.
If --mail-auth is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-mai-auth user@example.com-T mail smtp://example.com/
See also --mail-rcpt and --mail-from.
- --mail-from <address>
-
(SMTP) Specify a single address that the given mail should get sent from.
If --mail-from is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-mai-from user@example.com-T mail smtp://example.com/
See also --mail-rcpt and --mail-auth.
- --mail-rcpt <address>
-
(SMTP) Specify a single email address, username or mailing list name. Repeat this
option several times to send to multiple recipients.
When performing an address verification (VRFY command), the recipient
should be specified as the username or username and domain (as per Section 3.5
of RFC 5321).
When performing a mailing list expand (EXPN command), the recipient should be
specified using the mailing list name, such as "Friends" or "London-Office".
--mail-rcpt can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-mai-rcpt user@example.net smtp://example.com
See also --mail-rcpt-allowfails.
- --mail-rcpt-allowfails
-
(SMTP) When sending data to multiple recipients, by default curl aborts 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 makes curl ignore errors and proceed with the
remaining valid recipients.
If all recipients trigger RCPT TO failures and this flag is specified, curl
still aborts the SMTP conversation and returns the error received from to the
last RCPT TO command.
Providing --mail-rcpt-allowfails multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-mai-rcp-allowfails.
Example:
curl-mai-rcp-allowfails-mai-rcpt dest@example.com smtp://example.com
Added in 7.69.0. See also --mail-rcpt.
- -M, --manual
-
Manual. Display the huge help text.
Example:
curl-manual
See also --verbose, --libcurl and --trace.
- --max-filesize <bytes>
-
(FTP HTTP MQTT) When set to a non-zero value, it specifies the maximum size (in bytes) of a
file to download. If the file requested is larger than this value, the
transfer does not start and curl returns with exit code 63.
Setting the maximum value to zero disables the limit.
A unit suffix letter can be used. Appending aqkaq or aqKaq counts the number as
kilobytes, aqmaq or aqMaq makes it megabytes etc. The supported suffixes (k, M, G,
T, P) are 1024-based. Examples: 200K, 3m and 1G.
NOTE: before curl 8.4.0, when the file size is not known prior to
download, for such files this option has no effect even if the file transfer
ends up being larger than this given limit.
Starting with curl 8.4.0, this option aborts the transfer if it reaches the
threshold during transfer.
Starting in curl 8.19.0, the maximum size can be specified using a fraction as
in "2.5M" for two and a half megabytes. It only works with a period (".")
delimiter, independent of what your locale might prefer.
If --max-filesize is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-ma-filesize 100K https://example.com
curl-ma-filesize 2.6M https://example.com
See also --limit-rate.
- --max-redirs <num>
-
(HTTP) Set the maximum number of redirections to follow. When --location or --follow
are used, this option prevents curl from following too many redirects. By
default the limit is set to 50 redirects. Set this option to -1 to make it
unlimited.
If --max-redirs is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ma-redirs 3-location https://example.com
See also --location and --follow.
- -m, --max-time <seconds>
-
Set the maximum time in seconds that you allow each transfer to take. Prevents
your batch jobs from hanging for hours due to slow networks or links going
down. This option accepts decimal values.
If you enable retrying the transfer (--retry) then the maximum time counter is
reset each time the transfer is retried. You can use --retry-max-time to limit
the retry time.
The decimal value needs to be provided using a dot (.) as decimal separator -
not the local version even if it might be using another separator.
If --max-time is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-ma-time 10 https://example.com
curl-ma-time 2.92 https://example.com
See also --connect-timeout and --retry-max-time.
- --metalink
-
This option was previously used to specify a Metalink resource. Metalink
support is disabled in curl for security reasons (added in 7.78.0).
If --metalink is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-metalink file https://example.com
See also --parallel.
- --mptcp
-
Enable the use of Multipath TCP (MPTCP) for connections. MPTCP is an extension
to the standard TCP that allows multiple TCP streams over different network
paths between the same source and destination. This can enhance bandwidth and
improve reliability by using multiple paths simultaneously.
MPTCP is beneficial in networks where multiple paths exist between clients and
servers, such as mobile networks where a device may switch between WiFi and
cellular data or in wired networks with multiple Internet Service Providers.
This option is currently only supported on Linux starting from kernel 5.6. Only
TCP connections are modified, hence this option does not affect HTTP/3 (QUIC)
or UDP connections.
The server curl connects to must also support MPTCP. If not, the connection
seamlessly falls back to TCP.
Providing --mptcp multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-mptcp.
Example:
curl-mptcp https://example.com
Added in 8.9.0. See also --tcp-fastopen.
- --negotiate
-
(HTTP) Enable Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication.
This option requires a library built with GSS-API or SSPI support. Use
--version to see if your curl supports GSS-API/SSPI or SPNEGO.
When using this option, you must also provide a fake --user option to activate
the authentication code properly. Sending a aq-u :aq is enough as the username
and password from the --user option are not actually used.
Providing --negotiate multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-negotiate.
Example:
curl-negotiate-u : https://example.com
See also --basic, --ntlm, --anyauth and --proxy-negotiate.
- -n, --netrc
-
Make curl scan the .netrc file in the useraqs home directory for login name
and password. This is typically used for FTP on Unix. If used with HTTP, curl
enables user authentication. See netrc(5) and ftp(1) for details on the
file format. curl does not complain if that file does not have the right
permissions (it should be neither world- nor group-readable). The environment
variable "HOME" is used to find the home directory. If the "NETRC" environment
variable is set, that filename is used as the netrc file. (Added in 8.16.0)
If --netrc-file is used, that overrides all other ways to figure out the file.
The netrc file provides credentials for a hostname independent of which
protocol and port number that are used.
On Windows two filenames in the home directory are checked: .netrc and
_netrc, preferring the former. Older versions on Windows checked for
_netrc only.
A quick and simple example of how to setup a .netrc to allow curl to FTP to
the machine host.example.com with username aqmyselfaq and password aqsecretaq
could look similar to:
machine host.example.com
login myself
password secret
Providing --netrc multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-netrc.
Example:
curl-netrc https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --netrc-file and --netrc-optional.
See also --netrc-file, --config and --user.
- --netrc-file <filename>
-
Set the netrc file to use. Similar to --netrc, except that you also provide
the path (absolute or relative).
It abides by --netrc-optional if specified.
If --netrc-file is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-netr-file netrc https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --netrc.
See also --netrc, --user and --config.
- --netrc-optional
-
Similar to --netrc, but this option makes the .netrc usage optional
and not mandatory as the --netrc option does.
Providing --netrc-optional multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-netr-optional.
Example:
curl-netr-optional https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --netrc.
See also --netrc-file.
- -:, --next
-
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 usernames or custom requests for each.
--next resets all local options and only global ones have their values survive
over to the operation following the --next instruction. Global options include
--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
--next can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl https://example.com-next-d postthis www2.example.com
curl-I https://example.com-next https://example.net/
See also --parallel and --config.
- --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.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can use --alpn to
enable ALPN.
Providing --no-alpn multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --alpn.
Example:
curl-n-alpn https://example.com
For --no-alpn to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
See also --no-npn and --http2.
- -N, --no-buffer
-
Disable the buffering of the output stream. In normal work situations, curl
uses a standard buffered output stream that has the effect that it outputs the
data in chunks, not necessarily exactly when the data arrives. Using this
option disables that buffering.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can use --buffer to
enable buffering again.
Providing --no-buffer multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --buffer.
Example:
curl-n-buffer https://example.com
See also --progress-bar.
- --no-clobber
-
When used in conjunction with the --output, --remote-header-name,
--remote-name, or --remote-name-all options, curl avoids overwriting files
that already exist. Instead, a dot and a number gets appended to the name of
the file that would be created, up to filename.100 after which it does not
create any file.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use
--clobber to enforce the clobbering, even if --remote-header-name is
specified.
The --continue-at option cannot be used together with --no-clobber.
Providing --no-clobber multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --clobber.
Example:
curl-n-clobber-output local/dir/file https://example.com
Added in 7.83.0. See also --output and --remote-name.
- --no-keepalive
-
Disable 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.
Providing --no-keepalive multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --keepalive.
Example:
curl-n-keepalive https://example.com
See also --keepalive-time and --keepalive-cnt.
- --no-npn
-
(HTTPS) curl never uses NPN, this option has no effect (added in 7.86.0).
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.
Providing --no-npn multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --npn.
Example:
curl-n-npn https://example.com
For --no-npn to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
See also --no-alpn and --http2.
- --no-progress-meter
-
Option to switch off the progress meter output without muting or otherwise
affecting warning and informational messages like --silent does.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use
--progress-meter to enable the progress meter again.
Providing --no-progress-meter multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --progres-meter.
Example:
curl-n-progres-meter-o store https://example.com
Added in 7.67.0. See also --verbose and --silent.
- --no-sessionid
-
(TLS) Disable curlaqs 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.
Providing --no-sessionid multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --sessionid.
Example:
curl-n-sessionid https://example.com
See also --insecure.
- --noproxy <no-proxy-list>
-
Comma-separated list of hosts for which not to 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".
This option overrides the environment variables that disable the proxy
("no_proxy" and "NO_PROXY"). If there is an environment
variable disabling a proxy, you can set the no proxy list to "" to override
it.
IP addresses specified to this option can be provided using CIDR notation
(added in 7.86.0): an appended slash and number specifies the number of
network bits out of the address to use in the comparison. For example
"192.168.0.0/16" would match all addresses starting with "192.168".
If --noproxy is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-noproxy "www.example" https://example.com
See also --proxy.
- --ntlm
-
(HTTP) Use 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.
Providing --ntlm multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ntlm.
Example:
curl-ntlm-u user:password https://example.com
For --ntlm to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
See also --proxy-ntlm.
- --ntlm-wb
-
(HTTP) Deprecated option (added in 8.8.0).
Enabled NTLM much in the style --ntlm does, but handed over the authentication
to a separate executable that was executed when needed.
Providing --ntlm-wb multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-ntl-wb-u user:password https://example.com
See also --ntlm and --proxy-ntlm.
- --oauth2-bearer <token>
-
(IMAP LDAP POP3 SMTP HTTP) Specify the Bearer Token for OAUTH 2.0 server authentication. The Bearer Token
is used in conjunction with the username which can be specified as part of the
--url or --user options.
The Bearer Token and username are formatted according to RFC 6750.
If --oauth2-bearer is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-oauth-bearer "mF_9.B5-4.1JqM" https://example.com
See also --basic, --ntlm and --digest.
- --out-null
-
Discard all response output of a transfer silently. This is the more
efficient and portable version of
curl https://host.example -o /dev/null
The transfer is done in full, all data is received and checked, but
the bytes are not written anywhere.
--out-null is associated with a single URL. Use it once per URL when you use several URLs in a command line.
Example:
curl "https://example.com"-ou-null
Added in 8.16.0. See also --output, --remote-name, --remote-name-all and --remote-header-name.
- -o, --output <file>
-
Write output to the given file instead of stdout. If you are using globbing to
fetch multiple documents, you should quote the URL and you can use "#"
followed by a number in the filename. That variable is then 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].example" -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 does not matter, only 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 aq-aq (a single dash) passes the output to
stdout.
To suppress response bodies, you can redirect output to /dev/null:
curl example.com -o /dev/null
Or for Windows:
curl example.com -o nul
Or, even more efficient and portable, use
curl example.com --out-null
Specify the filename as single minus to force the output to stdout, to
override curlaqs internal binary output in terminal prevention:
curl https://example.com/jpeg -o -
Note that the binary output may be caused by the response being compressed, in
which case you may want to use the --compressed option.
--output is associated with a single URL. Use it once per URL when you use several URLs in a command line.
Examples:
curl-o file https://example.com
curl "http://{one,two}.example.com"-o "file_#1.txt"
curl "http://{site,host}.host[-5].example"-o "#1_#2"
curl-o file https://example.com-o file2 https://example.net
See also --out-null, --remote-name, --remote-name-all, --remote-header-name and --compressed.
- --output-dir <dir>
-
Specify the directory in which files should be stored, when --remote-name or
--output are used.
The given output directory is used for all URLs and output options on the
command line, up until the first --next.
If the specified target directory does not exist, the operation fails unless
--create-dirs is also used.
If --output-dir is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-outpu-dir "tmp"-O https://example.com
Added in 7.73.0. See also --remote-name and --remote-header-name.
- -Z, --parallel
-
Make curl perform all transfers in parallel as compared to the regular serial
manner. Parallel transfer means that curl runs up to N concurrent transfers
simultaneously and if there are more than N transfers to handle, it starts new
ones when earlier transfers finish.
With parallel transfers, the progress meter output is different from when
doing serial transfers, as it then displays the transfer status for multiple
transfers in a single line.
The maximum amount of concurrent transfers is set with --parallel-max and it
defaults to 50.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --parallel multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-parallel.
Example:
curl-parallel https://example.com-o file1 https://example.com-o file2
Added in 7.66.0. See also --next, --verbose, --parallel-max and --parallel-immediate.
- --parallel-immediate
-
When doing parallel transfers, this option instructs curl to 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.
By default, without this option set, curl prefers to wait a little and
multiplex new transfers over existing connections. It keeps the number of
connections low at the expense of risking a slightly slower transfer startup.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --parallel-immediate multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-paralle-immediate.
Example:
curl-paralle-immediate-Z https://example.com-o file1 https://example.com-o file2
Added in 7.68.0. See also --parallel and --parallel-max.
- --parallel-max <num>
-
When asked to do parallel transfers, using --parallel, this option controls
the maximum amount of transfers to do simultaneously.
The default is 50. 65535 is the largest supported value.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --parallel-max is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-paralle-max 100-Z https://example.com ftp://example.com/
Added in 7.66.0. See also --parallel and --parallel-max-host.
- --parallel-max-host <num>
-
When asked to do parallel transfers, using --parallel, this option controls
the maximum amount of concurrent connections curl is allowed to do to the same
protocol + hostname + port number target.
The limit is enforced by libcurl and queued "internally", which means that
transfers that are waiting for an available connection still look like started
transfers in the progress meter.
The default is 0 (unlimited). 65535 is the largest supported value.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --parallel-max-host is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-paralle-ma-host 5-Z https://example.com ftp://example.com/
Added in 8.16.0. See also --parallel and --parallel-max.
- --pass <phrase>
-
(TLS SCP SFTP) Passphrase for the private key used for SSH or TLS.
If --pass is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-pass secret-key file https://example.com
See also --key and --user.
- --path-as-is
-
Do not handle sequences of /../ or /./ in the given URL path. Normally curl
squashes or merges them according to standards but with this option set you
tell it not to do that.
Providing --path-as-is multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-pat-a-is.
Example:
curl-pat-a-is https://example.com/../../etc/passwd
See also --request-target.
- --pinnedpubkey <hashes>
-
(TLS) 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 aqsha256//aq and
separated by aq;aq.
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
aborts the connection before sending or receiving any data.
This option is independent of option --insecure. If you use both options
together then the peer is still verified by public key.
PEM/DER support:
OpenSSL and GnuTLS, wolfSSL,
mbedTLS, Schannel
sha256 support:
OpenSSL, GnuTLS and wolfSSL, mbedTLS,
Schannel
Other SSL backends not supported.
If --pinnedpubkey is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-pinnedpubkey keyfile https://example.com
curl-pinnedpubkey 'sha256//ce118b51897f4452dc' https://example.com
See also --hostpubsha256.
- --post301
-
(HTTP) Respect RFC 7231/6.4.2 and do not convert POST requests into GET requests when
following a 301 redirect. The non-RFC behavior is ubiquitous in web browsers,
so curl does the conversion by default to maintain consistency. A server may
require a POST to remain a POST after such a redirection. This option is
meaningful only when using --location.
Providing --post301 multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-post301.
Example:
curl-post301-location-d "data" https://example.com
See also --post302, --post303 and --location.
- --post302
-
(HTTP) Respect RFC 7231/6.4.3 and do not convert POST requests into GET requests when
following a 302 redirect. The non-RFC behavior is ubiquitous in web browsers,
so curl does the conversion by default to maintain consistency. A server may
require a POST to remain a POST after such a redirection. This option is
meaningful only when using --location.
Providing --post302 multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-post302.
Example:
curl-post302-location-d "data" https://example.com
See also --post301, --post303 and --location.
- --post303
-
(HTTP) Violate RFC 7231/6.4.4 and do not convert POST requests into GET requests when
following 303 redirect. A server may require a POST to remain a POST after a
303 redirection. This option is meaningful only when using --location.
Providing --post303 multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-post303.
Example:
curl-post303-location-d "data" https://example.com
See also --post302, --post301 and --location.
- --preproxy <[protocol://]host[:port]>
-
Use the specified SOCKS proxy before connecting to an HTTP or HTTPS --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 makes 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 --preproxy is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-preproxy socks5://proxy.example-x http://http.example https://example.com
See also --proxy and --socks5.
- -#, --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 aq#aq characters across the screen and
shows a percentage if the transfer size is known. For transfers without a
known size, there is a 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.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --progress-bar multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-progres-bar.
Example:
curl-#-O https://example.com
See also --styled-output.
- --proto <protocols>
-
Limit what protocols to allow for transfers. Protocols are evaluated left to
right, are comma separated, and are each a protocol name or aqallaq, 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 and disabled 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.
If --proto is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-proto =http,https,sftp https://example.com
See also --proto-redir and --proto-default.
- --proto-default <protocol>
-
Use protocol for any provided URL missing a scheme.
An unknown or unsupported protocol causes error CURLE_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL.
This option does not change the default proxy protocol (http).
Without this option set, curl guesses protocol based on the hostname, see
--url for details.
If --proto-default is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prot-default https ftp.example.com
See also --proto and --proto-redir.
- --proto-redir <protocols>
-
Limit what protocols to allow on redirects. 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 --follow http://example.com
By default curl only allows HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS on redirects
. Specifying all or +all enables all protocols on
redirects, which is not good for security.
If --proto-redir is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prot-redir =http,https-follow https://example.com
See also --proto and --follow.
- -x, --proxy <[protocol://]host[:port]>
-
Use the specified proxy.
The proxy string can be specified with a protocol:// prefix. No protocol
specified or http:// it is treated as an HTTP proxy. Use socks4://,
socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to request a specific SOCKS version to be
used.
Unix domain sockets are supported for socks proxy. Set localhost for the host
part. e.g. socks5h://localhost/path/to/socket.sock
HTTPS proxy support works with the https:// protocol prefix for OpenSSL and
GnuTLS. It also works for mbedTLS, Rustls, Schannel and
wolfSSL (added in 7.87.0).
Unrecognized and unsupported proxy protocol schemes cause an error.
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 is an environment variable setting a proxy, you can set proxy to
"" to override it.
All operations that are performed over an HTTP proxy are transparently
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 --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 same way as the proxy environment
variables, including the protocol prefix (http://) and the embedded user +
password.
When a proxy is used, the active FTP mode as set with --ftp-port, cannot be
used.
Doing FTP over an HTTP proxy without --proxytunnel makes curl do HTTP with an
FTP URL over the proxy. For such transfers, common FTP specific options do not
work, including --ssl-reqd and --ftp-ssl-control.
If --proxy is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-proxy http://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --socks5 and --proxy-basic.
- --proxy-anyauth
-
Automatically pick a suitable authentication method when communicating with
the given HTTP proxy. This might cause an extra request/response round-trip.
Example:
curl-prox-anyauth-prox-user user:passwd-x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy, --proxy-basic and --proxy-digest.
- --proxy-basic
-
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.
Providing --proxy-basic multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-basic.
Example:
curl-prox-basic-prox-user user:passwd-x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy, --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-digest.
- --proxy-ca-native
-
(TLS) Use the operating systemaqs native CA store for certificate verification of the
HTTPS proxy.
This option is independent of other HTTPS proxy CA certificate locations set at
run time or build time. Those locations are searched in addition to the native
CA store.
Equivalent to --ca-native but used in HTTPS proxy context. Refer to --ca-native
for TLS backend limitations.
Providing --proxy-ca-native multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-c-native.
Example:
curl-prox-c-native https://example.com
Added in 8.2.0. See also --ca-native, --cacert, --capath, --dump-ca-embed and --insecure.
- --proxy-cacert <file>
-
Use the specified certificate file to verify the HTTPS proxy. The file may
contain multiple CA certificates. The certificate(s) must be in PEM format.
This allows you to use a different trust for the proxy compared to the remote
server connected to via the proxy.
Equivalent to --cacert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-cacert is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-cacert C-file.txt-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy-capath, --cacert, --capath, --dump-ca-embed and --proxy.
- --proxy-capath <dir>
-
Same as --capath but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Use the specified certificate directory to verify the proxy. Multiple paths
can be provided by separating them with colon (":") (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 --proxy-capath can allow OpenSSL-powered curl to make
SSL-connections much more efficiently than using --proxy-cacert if the
--proxy-cacert file contains many CA certificates.
If this option is set, the default capath value is ignored.
If --proxy-capath is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-capath /local/directory-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy-cacert, --proxy, --capath and --dump-ca-embed.
- --proxy-cert <cert[:passwd]>
-
Use the specified client certificate file when communicating with an HTTPS
proxy. The certificate must be PEM format. If the optional password is not
specified, it is queried for on the terminal. Use --proxy-key to provide the
private key.
This option is the equivalent to --cert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-cert is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-cert file-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy, --proxy-key and --proxy-cert-type.
- --proxy-cert-type <type>
-
Set type of the provided client certificate when using HTTPS proxy. PEM, DER,
ENG, PROV and P12 are recognized types.
The default type depends on the TLS backend and is usually PEM. For Schannel
it is P12. If --proxy-cert is a pkcs11: URI then ENG or PROV is the default
type (depending on OpenSSL version).
Equivalent to --cert-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-cert-type is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-cer-type PEM-prox-cert file-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy-cert and --proxy-key.
- --proxy-ciphers <list>
-
(TLS) Same as --ciphers but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Specify which cipher suites to use in the connection to your HTTPS proxy when
it negotiates TLS 1.2 (1.1, 1.0). The list of ciphers suites must specify
valid ciphers. Read up on cipher suite details on this URL:
https://curl.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
If --proxy-ciphers is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-ciphers ECDH-ECDS-AES12-GC-SHA256:ECDH-RS-AES12-GC-SHA256-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy-tls13-ciphers, --ciphers and --proxy.
- --proxy-crlfile <file>
-
Provide filename for a PEM formatted file with a Certificate Revocation List
that specifies peer certificates that are considered revoked when
communicating with an HTTPS proxy.
Equivalent to --crlfile but only used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-crlfile is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-crlfile rejects.txt-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --crlfile and --proxy.
- --proxy-digest
-
Use HTTP Digest authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use
--digest for enabling HTTP Digest with a remote host.
Providing --proxy-digest multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-digest.
Example:
curl-prox-digest-prox-user user:passwd-x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy, --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 --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 makes 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 only mess things up for
you.
Headers specified with this option are not included in requests that curl
knows are not to be sent to a proxy.
This option can take an argument in @filename style, which then adds a header
for each line in the input file. Using @- makes curl read
the headers from stdin.
This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove multiple headers.
--proxy-header can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-prox-header "-Firs-Name: Joe"-x http://proxy https://example.com
curl-prox-header "Use-Agent: surprise"-x http://proxy https://example.com
curl-prox-header "Host:"-x http://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy and --header.
- --proxy-http2
-
(HTTP) Negotiate HTTP/2 with an HTTPS proxy. The proxy might still only offer HTTP/1
and then curl sticks to using that version.
This has no effect for any other kinds of proxies.
Providing --proxy-http2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-http2.
Example:
curl-prox-http2-x proxy https://example.com
For --proxy-http2 to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support HTTP/2.
Added in 8.1.0. See also --proxy.
- --proxy-insecure
-
Same as --insecure but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Every secure connection curl makes is verified to be secure before the
transfer takes place. This option makes curl skip the verification step with a
proxy and proceed without checking.
When this option is not used for a proxy using HTTPS, curl verifies the
proxyaqs TLS certificate before it continues: that the certificate contains the
right name which matches the hostname and that the certificate has been signed
by a CA certificate present in the cert store. See this online resource for
further details: https://curl.se/docs/sslcerts.html
WARNING: using this option makes the transfer to the proxy insecure.
Providing --proxy-insecure multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-insecure.
Example:
curl-prox-insecure-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy and --insecure.
- --proxy-key <key>
-
Specify the filename for your private key when using client certificates with
your HTTPS proxy. This option is the equivalent to --key but used in HTTPS
proxy context.
If --proxy-key is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-key here-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy-key-type and --proxy.
- --proxy-key-type <type>
-
Specify the private key file type your --proxy-key provided private key uses.
DER, PEM, and ENG are supported. If not specified, PEM is assumed.
Equivalent to --key-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-key-type is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-ke-type DER-prox-key here-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy-key and --proxy.
- --proxy-negotiate
-
Use HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication when communicating with the given
proxy. Use --negotiate for enabling HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) with a remote
host.
Providing --proxy-negotiate multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-prox-negotiate-prox-user user:passwd-x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-anyauth, --proxy-basic and --proxy-service-name.
- --proxy-ntlm
-
Use HTTP NTLM authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use
--ntlm for enabling NTLM with a remote host.
Providing --proxy-ntlm multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-ntlm.
Example:
curl-prox-ntlm-prox-user user:passwd-x http://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-negotiate, --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-user.
- --proxy-pass <phrase>
-
Passphrase for the private key for HTTPS proxy client certificate.
Equivalent to --pass but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-pass is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-pass secret-prox-key here-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy and --proxy-key.
- --proxy-pinnedpubkey <hashes>
-
(TLS) 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 aqsha256//aq and
separated by aq;aq.
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
aborts the connection before sending or receiving any data.
Before curl 8.10.0 this option did not work due to a bug.
If --proxy-pinnedpubkey is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-prox-pinnedpubkey keyfile https://example.com
curl-prox-pinnedpubkey 'sha256//ce118b51897f4452dc' https://example.com
See also --pinnedpubkey and --proxy.
- --proxy-service-name <name>
-
Set the service name for SPNEGO when doing proxy authentication.
If --proxy-service-name is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-servic-name "shrubbery"-x proxy https://example.com
See also --service-name, --proxy and --proxy-negotiate.
- --proxy-ssl-allow-beast
-
Do not work around a security flaw in the TLS1.0 protocol known as BEAST when
communicating to an HTTPS proxy. If this option is not used, the TLS layer may
use workarounds known to cause interoperability problems with some older
server implementations.
This option only changes how curl does TLS 1.0 with an HTTPS proxy and has no
effect on later TLS versions.
WARNING: this option loosens the TLS security, and by using this flag you
ask for exactly that.
Equivalent to --ssl-allow-beast but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Providing --proxy-ssl-allow-beast multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-ss-allo-beast.
Example:
curl-prox-ss-allo-beast-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --ssl-allow-beast and --proxy.
- --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert
-
Same as --ssl-auto-client-cert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
This is only supported by Schannel.
Providing --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-prox-ss-aut-clien-cert.
Example:
curl-prox-ss-aut-clien-cert-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
Added in 7.77.0. See also --ssl-auto-client-cert and --proxy.
- --proxy-tls13-ciphers <list>
-
(TLS) Same as --tls13-ciphers but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Specify 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.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
This option is used when curl is built to use OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later,
Schannel, wolfSSL, or mbedTLS 3.6.0 or later.
Before curl 8.10.0 with mbedTLS or wolfSSL, TLS 1.3 cipher suites were set
by using the --proxy-ciphers option.
If --proxy-tls13-ciphers is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-tls1-ciphers TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256-x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-ciphers, --tls13-ciphers and --proxy.
- --proxy-tlsauthtype <type>
-
Set TLS authentication type with HTTPS proxy. The only supported option is
"SRP", for TLS-SRP (RFC 5054). This option works only if the underlying
libcurl is built with TLS-SRP support.
Equivalent to --tlsauthtype but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-tlsauthtype is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-tlsauthtype SRP-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy, --proxy-tlsuser and --proxy-tlspassword.
- --proxy-tlspassword <string>
-
Set password to use with the TLS authentication method specified with
--proxy-tlsauthtype when using HTTPS proxy. Requires that --proxy-tlsuser is
set.
This option does not work with TLS 1.3.
Equivalent to --tlspassword but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-tlspassword is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-tlspassword passwd-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy and --proxy-tlsuser.
- --proxy-tlsuser <name>
-
Set username for use for HTTPS proxy with the TLS authentication method
specified with --proxy-tlsauthtype. Requires that --proxy-tlspassword also is
set.
This option does not work with TLS 1.3.
If --proxy-tlsuser is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-tlsuser smith-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy and --proxy-tlspassword.
- --proxy-tlsv1
-
Use at least TLS version 1.x when negotiating with an HTTPS proxy. That means
TLS version 1.0 or higher
Equivalent to --tlsv1 but for an HTTPS proxy context.
Providing --proxy-tlsv1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-prox-tlsv1-x https://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --proxy.
- -U, --proxy-user <user:password>
-
Specify the username 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 username and password from
your environment by specifying a single colon with this option: "-U :".
On systems where it works, curl hides 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 still are visible for a moment
before being cleared. Such sensitive data should be retrieved from a file instead or
similar and never used in clear text in a command line.
If --proxy-user is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-prox-user smith:secret-x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-pass.
- --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 --proxy, is that
attempts to use CONNECT through the proxy specifies an HTTP 1.0 protocol
instead of the default HTTP 1.1.
Providing --proxy1.0 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-proxy1.0 http://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy, --socks5 and --preproxy.
- -p, --proxytunnel
-
When an HTTP proxy is used --proxy, this option makes curl tunnel the traffic
through the proxy. The tunnel approach is made with the HTTP proxy CONNECT
request and requires that the proxy allows direct connection 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.
Providing --proxytunnel multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-proxytunnel.
Example:
curl-proxytunnel-x http://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy.
- --pubkey <key>
-
(SFTP SCP) Public key filename. Allows you to provide your public key in this separate
file.
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.
If --pubkey is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-pubkey file.pub sftp://example.com/
See also --pass.
- -Q, --quote <command>
-
(FTP SFTP) Send an arbitrary command to the remote FTP or SFTP server. Quote commands are
sent BEFORE the transfer takes place (immediately 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 aq-aq.
(FTP only) To make commands be sent after curl has changed the working
directory, immediately before the file transfer command(s), prefix the command
with a aq+aq.
You may specify any number of commands.
By default curl stops at first failure. To make curl continue even if the
command fails, prefix the command with an asterisk (*). Otherwise, if the
server returns failure for one of the commands, the entire operation is
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.
SFTP is a binary protocol. Unlike for FTP, curl interprets SFTP quote commands
itself before sending them to the server. Filenames must be provided within
double quotes to embed spaces, backslashes, quotes or double quotes. Within
double quotes the following escape sequences are available for that purpose:
, ", and aq.
Following is the list of all supported SFTP quote commands:
-
- atime date file
-
The atime command sets the last access time of the file named by the file
operand. The date expression can be all sorts of date strings, see the
curl_getdate(3) man page for date expression details. (Added in 7.73.0)
- 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.
- mtime date file
-
The mtime command sets the last modification time of the file named by the
file operand. The date expression can be all sorts of date strings, see the
curl_getdate(3) man page for date expression details. (Added in 7.73.0)
- pwd
-
The pwd command returns the absolute path name 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.
-
--quote can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-quote "DELE file" ftp://example.com/foo
See also --request.
- --random-file <file>
-
Deprecated option. This option is ignored (added in 7.84.0). Prior to that it
only had an effect on curl if built to use old versions of OpenSSL.
Specify the path name to file containing random data. The data may be used to
seed the random engine for SSL connections.
If --random-file is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-rando-file rubbish https://example.com
See also --egd-file.
- -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.
-
- -499
-
specifies the first 500 bytes
- 50-999
-
specifies the second 500 bytes
- -500
-
specifies the last 500 bytes
- 950-
-
specifies the bytes from offset 9500 and forward
- -0-1
-
specifies the first and last byte only(*)(HTTP)
- 10-199,50-599
-
specifies two separate 100-byte ranges(*) (HTTP)
-
(*) = NOTE that if specifying multiple ranges and the server supports it then
it replies with a multiple part response that curl returns as-is. It
contains meta information in addition to the requested bytes. Parsing or
otherwise transforming this response is the responsibility of the caller.
Only digit characters (0-9) are valid in the aqstartaq and aqstopaq fields of the
aqstart-stopaq range syntax. If a non-digit character is given in the range, the
serveraqs response is unspecified, depending on the serveraqs configuration.
Many HTTP/1.1 servers do not have this feature enabled, so that when you
attempt to get a range, curl instead gets the whole document.
FTP and SFTP range downloads only support the simple aqstart-stopaq syntax
(optionally with one of the numbers omitted). FTP use depends on the extended
FTP command SIZE.
When using this option for HTTP uploads using POST or PUT, functionality is
not guaranteed. The HTTP protocol has no standard interoperable resume upload
and curl uses a set of headers for this purpose that once proved working for
some servers and have been left for those who find that useful.
This command line option is mutually exclusive with --continue-at: you can only
use one of them for a single transfer.
If --range is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-range 2-44 https://example.com
See also --continue-at and --append.
- --rate <max request rate>
-
Specify the maximum transfer frequency you allow curl to use - in number of
transfer starts per time unit (sometimes called request rate). Without this
option, curl starts the next transfer as fast as possible.
If given several URLs and a transfer completes faster than the allowed rate,
curl waits until the next transfer is started to maintain the requested
rate. This option has no effect when --parallel is used.
The request rate is provided as "N/U" where N is an integer number and U is a
time unit. Supported units are aqsaq (second), aqmaq (minute), aqhaq (hour) and aqdaq
/(day, as in a 24 hour unit). The default time unit, if no "/U" is provided,
is number of transfers per hour.
If curl is told to allow 10 requests per minute, it does not start the next
request until 6 seconds have elapsed since the previous transfer was started.
This function uses millisecond resolution. If the allowed frequency is set
more than 1000 per second, it instead runs unrestricted.
When retrying transfers, enabled with --retry, the separate retry delay logic
is used and not this setting.
Starting in version 8.10.0, you can specify the number of time units in the rate
expression. Make curl do no more than 5 transfers per 15 seconds with "5/15s"
or limit it to 3 transfers per 4 hours with "3/4h". No spaces allowed.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --rate is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-rate 2/s https://example.com ...
curl-rate 3/h https://example.com ...
curl-rate 14/m https://example.com ...
Added in 7.84.0. See also --limit-rate and --retry-delay.
- --raw
-
(HTTP) When used, it disables all internal HTTP decoding of content or transfer
encodings and instead makes them passed on unaltered, raw.
Providing --raw multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-raw.
Example:
curl-raw https://example.com
See also --tr-encoding.
- -e, --referer <URL>
-
(HTTP) Set the referrer URL in the HTTP request. This can also be set with the
--header flag of course. When used with --location you can append ";auto"" to
the --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
do not set an initial --referer.
If --referer is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-referer "https://fake.example" https://example.com
curl-referer "https://fake.example;auto"-L https://example.com
curl-referer ";auto"-L https://example.com
See also --user-agent and --header.
- -J, --remote-header-name
-
(HTTP) Tell the --remote-name option to use the server-specified Content-Disposition
filename instead of extracting a filename from the URL. If the server-provided
filename contains a path, that is stripped off before the filename is used.
The file is saved in the current directory, or in the directory specified with
--output-dir.
If the server specifies a filename and a file with that name already exists in
the destination directory, it is not overwritten and an error occurs - unless
you allow it by using the --clobber option. If the server does not specify a
filename then this option has no effect.
There is no attempt to decode %-sequences (yet) in the provided filename, so
this option may provide you with rather unexpected filenames.
This feature uses the name from the "filename" field, it does not yet support
the "filename*" field (filenames with explicit character sets).
Starting in 8.19.0, curl falls back and uses the filename extracted from the
last redirect header if no "Content-Disposition:" header provides a filename.
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 be
loaded automatically by Windows or some third party software.
Providing --remote-header-name multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-remot-heade-name.
Example:
curl-OJ https://example.com/file
See also --remote-name.
- -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 is 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 or use --output-dir.
The remote filename to use for saving is extracted from the given URL, nothing
else, and if it already exists it is overwritten. If you want the server to be
able to choose the filename refer to --remote-header-name which can be used in
addition to this option. If the server chooses a filename and that name
already exists it is not overwritten.
There is no URL decoding done on the filename. If it has %20 or other URL
encoded parts of the name, they end up as-is as filename.
You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have.
Before curl 8.10.0, curl returned an error if the URL ended with a slash,
which means that there is no filename part in the URL. Starting in 8.10.0,
curl sets the filename to the last directory part of the URL or if that also
is missing to "curl_response" (without extension) for this situation.
--remote-name is associated with a single URL. Use it once per URL when you use several URLs in a command line.
Examples:
curl-O https://example.com/filename
curl-O https://example.com/filename-O https://example.com/file2
See also --remote-name-all, --output-dir and --remote-header-name.
- --remote-name-all
-
Change the default action for all given URLs to be dealt with as if
--remote-name were used for each one. 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.
Providing --remote-name-all multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-remot-nam-all.
Example:
curl-remot-nam-all ftp://example.com/file1 ftp://example.com/file2
See also --remote-name.
- -R, --remote-time
-
Make curl attempt to figure out the timestamp of the remote file that is
getting downloaded, and if that is available make the local file get that same
timestamp.
Providing --remote-time multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-remot-time.
Example:
curl-remot-time-o foo https://example.com
See also --remote-name and --time-cond.
- --remove-on-error
-
Remove the output file if an error occurs. If curl returns an error when told to
save output in a local file. This prevents curl from leaving a partial file in
the case of an error during transfer.
If the output is not a regular file, this option has no effect.
The --continue-at option cannot be used together with --remove-on-error.
Providing --remove-on-error multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-remov-o-error.
Example:
curl-remov-o-error-o output https://example.com
Added in 7.83.0. See also --fail.
- -X, --request <method>
-
Change the method to use when starting the transfer.
curl passes on the verbatim string you give it in the request without any
filter or other safe guards. That includes white space and control characters.
-
- HTTP
-
Specifies a custom request method to use when communicating with the HTTP
server. The specified request method is 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,
while related technologies like WebDAV offers PROPFIND, COPY, MOVE and
more.
Normally you do not 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. For example if you want to make a proper HEAD
request, using -X HEAD does not suffice. You need to use the --head option.
If --location is used, the method string you set with --request is used for
all requests, which may cause unintended side-effects when curl does not
change request method according to the HTTP 30x response codes - and similar.
Consider using --follow instead in combination with --request.
- 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.
- IMAP
-
Specifies a custom IMAP command to use instead of LIST.
- SMTP
-
Specifies a custom SMTP command to use instead of HELP or VRFY.
-
If --request is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-request "DELETE" https://example.com
curl-X NLST ftp://example.com/
See also --request-target and --follow.
- --request-target <path>
-
(HTTP) 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 does not follow the regular URL pattern, like
"OPTIONS *".
curl passes on the verbatim string you give it in the request without any
filter or other safe guards. That includes white space and control characters.
If --request-target is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-reques-target "*"-X OPTIONS https://example.com
See also --request.
- --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 is used for. It means you
need several entries if you want to provide addresses 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 is used first.
The provided address set by this option is used even if --ipv4 or --ipv6 is
set to make curl use another IP version.
By prefixing the host with a aq+aq you can make the entry time out after curlaqs
default timeout (1 minute). Note that this only makes sense for long running
parallel transfers with a lot of files. In such cases, if this option is used
curl tries to resolve the host as it normally would once the timeout has
expired.
Provide IPv6 addresses within [brackets].
To redirect connects from a specific hostname or any hostname, independently
of port number, consider the --connect-to option.
Support for resolving with wildcard was added in 7.64.0.
Support for the aq+aq prefix was added in 7.75.0.
Support for specifying the host component as an IPv6 address was added in 8.13.0.
--resolve can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-resolve example.com:443:127.0.0.1 https://example.com
curl-resolve example.com:443:[2001:db8::252f:efd6] https://example.com
See also --connect-to and --alt-svc.
- --retry <num>
-
If a transient error is returned when curl tries to perform a transfer, it
retries 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, 429, 500, 502, 503, 504, 522
or 524 response code.
When curl is about to retry a transfer, it first waits one second and then for
all forthcoming retries it doubles the waiting time until it reaches 10
minutes, which then remains the set fixed delay time 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.
curl complies with the Retry-After: response header if one was present to know
when to issue the next retry (added in 7.66.0).
If --retry is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-retry 7 https://example.com
See also --retry-max-time, --retry-connrefused and --retry-delay.
- --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 (for example in your curlrc), there may be unintended consequences
such as sending or receiving duplicate data. Do not use with redirected input
or output. You might be better off handling your unique problems in a 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 you do not parse or record
output via redirect in combination with this option, since you may receive
duplicate data.
By default curl does not return an error for transfers with an HTTP response code
that indicates an HTTP error, if the transfer was successful. For example, if
a server replies 404 Not Found and the reply is fully received then that is
not an error. When --retry is used then curl retries on some HTTP response
codes that indicate transient HTTP errors, but that does not include most 4xx
response codes such as 404. If you want to retry on all response codes that
indicate HTTP errors (4xx and 5xx) then combine with --fail.
Providing --retry-all-errors multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-retr-al-errors.
Example:
curl-retry 5-retr-al-errors https://example.com
Added in 7.71.0. See also --retry.
- --retry-connrefused
-
In addition to the other conditions, also consider ECONNREFUSED as a transient
error for --retry. This option is used together with --retry. Normally, a
confused connection is not considered a transient error and therefore thus not
otherwise trigger a retry.
Providing --retry-connrefused multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-retr-connrefused.
Example:
curl-retr-connrefused-retry 7 https://example.com
See also --retry and --retry-all-errors.
- --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 makes curl use the default backoff time.
By default, curl uses an exponentially increasing timeout between retries.
Starting in curl 8.16.0, this option accepts a time as decimal number for parts
of seconds. The decimal value needs to be provided using a dot (.) as decimal
separator - not the local version even if it might be using another separator.
If --retry-delay is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-retr-delay 5-retry 7 https://example.com
See also --retry and --retry-max-time.
- --retry-max-time <seconds>
-
The retry timer is reset before the first transfer attempt. Retries are done
as usual (see --retry) as long as the timer has not reached this given limit.
Notice that if the timer has not reached the limit, the request is made and
while performing, it may take longer than this given time period. To limit a
single requestaqs maximum time, use --max-time. Set this option to zero to not
timeout retries.
Starting in curl 8.16.0, this option accepts a time as decimal number for parts
of seconds. The decimal value needs to be provided using a dot (.) as decimal
separator - not the local version even if it might be using another separator.
If --retry-max-time is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-retr-ma-time 30-retry 10 https://example.com
See also --retry and --retry-delay.
- --sasl-authzid <identity>
-
(LDAP IMAP POP3 SMTP) Use this authorization identity (authzid), during SASL PLAIN
authentication, in addition to the authentication identity (authcid) as
specified by --user.
If the option is not specified, the server derives the authzid from the
authcid, but if specified, and depending on the server implementation, it
may be used to access another useraqs inbox, that the user has been granted
access to, or a shared mailbox for example.
If --sasl-authzid is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-sas-authzid zid imap://example.com/
Added in 7.66.0. See also --login-options.
- --sasl-ir
-
(LDAP IMAP POP3 SMTP) Enable initial response in SASL authentication. Such an "initial response" is
a message sent by the client to the server after the client selects an
authentication mechanism.
Providing --sasl-ir multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-sas-ir.
Example:
curl-sas-ir imap://example.com/
See also --sasl-authzid.
- --service-name <name>
-
Set the service name for SPNEGO.
If --service-name is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-servic-name sockd/server https://example.com
See also --negotiate and --proxy-service-name.
- -S, --show-error
-
When used with --silent, it makes curl show an error message if it fails.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --show-error multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-sho-error.
Example:
curl-sho-error-silent https://example.com
See also --no-progress-meter.
- -i, --show-headers
-
(HTTP FTP) Show response headers in the output. HTTP response headers can include things
like server name, cookies, date of the document, HTTP version and more. With
non-HTTP protocols, the "headers" are other server communication.
This option makes the response headers get saved in the same stream/output as
the data. --dump-header exists to save headers in a separate stream.
To view the request headers, consider the --verbose option.
Prior to 7.75.0 curl did not print the headers if --fail was used in
combination with this option and there was an error reported by the server.
This option was called --include before 8.10.0. The previous name remains
functional.
Providing --show-headers multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-sho-headers.
Example:
curl-i https://example.com
See also --verbose and --dump-header.
- --sigalgs <list>
-
(TLS) Set specific signature algorithms to use during SSL session establishment according to RFC
5246, 7.4.1.4.1.
An algorithm can use either a signature algorithm and a hash algorithm pair separated by a
"+" (e.g. "ECDSA+SHA224"), or its TLS 1.3 signature scheme name (e.g. "ed25519").
Multiple algorithms can be provided by separating them with ":"
(e.g. "DSA+SHA256:rsa_pss_pss_sha256"). The parameter is available as "-sigalgs" in the
OpenSSL "s_client" and "s_server" utilities.
"--sigalgs" allows a OpenSSL powered curl to make SSL-connections with exactly
the signature algorithms requested by the client, avoiding nontransparent client/server
negotiations.
If this option is set, the default signature algorithm list built into OpenSSL are ignored.
If --sigalgs is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-sigalgs ecdsa_secp256r1_sha256 https://example.com
Added in 8.14.0. See also --ciphers.
- -s, --silent
-
Silent or quiet mode. Do not show progress meter, warning messages or error
messages. Makes curl mute. It still outputs the data you ask for, potentially
even to the terminal/stdout unless you redirect it.
Use --show-error in addition to this option to disable progress meter but
still show error messages.
Providing --silent multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-silent.
Example:
curl-s https://example.com
See also --verbose, --stderr and --no-progress-meter.
- --skip-existing
-
If there is a local file present when a download is requested, the operation
is skipped. Note that curl cannot know if the local file was previously
downloaded fine, or if it is incomplete etc, it knows if there is a filename
present in the file system or not and it skips the transfer if it is.
Providing --skip-existing multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ski-existing.
Example:
curl-ski-existing-output local/dir/file https://example.com
Added in 8.10.0. See also --output, --remote-name and --no-clobber.
- --socks4 <host[:port]>
-
Use the specified SOCKS4 proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is
assumed at port 1080. Using this socket type makes curl resolve the hostname
and pass the address on to the proxy.
To specify the proxy on a Unix domain socket, use localhost for host and
append the absolute path to the domain socket. For example:
"socks4://localhost/path/to/socket.sock" (the scheme may be omitted).
This option overrides any previous use of --proxy, as they are mutually
exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks4 proxy with --proxy
using a socks4:// protocol prefix.
--preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time 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 --socks4 is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-socks4 hostname:4096 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --proxy, --socks4a, --socks5 and --socks5-hostname.
See also --socks4a, --socks5 and --socks5-hostname.
- --socks4a <host[:port]>
-
Use the specified SOCKS4a proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is
assumed at port 1080. This asks the proxy to resolve the hostname.
To specify the proxy on a Unix domain socket, use localhost for host and
append the absolute path to the domain socket. For example:
"socks4a://localhost/path/to/socket.sock" (the scheme may be omitted).
This option overrides any previous use of --proxy, as they are mutually
exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks4a proxy with --proxy
using a socks4a:// protocol prefix.
--preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time --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 --socks4a is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-socks4a hostname:4096 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --proxy, --socks4, --socks5 and --socks5-hostname.
See also --socks4, --socks5 and --socks5-hostname.
- --socks5 <host[:port]>
-
Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy - but resolve the hostname locally. If the
port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080.
To specify the proxy on a Unix domain socket, use localhost for host and
append the absolute path to the domain socket. For example:
"socks5://localhost/path/to/socket.sock" (the scheme may be omitted).
This option overrides any previous use of --proxy, as they are mutually
exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 proxy with --proxy
using a socks5:// protocol prefix.
--preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time --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.
This option does not work with FTPS or LDAP.
If --socks5 is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-socks5 proxy.example:7000 https://example.com
curl-socks5 localhost/path/uni-domain https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --proxy, --socks4, --socks4a and --socks5-hostname.
See also --socks5-hostname and --socks4a.
- --socks5-basic
-
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.
Providing --socks5-basic multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-socks-basic-socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5.
- --socks5-gssapi
-
(GSS/kerberos) 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.
Providing --socks5-gssapi multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-socks-gssapi.
Example:
curl-socks-gssapi-socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5.
- --socks5-gssapi-nec
-
(GSS/kerberos) 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.
Providing --socks5-gssapi-nec multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-socks-gssap-nec.
Example:
curl-socks-gssap-nec-socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5.
- --socks5-gssapi-service <name>
-
Set the service name for a socks server. Default is rcmd/server-fqdn.
If --socks5-gssapi-service is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-socks-gssap-service sockd-socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5.
- --socks5-hostname <host[:port]>
-
Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy (and let the proxy resolve the hostname). If
the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080.
To specify the proxy on a Unix domain socket, use localhost for host and
append the absolute path to the domain socket. For example:
"socks5h://localhost/path/to/socket.sock" (the scheme may be omitted).
This option overrides any previous use of --proxy, as they are mutually
exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 hostname proxy with
--proxy using a socks5h:// protocol prefix.
--preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time --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 --socks5-hostname is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-socks-hostname proxy.example:7000 https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --proxy, --socks4, --socks4a and --socks5.
See also --socks5 and --socks4a.
- -Y, --speed-limit <speed>
-
If a transfer is slower than this set speed (in bytes per second) for a given
number of seconds, it gets aborted. The time period is set with --speed-time
and is 30 seconds by default.
If --speed-limit is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-spee-limit 300-spee-time 10 https://example.com
See also --speed-time, --limit-rate and --max-time.
- -y, --speed-time <seconds>
-
If a transfer runs slower than speed-limit bytes per second during a
speed-time period, the transfer is aborted. If speed-time is used, the default
speed-limit is 1 unless set with --speed-limit.
This option controls transfers (in both directions) but does not affect slow
connects etc. If this is a concern for you, try the --connect-timeout option.
If --speed-time is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-spee-limit 300-spee-time 10 https://example.com
See also --speed-limit and --limit-rate.
- --ssl
-
(FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP LDAP) Warning: this is considered an insecure option. Consider using --ssl-reqd
instead to be sure curl upgrades to a secure connection.
Try to use SSL/TLS for the connection - often referred to as STARTTLS or STLS
because of the involved commands. Reverts to a non-secure connection if the
server does not support SSL/TLS. See also --ftp-ssl-control and --ssl-reqd for
different levels of encryption required.
This option is handled in LDAP (added in 7.81.0). It is fully supported by the
OpenLDAP backend and ignored by the generic ldap backend.
Please note that a server may close the connection if the negotiation fails.
This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl. That option
name can still be used but might be removed in a future version.
Providing --ssl multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ssl.
Example:
curl-ssl pop3://example.com/
See also --ssl-reqd, --insecure and --ciphers.
- --ssl-allow-beast
-
(TLS) Do not work around a security flaw in the TLS1.0 protocol known as BEAST. If
this option is not used, the TLS layer may use workarounds known to cause
interoperability problems with some older server implementations.
This option only changes how curl does TLS 1.0 and has no effect on later TLS
versions.
WARNING: this option loosens the TLS security, and by using this flag you
ask for exactly that.
Providing --ssl-allow-beast multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ss-allo-beast.
Example:
curl-ss-allo-beast https://example.com
See also --proxy-ssl-allow-beast and --insecure.
- --ssl-auto-client-cert
-
(TLS) (Schannel) Automatically locate and use a client certificate for
authentication, when requested by the server. Since the server can request any
certificate that supports client authentication in the OS certificate store it
could be a privacy violation and unexpected.
Providing --ssl-auto-client-cert multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ss-aut-clien-cert.
Example:
curl-ss-aut-clien-cert https://example.com
Added in 7.77.0. See also --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert.
- --ssl-no-revoke
-
(TLS) (Schannel) Disable certificate revocation checks. WARNING: this option loosens
the SSL security, and by using this flag you ask for exactly that.
Providing --ssl-no-revoke multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ss-n-revoke.
Example:
curl-ss-n-revoke https://example.com
See also --crlfile.
- --ssl-reqd
-
(FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP LDAP) Require SSL/TLS for the connection - often referred to as STARTTLS or STLS
because of the involved commands. Terminates the connection if the transfer
cannot be upgraded to use SSL/TLS.
This option is handled in LDAP (added in 7.81.0). It is fully supported by the
OpenLDAP backend and rejected by the generic ldap backend if explicit TLS is
required.
This option is unnecessary if you use a URL scheme that in itself implies
immediate and implicit use of TLS, like for FTPS, IMAPS, POP3S, SMTPS and
LDAPS. Such a transfer always fails if the TLS handshake does not work.
This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl-reqd.
Providing --ssl-reqd multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ss-reqd.
Example:
curl-ss-reqd ftp://example.com
See also --ssl and --insecure.
- --ssl-revoke-best-effort
-
(TLS) (Schannel) Ignore certificate revocation checks when they failed due to
missing/offline distribution points for the revocation check lists.
Providing --ssl-revoke-best-effort multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-ss-revok-bes-effort.
Example:
curl-ss-revok-bes-effort https://example.com
Added in 7.70.0. See also --crlfile and --insecure.
- --ssl-sessions <filename>
-
(TLS) **WARNING**: this option is experimental. Do not use in production.
Use the given file to load SSL session tickets into curlaqs cache before
starting any transfers. At the end of a successful curl run, the cached
SSL sessions tickets are saved to the file, replacing any previous content.
The file does not have to exist, but curl reports an error if it is
unable to create it. Unused loaded tickets are saved again, unless they
get replaced or purged from the cache for space reasons.
Using a session file allows "--tls-earlydata" to send the first request
in "0-RTT" mode, should an SSL session with the feature be found. Note that
a server may not support early data. Also note that early data does
not provide forward secrecy, e.g. is not as secure.
The SSL session tickets are stored as base64 encoded text, each ticket on
its own line. The hostnames are cryptographically salted and hashed. While
this prevents someone from easily seeing the hosts you contacted, they could
still check if a specific hostname matches one of the values.
This feature requires that the underlying libcurl was built with the
experimental SSL session import/export feature (SSLS-EXPORT) enabled.
If --ssl-sessions is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-ss-sessions sessions.txt https://example.com
Added in 8.12.0. See also --tls-earlydata.
- -2, --sslv2
-
(SSL) This option previously asked curl to use SSLv2, but is now ignored
(added in 7.77.0). SSLv2 is widely considered insecure (see RFC 6176).
Providing --sslv2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-sslv2 https://example.com
For --sslv2 to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
This option is mutually exclusive with --sslv3, --tlsv1, --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2.
See also --http1.1 and --http2.
- -3, --sslv3
-
(SSL) This option previously asked curl to use SSLv3, but is now ignored
(added in 7.77.0). SSLv3 is widely considered insecure (see RFC 7568).
Providing --sslv3 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-sslv3 https://example.com
For --sslv3 to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
This option is mutually exclusive with --sslv2, --tlsv1, --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2.
See also --http1.1 and --http2.
- --stderr <file>
-
Redirect all writes to stderr to the specified file instead. If the filename
is a plain aq-aq, it is instead written to stdout.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --stderr is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-stderr output.txt https://example.com
See also --verbose and --silent.
- --styled-output
-
Enable automatic use of bold font styles when writing HTTP headers to the
terminal. Use --no-styled-output to switch them off.
Styled output requires a terminal that supports bold fonts. This feature is
not present on curl for Windows due to lack of this capability.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --styled-output multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-style-output.
Example:
curl-style-output-I https://example.com
See also --head and --verbose.
- --suppress-connect-headers
-
When --proxytunnel is used and a CONNECT request is made, do not output proxy
CONNECT response headers. This option is meant to be used with --dump-header
or --show-headers which are used to show protocol headers in the output. It
has no effect on debug options such as --verbose or --trace, or any
statistics.
Providing --suppress-connect-headers multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-suppres-connec-headers.
Example:
curl-suppres-connec-headers-sho-headers-x proxy https://example.com
See also --dump-header, --show-headers and --proxytunnel.
- --tcp-fastopen
-
Enable use of TCP Fast Open (RFC 7413). TCP Fast Open is a TCP extension that
allows data to be sent earlier over the connection (before the final
handshake ACK) if the client and server have been connected previously.
Providing --tcp-fastopen multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-tc-fastopen.
Example:
curl-tc-fastopen https://example.com
See also --false-start.
- --tcp-nodelay
-
Turn on the TCP_NODELAY option.
This option disables the Nagle algorithm on TCP connections. The purpose of
this algorithm is to minimize the number of small packets on the network
(where "small packets" means TCP segments less than the Maximum Segment Size
for the network).
Maximizing the amount of data sent per TCP segment is good because it
amortizes the overhead of the send. In some cases small segments may need to
be sent without delay. This is less efficient than sending larger amounts of
data at a time, and can contribute to congestion on the network if overdone.
curl sets this option by default and you need to explicitly switch it off if
you do not want it on.
Providing --tcp-nodelay multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-tc-nodelay.
Example:
curl-tc-nodelay https://example.com
See also --no-buffer.
- -t, --telnet-option <opt=val>
-
(TELNET) 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.
-
--telnet-option can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-t TTYPE=vt100 telnet://example.com/
See also --config.
- --tftp-blksize <value>
-
(TFTP) Set the TFTP BLKSIZE option (must be 512 or larger). This is the block
size that curl tries to use when transferring data to or from a TFTP
server. By default 512 bytes are used.
If --tftp-blksize is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-tft-blksize 1024 tftp://example.com/file
See also --tftp-no-options.
- --tftp-no-options
-
(TFTP) Do not send TFTP options requests. This improves interop with some legacy
servers that do not acknowledge or properly implement TFTP options. When this
option is used --tftp-blksize is ignored.
Providing --tftp-no-options multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-tft-n-options.
Example:
curl-tft-n-options tftp://192.168.0.1/
See also --tftp-blksize.
- -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 does not match any internal ones, it is treated
as a filename and curl tries to get the modification date (mtime) from that
file instead. See the curl_getdate(3) man page 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 provided a non-existing file, curl outputs a warning about that fact and
proceeds to do the transfer without a time condition.
If --time-cond is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-z "Wed 01 Sep 2021 12:18:00" https://example.com
curl-z "-Wed 01 Sep 2021 12:18:00" https://example.com
curl-z file https://example.com
See also --etag-compare and --remote-time.
- --tls-earlydata
-
(TLS) Enable the use of TLSv1.3 early data, also known as aq0RTTaq where possible.
This has security implications for the requests sent that way.
This option can be used when curl is built to use GnuTLS, wolfSSL, quictls and
OpenSSL as a TLS provider (but not BoringSSL, AWS-LC, or Rustls).
If a server supports this TLSv1.3 feature, and to what extent, is announced
as part of the TLS "session" sent back to curl. Until curl has seen such
a session in a previous request, early data cannot be used.
When a new connection is initiated with a known TLSv1.3 session, and that
session announced early data support, the first request on this connection is
sent before the TLS handshake is complete. While the early data is also
encrypted, it is not protected against replays. An attacker can send
your early data to the server again and the server would accept it.
If your request contacts a public server and only retrieves a file, there
may be no harm in that. If the first request orders a refrigerator
for you, it is probably not a good idea to use early data for it. curl
cannot deduce what the security implications of your requests actually
are and make this decision for you.
The amount of early data sent can be inspected by using the "--write-out"
variable "tls_earlydata".
WARNING: this option has security implications. See above for more
details.
Providing --tls-earlydata multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-tl-earlydata.
Example:
curl-tl-earlydata https://example.com
Added in 8.11.0. See also --tlsv1.3, --tls-max and --ssl-sessions.
- --tls-max <VERSION>
-
(TLS) Set the maximum allowed 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 the 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.
-
If --tls-max is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Examples:
curl-tl-max 1.2 https://example.com
curl-tl-max 1.3-tlsv1.2 https://example.com
For --tls-max to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
See also --tlsv1.0, --tlsv1.1, --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3.
- --tls13-ciphers <list>
-
(TLS) Set 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.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
This option is used when curl is built to use OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later,
wolfSSL, or mbedTLS 3.6.0 or later.
Before curl 8.10.0 with mbedTLS or wolfSSL, TLS 1.3 cipher suites were set
by using the --ciphers option.
If --tls13-ciphers is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-tls1-ciphers TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 https://example.com
See also --ciphers, --proxy-tls13-ciphers and --curves.
- --tlsauthtype <type>
-
(TLS) 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.
If --tlsauthtype is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-tlsauthtype SRP https://example.com
See also --tlsuser.
- --tlspassword <string>
-
(TLS) Set password to use with the TLS authentication method specified with
--tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlsuser is set.
This option does not work with TLS 1.3.
If --tlspassword is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-tlspassword pwd-tlsuser user https://example.com
See also --tlsuser.
- --tlsuser <name>
-
(TLS) Set username for use with the TLS authentication method specified with
--tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlspassword also is set.
This option does not work with TLS 1.3.
If --tlsuser is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-tlspassword pwd-tlsuser user https://example.com
See also --tlspassword.
- -1, --tlsv1
-
(TLS) Use at least TLS version 1.x when negotiating with a remote TLS server. That
means TLS version 1.0 or higher
Providing --tlsv1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-tlsv1 https://example.com
For --tlsv1 to work, it requires that the underlying libcurl is built to support TLS.
This option is mutually exclusive with --tlsv1.1, --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3.
See also --http1.1 and --http2.
- --tlsv1.0
-
(TLS) Force 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.
That behavior was inconsistent depending on the TLS library. Use --tls-max if
you want to set a maximum TLS version.
Providing --tlsv1.0 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-tlsv1.0 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3.
- --tlsv1.1
-
(TLS) Force 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.
That behavior was inconsistent depending on the TLS library. Use --tls-max if
you want to set a maximum TLS version.
Providing --tlsv1.1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-tlsv1.1 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3 and --tls-max.
- --tlsv1.2
-
(TLS) Force 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.
That behavior was inconsistent depending on the TLS library. Use --tls-max if
you want to set a maximum TLS version.
Providing --tlsv1.2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-tlsv1.2 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3 and --tls-max.
- --tlsv1.3
-
(TLS) Force 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.
Providing --tlsv1.3 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl-tlsv1.3 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.2 and --tls-max.
- --tr-encoding
-
(HTTP) Request a compressed Transfer-Encoding response using one of the algorithms
curl supports, and uncompress the data while receiving it.
This method was once intended to be the way to do automatic data compression
for HTTP but for all practical purposes using Content-Encoding as done with
--compressed has superseded transfer encoding. The --tr-encoding option is
therefore often not be one you want.
Providing --tr-encoding multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-t-encoding.
Example:
curl-t-encoding https://example.com
See also --compressed.
- --trace <file>
-
Save a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including
descriptive information, in the given output file. Use "-" as filename to have
the output sent to stdout. Use "%" as filename to have the output sent to
stderr.
Note that verbose output of curl activities and network traffic might contain
sensitive data, including usernames, credentials or secret data content. Be
aware and be careful when sharing trace logs with others.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --trace is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-trace log.txt https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --verbose and --trace-ascii.
See also --trace-ascii, --trace-config, --trace-ids and --trace-time.
- --trace-ascii <file>
-
Save a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including
descriptive information, in the given output file. Use "-" as filename to have
the output sent to stdout. Use "%" as filename to send the output to stderr.
This is 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.
Note that verbose output of curl activities and network traffic might contain
sensitive data, including usernames, credentials or secret data content. Be
aware and be careful when sharing trace logs with others.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
If --trace-ascii is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-trac-ascii log.txt https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --trace and --verbose.
See also --verbose and --trace.
- --trace-config <string>
-
Set configuration for trace output. A comma-separated list of components where
detailed output can be made available from. Names are case-insensitive.
Specify aqallaq to enable all trace components.
In addition to trace component names, specify "ids" and "time" to avoid extra
--trace-ids or --trace-time parameters.
See the curl_global_trace(3) man page for more details.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
--trace-config can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-trac-config ids,http/2 https://example.com
Added in 8.3.0. See also --verbose and --trace.
- --trace-ids
-
Prepend the transfer and connection identifiers to each trace or verbose line
that curl displays.
The identifiers are unique numbers assigned to each connection and transfer to
allow a user to better understand which transfer and connection each verbose
output line refers to.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --trace-ids multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-trac-ids.
Example:
curl-trac-ids-trac-ascii output https://example.com
Added in 8.2.0. See also --trace and --verbose.
- --trace-time
-
Prepend a time stamp to each trace or verbose line that curl displays.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --trace-time multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-trac-time.
Example:
curl-trac-time-trac-ascii output https://example.com
See also --trace and --verbose.
- --unix-socket <path>
-
(HTTP) Connect to the server through this Unix domain socket, instead of using the
network.
To connect to a proxy over Unix domain socket, see --proxy.
If --unix-socket is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-uni-socket socke-path https://example.com
See also --abstract-unix-socket.
- -T, --upload-file <file>
-
Upload the specified local file to the remote URL.
If there is no file part in the specified URL, curl appends the local file
name to the end of the URL before the operation starts. You must use a
trailing slash (/) on the last directory to prove to curl that there is no
filename or curl thinks that your last directory name is the remote filename
to use.
When putting the local filename at the end of the URL, curl ignores what is on
the left side of any slash (/) or backslash () used in the filename and only
appends what is on the right side of the rightmost such character.
Use the filename "-" (a single dash) to use stdin instead of a given file.
Alternately, the filename "." (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.
If this option is used with an HTTP(S) URL, the PUT method is used.
You can specify one --upload-file for each URL on the command line. Each
--upload-file + URL pair specifies what to upload and to where. curl also
supports globbing of the --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.
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 does not transcode nor encode it
further in any way.
--upload-file is associated with a single URL. Use it once per URL when you use several URLs in a command line.
Examples:
curl-T file https://example.com
curl-T "img[-1000].png" ftp://ftp.example.com/
curl-uploa-file "{file1,file2}" https://example.com
curl-T file-T file2 https://example.com https://example.com
See also --get, --head, --request and --data.
- --upload-flags <flags>
-
(IMAP) Specify additional behavior to apply to uploaded files. Flags are
specified as either a single flag value or a comma-separated list
of flag values. These values are case-sensitive and may be negated
by prepending them with a aq-aq character. Currently the following
flag values are accepted: answered, deleted, draft, flagged, and
seen. The currently accepted flag values are used to set flags on
IMAP uploads.
If --upload-flags is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-uploa-flags Flagged,!Seen-uploa-file local/dir/file https://example.com
Added in 8.13.0. See also --upload-file.
- --url <url/file>
-
Specify a URL to fetch or send data to.
If the given URL is missing a scheme (such as "http://" or "ftp://" etc) curl
guesses which scheme to use based on the hostname. If the outermost subdomain
name matches DICT, FTP, IMAP, LDAP, POP3 or SMTP case insensitively, then that
protocol is used, otherwise it assumes HTTP. Scheme guessing can be avoided by
providing a full URL including the scheme, or disabled by setting a default
protocol, see --proto-default for details.
To control where the contents of a retrieved URL is written instead of the
default stdout, use the --output or the --remote-name options. When retrieving
multiple URLs in a single invoke, each provided URL needs its own dedicated
destination option unless --remote-name-all is used.
On Windows, "file://" accesses can be converted to network accesses by the
operating system.
Starting in curl 8.13.0, curl can be told to download URLs provided in a text
file, one URL per line. It is done with "--url @filename": so instead of a
URL, you specify a filename prefixed with the "@" symbol. It can be told to
load the list of URLs from stdin by providing an argument like "@-".
When downloading URLs given in a file, it implies using --remote-name for each
provided URL. The URLs are full, there is no globbing applied or done on
these. Features such as --skip-existing work fine in combination with this.
Lines in the URL file that start with "#" are treated as comments and are
skipped.
--url can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-url https://example.com
curl-url @file
See also --next, --config, --path-as-is and --disallow-username-in-url.
- --url-query <data>
-
Add a piece of data, usually a name + value pair, to the end of the URL query
part. The syntax is identical to that used for --data-urlencode with one
extension:
If the argument starts with a aq+aq (plus), the rest of the string is provided
as-is unencoded.
The query part of a URL is the one following the question mark on the right
end.
--url-query can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl-ur-query name=val https://example.com
curl-ur-query =encodethis http://example.net/foo
curl-ur-query name@file https://example.com
curl-ur-query @fileonly https://example.com
curl-ur-query "+name=%20foo" https://example.com
Added in 7.87.0. See also --data-urlencode and --get.
- -B, --use-ascii
-
(FTP LDAP TFTP) Enable ASCII transfer mode. For FTP, this can also be enforced by using a URL
that ends with ";type=A". For TFTP, this can also be enforced by using a URL
that ends with ";mode=netascii". This option causes data sent to stdout to be
in text mode for Win32 systems.
Providing --use-ascii multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-us-ascii.
Example:
curl-B ftp://example.com/README
See also --crlf and --data-ascii.
- -u, --user <user:password>
-
Specify the username and password to use for server authentication. Overrides
--netrc and --netrc-optional.
If you specify only the username, curl prompts for a password.
The username and passwords are split up on the first colon, which makes it
impossible to use a colon in the username with this option. The password can,
still.
On systems where it works, curl hides 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 still are visible for a moment
before being 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 username, in order for the server to successfully
obtain a Kerberos Ticket. If you do not, then the initial authentication
handshake may fail.
When using NTLM, the username can be specified 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, EXAMPLEuser 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
username and password from your environment by specifying a single colon with
this option: "-u :".
If --user is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-u user:secret https://example.com
See also --netrc and --config.
- -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 --header or the --proxy-header options.
If you give an empty argument to --user-agent (""), it removes the header
completely from the request. If you prefer a blank header, you can set it to a
single space (" ").
By default, curl uses curl/VERSION, such as User-Agent: curl/8.19.0.
If --user-agent is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-A "Agent 007" https://example.com
See also --header and --proxy-header.
- --variable <[%]name=text/@file>
-
Set a variable with "name=content" or "name@file" (where "file" can be stdin
if set to a single dash ("-")). The name is a case sensitive identifier that
must consist of no other letters than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 or underscore. The
specified content is then associated with this identifier.
Setting the same variable name again overwrites the old contents with the new.
The contents of a variable can be referenced in a later command line option
when that option name is prefixed with "--expand-", and the name is used as
"{{name}}".
--variable can import environment variables into the name space. Opt to either
require the environment variable to be set or provide a default value for the
variable in case it is not already set.
--variable %name imports the variable called "name" but exits with an error if
that environment variable is not already set. To provide a default value if
the environment variable is not set, use --variable %name=content or
--variable %name@content. Note that on some systems - but not all -
environment variables are case insensitive.
Added in curl 8.12.0: you can get a byte range from the source by appending
"[start-end]" to the variable name, where start and end are byte offsets
to include from the contents. For example, asking for offset "2-10" means
offset two to offset ten, inclusive, resulting in 9 bytes in total. "2-2"
means a single byte at offset 2. Not providing a second number implies to the
end of data. The start offset cannot be larger than the end offset. Asking for
a range that is outside of the file size makes the variable contents empty.
For example, getting the first one hundred bytes from a given file:
curl --variable "fraction[0-99]@filename"
Given a byte range that has no data results in an empty string. Asking for a
range that is larger than the content makes curl use the piece of the data
that exists.
To assign a variable using contents from another variable, use
--expand-variable. Like for example assigning a new variable using contents
from two other:
curl --expand-variable "user={{firstname}} {{lastname}}"
When expanding variables, curl supports a set of functions that can make the
variable contents more convenient to use. You apply a function to a variable
expansion by adding a colon and then list the desired functions in a
comma-separated list that is evaluated in a left-to-right order. Variable
content holding null bytes that are not encoded when expanded causes an
error.
Available functions:
-
- trim
-
removes all leading and trailing white space.
Example:
curl --expand-url https://example.com/{{var:trim}}
- json
-
outputs the content using JSON string quoting rules.
Example:
curl --expand-data {{data:json}} https://example.com
- url
-
shows the content URL (percent) encoded.
Example:
curl --expand-url https://example.com/{{path:url}}
- b64
-
expands the variable base64 encoded
Example:
curl --expand-url https://example.com/{{var:b64}}
- 64dec
-
decodes a base64 encoded character sequence. If the sequence is not possible
to decode, it instead outputs "[64dec-fail]"
Example:
curl --expand-url https://example.com/{{var:64dec}}
(Added in 8.13.0)
-
--variable can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl-variable name=smith-expan-url "https://example.com/{{name}}"
Added in 8.3.0. See also --config.
- -v, --verbose
-
Make curl output verbose information during the operation. Useful for
debugging and seeing whataqs going on under the hood. Verbose output lines are
prefixed with letters:
-
- >
-
header sent by curl
- <
-
header received by curl
- }
-
data sent by curl
- {
-
data received by curl
- *
-
additional info provided by curl. Text that adds explanations what goes on and
about choices curl does.
-
If you only want HTTP headers in the output, --show-headers or --dump-header
might be more suitable options.
Since curl 8.10, mentioning this option several times in the same argument
increases the level of the trace output. As before, a single --verbose or
--no-verbose reverts any additions by previous "-vv" again. This means that
"-vv -v" is equivalent to a single -v. This avoids unwanted verbosity when the
option is mentioned in the command line and curl config files.
Using it twice, e.g. "-vv", outputs time (--trace-time) and transfer ids
(--trace-ids), as well as enabling tracing for all protocols (--trace-config
protocol).
Adding a third verbose outputs transfer content (--trace-ascii %) and enables
tracing of more components (--trace-config read,write,ssl).
A fourth time adds tracing of all network components. (--trace-config network).
Any addition of the verbose option after that has no effect.
If you think this option does not give you the right details, consider using
--trace or --trace-ascii instead. Or use it only once and use --trace-config
to trace the specific components you wish to see.
Note that verbose output of curl activities and network traffic might contain
sensitive data, including usernames, credentials or secret data content. Be
aware and be careful when sharing trace logs with others.
When the output contains protocol headers, those lines might include carriage
return (ASCII code 13) characters, even on platforms that otherwise normally
only use linefeed to signify line separations - as curl shows the exact
contents arriving from the server.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of --next.
Providing --verbose multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-verbose.
Example:
curl-verbose https://example.com
This option is mutually exclusive with --trace and --trace-ascii.
See also --show-headers, --silent, --trace and --trace-ascii.
- -V, --version
-
Display 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.
This line may contain one or more TLS libraries. curl can be built to support
more than one TLS library which then makes curl - at start-up - select which
particular backend to use for this invocation.
If curl supports more than one TLS library like this, the ones that are not
selected by default are listed within parentheses. Thus, if you do not specify
which backend to use (with the "CURL_SSL_BACKEND" environment variable) the
one listed without parentheses is used. Such builds also have "MultiSSL" set as
a feature.
The second line (starts with "Release-Date:") shows the release date.
The third line (starts with "Protocols:") shows all protocols that libcurl
reports to support.
The fourth line (starts with "Features:") shows specific features libcurl
reports to offer. Available features include:
-
- al-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.
- ECH
-
ECH support is present.
- gsasl
-
The built-in SASL authentication includes extensions to support SCRAM because
libcurl was built with libgsasl.
- GS-API
-
GSS-API is supported.
- HSTS
-
HSTS support is present.
- HTTP2
-
HTTP/2 support has been built-in.
- HTTP3
-
HTTP/3 support has been built-in.
- HTTP-proxy
-
This curl is built to support HTTPS proxy.
- IDN
-
This curl supports IDN - international domain names.
- IPv6
-
You can use IPv6 with this.
- Kerberos
-
Kerberos V5 authentication is supported.
- Largefile
-
This curl supports transfers of large files, files larger than 2GB.
- libz
-
Automatic decompression (via gzip, deflate) of compressed files over HTTP is
supported.
- MultiSSL
-
This curl supports multiple TLS backends.
- NTLM
-
NTLM authentication is supported.
- NTLM_WB
-
NTLM delegation to winbind helper is supported.
This feature was removed from curl in 8.8.0.
- 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.
- SSL-EXPORT
-
This build supports TLS session export/import, like with the --ssl-sessions.
- SSPI
-
SSPI is supported.
- TL-SRP
-
SRP (Secure Remote Password) authentication is supported for TLS.
- Unicode
-
Unicode support on Windows.
- UnixSockets
-
Unix sockets support is provided.
- zstd
-
Automatic decompression (via zstd) of compressed files over HTTP is supported.
-
Example:
curl-version
See also --help and --manual.
- --vlan-priority <priority>
-
Set VLAN priority as defined in IEEE 802.1Q.
This field is set on Ethernet level, and only works within a local network.
The valid range for <priority> is 0 to 7.
If --vlan-priority is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-vla-priority 4 https://example.com
Added in 8.9.0. See also --ip-tos.
- -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 are 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 write them as %%. You can output
a newline by using n, a carriage return with r and a tab space with t.
The output is by default written to standard output, but can be changed with
%{stderr} and %output{}.
Output HTTP header values from the transferaqs most recent server response by
using %header{name} where name is the case insensitive name of the header
(without the trailing colon). The header contents are exactly as delivered over
the network but with leading and trailing whitespace and newlines stripped off
(added in 7.84.0).
Select a specific target destination file to write the output to, by using
%output{name} (added in curl 8.3.0) where name is the full filename. The
output following that instruction is then written to that file. More than one
%output{} instruction can be specified in the same write-out argument. If
the filename cannot be created, curl leaves the output destination to the one
used prior to the %output{} instruction. Use %output{>>name} to append
data to an existing file.
This output is done independently of if the file transfer was successful or
not.
If the specified action or output specified with this option fails in any way,
it does not make curl return a (different) error.
NOTE: On Windows, the %-symbol is a special symbol used to expand
environment variables. In batch files, all occurrences of % must be doubled
when using this option to properly escape. If this option is used at the
command prompt then the % cannot be escaped and unintended expansion is
possible.
The variables available are:
-
- certs
-
Output the certificate chain with details. Supported only by the OpenSSL,
GnuTLS, Schannel and Rustls backends. (Added in 7.88.0)
- conn_id
-
The connection identifier last used by the transfer. The connection id is
unique number among all connections using the same connection cache.
(Added in 8.2.0)
- content_type
-
The Content-Type of the requested document, if there was any.
- errormsg
-
The error message. (Added in 7.75.0)
- exitcode
-
The numerical exit code of the transfer. (Added in 7.75.0)
- 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 --remote-name or --output option. It is
most useful in combination with the --remote-header-name option.
- ftp_entry_path
-
The initial path curl ended up in when logging on to the remote FTP
server.
- header{name}
-
The value of header "name" from the transferaqs most recent server response.
Unlike other variables, the variable name "header" is not in braces. For
example "%header{date}". Refer to --write-out remarks. (Added in 7.84.0)
Starting with 8.17.0, output the contents of all header fields using a
specific name - even for a whole redirect "chain" by appending
":all:[separator]" to the header name. The "[separator]" string (if not blank)
is output between the headers if there are more than one. When more than one
header is shown, they are output in the chronological order of appearance over
the wire. To include a close brace ("}") in the separator, escape it with a
backslash: "}".
- header_json
-
A JSON object with all HTTP response headers from the recent transfer. Values
are provided as arrays, since in the case of multiple headers there can be
multiple values. (Added in 7.83.0)
The header names provided in lowercase, listed in order of appearance over the
wire. Except for duplicated headers. They are grouped on the first occurrence
of that header, each value is presented in the JSON array.
- http_code
-
The numerical response code that was found in the last retrieved HTTP(S) or
FTP(s) transfer.
- http_connect
-
The numerical code that was found in the last response (from a proxy) to a
curl CONNECT request.
- http_version
-
The http version that was effectively used.
- json
-
A JSON object with all available keys except "header_json". (Added in 7.70.0)
- local_ip
-
The IP address of the local end of the most recently done connection - can be
either IPv4 or IPv6.
- local_port
-
The local port number of the most recently done connection.
- method
-
The http method used in the most recent HTTP request. (Added in 7.72.0)
- num_certs
-
Number of server certificates received in the TLS handshake. Supported only by
the OpenSSL, GnuTLS, Schannel and Rustls backends. (Added in 7.88.0)
- num_connects
-
Number of new connects made in the recent transfer.
- num_headers
-
The number of response headers in the most recent request (restarted at each
redirect). Note that the status line IS NOT a header. (Added in 7.73.0)
- num_redirects
-
Number of redirects that were followed in the request.
- num_retries
-
Number of retries actually performed when "--retry" has been used.
(Added in 8.9.0)
- onerror
-
The rest of the output is only shown if the transfer returned a non-zero error.
(Added in 7.75.0)
- output{filename}
-
From this point on, the --write-out output is written to the filename specified
in braces. The filename can be prefixed with ">>" to append to the file. Unlike
other variables, the variable name "output" is not in braces. For example
"%output{>>stats.txt}". Refer to --write-out remarks. (Added in 8.3.0)
- proxy_ssl_verify_result
-
The result of the HTTPS proxyaqs SSL peer certificate verification that was
requested. 0 means the verification was successful.
- proxy_used
-
Returns 1 if the previous transfer used a proxy, otherwise 0. Useful to for
example determine if a "NOPROXY" pattern matched the hostname or not. (Added
in 8.7.0)
- redirect_url
-
When an HTTP request was made without --location to follow redirects (or when
--max-redirs is met), this variable shows the actual URL a redirect
would have gone to.
- referer
-
The Referer: header, if there was any. (Added in 7.76.0)
- remote_ip
-
The remote IP address of the most recently done connection - can be either
IPv4 or IPv6.
- remote_port
-
The remote port number of the most recently done connection.
- response_code
-
The numerical response code that was found in the last transfer (formerly
known as "http_code").
- scheme
-
The URL scheme (sometimes called protocol) that was effectively used.
- size_download
-
The total amount of bytes that were downloaded. This is the size of the
body/data that was transferred, excluding headers.
- 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. This is the size of the
body/data that was transferred, excluding headers.
- 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.
- stderr
-
From this point on, the --write-out output is written to standard
error.
- stdout
-
From this point on, the --write-out output is written to standard output.
This is the default, but can be used to switch back after switching to stderr.
- time{format}
-
Output the current UTC time using "strftime()" format. See TIME OUTPUT FORMAT
below for details. (Added in 8.16.0)
- time_appconnect
-
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the SSL/SSH/etc
connect/handshake to the remote host was completed.
- 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_posttransfer
-
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the last byte is sent
by libcurl. (Added in 8.10.0)
- time_pretransfer
-
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until immediately before the file
transfer was about to begin. This includes all pre-transfer commands and
negotiations that are specific to the particular protocol(s) involved.
- time_queue
-
The time, in seconds, the transfer was queued during its run. This adds
the queue time for each redirect step that may have happened. Transfers
may be queued for significant amounts of time when connection or parallel
limits are in place. (Added in 8.12.0)
- 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.
- time_starttransfer
-
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the first byte was received.
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.
- tls_earlydata
-
The amount of bytes that were sent as TLSv1.3 early data. This is 0
if this TLS feature was not used and negative if the data sent had
been rejected by the server. The use of early data is enabled via
the command line option "--tls-earlydata". (Added in 8.12.0)
- url
-
The URL that was fetched. (Added in 7.75.0)
- url.scheme
-
The scheme part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.user
-
The user part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.password
-
The password part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.options
-
The options part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.host
-
The host part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.port
-
The port number of the URL that was fetched. If no port number was specified
and the URL scheme is known, that schemeaqs default port number is
shown. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.path
-
The path part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.query
-
The query part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.fragment
-
The fragment part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- url.zoneid
-
The zone id part of the URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.scheme
-
The scheme part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.user
-
The user part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.password
-
The password part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.options
-
The options part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.host
-
The host part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.port
-
The port number of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. If no port
number was specified, but the URL scheme is known, that schemeaqs default port
number is shown. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.path
-
The path part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.query
-
The query part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.fragment
-
The fragment part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urle.zoneid
-
The zone id part of the effective (last) URL that was fetched. (Added in 8.1.0)
- urlnum
-
The URL index number of this transfer, 0-indexed. Unglobbed URLs share the
same index number as the origin globbed URL. (Added in 7.75.0)
- url_effective
-
The URL that was fetched last. This is most meaningful if you have told curl
to follow location: headers.
- xfer_id
-
The numerical identifier of the last transfer done. -1 if no transfer has been
started yet for the handle. The transfer id is unique among all transfers
performed using the same connection cache.
(Added in 8.2.0)
-
TIME OUTPUT FORMAT
To show time with "%time{}" the characters within "{}" creates a special
format string that may contain special character sequences called conversion
specifications. Each conversion specification starts with "%" and is followed
by a character that instructs curl to output a particular time detail. All
other characters used are displayed as-is and-
The following conversion specification are available:
-
- %a
-
The abbreviated name of the day of the week according to the current locale.
- %A
-
The full name of the day of the week according to the current locale.
- %b
-
The abbreviated month name according to the current locale.
- %B
-
The full month name according to the current locale.
- %c
-
The preferred date and time representation for the current locale. (In the
POSIX locale this is equivalent to "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y".)
- %C
-
The century number (year/100) as a 2-digit integer.
- %d
-
The day of the month as a decimal number (range 01 to 31).
- %D
-
Equivalent to "%m/%d/%y". In international contexts, this format is ambiguous
and should be avoided.)
- %e
-
Like "%d", the day of the month as a decimal number, but a leading zero is
replaced by a space.
- %f
-
The number of microseconds elapsed of the current second. (This a curl special
code and not a standard one.)
- %F
-
Equivalent to "%Y-%m-%d" (the ISO 8601 date format).
- %G
-
The ISO 8601 week-based year with century as a decimal number. The 4-digit
year corresponding to the ISO week number (see "%V"). This has the same format
and value as "%Y", except that if the ISO week number belongs to the previous
or next year, that year is used instead.
- %g
-
Like "%G", but without century, that is, with a 2-digit year (00-99).
- %h
-
Equivalent to "%b".
- %H
-
The hour as a decimal number using a 24-hour clock (range 00 to 23).
- %I
-
The hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock (range 01 to 12).
- %j
-
The day of the year as a decimal number (range 001 to 366).
- %k
-
The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 0 to 23); single digits
are preceded by a blank.
- %l
-
The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 1 to 12); single digits
are preceded by a blank.
- %m
-
The month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).
- %M
-
The minute as a decimal number (range 00 to 59).
- %p
-
Either "AM" or "PM" according to the given time value, or the corresponding
strings for the current locale. Noon is treated as "PM" and midnight as "AM".
- %P
-
Like "%p" but in lowercase: "am" or "pm" or a corresponding string for the
current locale.
- %r
-
The time in am or pm notation.
- %R
-
The time in 24-hour notation ("%H:%M"). For a version including the seconds,
see "%T" below.
- %s
-
The number of seconds since the Epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC).
- %S
-
The second as a decimal number (range 00 to 60). (The range is up to 60 to
allow for occasional leap seconds.) See "%f" for microseconds.
- %T
-
The time in 24-hour notation ("%H:%M:%S").
- %u
-
The day of the week as a decimal, range 1 to 7, Monday being 1.
- %U
-
The week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53,
starting with the first Sunday as the first day of week 01. See also "%V" and
"%W".
- %V
-
The ISO 8601 week number (see NOTES) of the current year as a decimal number,
range 01 to 53, where week 1 is the first week that has at least 4 days in the
new year. See also "%U" and "%W".
- %w
-
The day of the week as a decimal, range 0 to 6, Sunday being 0. See also "%u".
- %W
-
The week number of the current year as a decimal number, range 00 to 53,
starting with the first Monday as the first day of week 01.
- %x
-
The preferred date representation for the current locale without the time.
- %X
-
The preferred time representation for the current locale without the date.
- %y
-
The year as a decimal number without a century (range 00 to 99).
- %Y
-
The year as a decimal number including the century.
- %z
-
The "+hhmm" or "-hhmm" numeric timezone (that is, the hour and minute offset
from UTC). As time is always UTC, this outputs "+0000".
- %Z
-
The timezone name. For some reason "GMT".
- %%
-
A literal "%" character.
-
If --write-out is provided several times, the last set value is used.
Example:
curl-w '%{response_code}n' https://example.com
See also --verbose and --head.
- --xattr
-
Store metadata in the extended file attributes.
When saving output to a file, tell curl to store file metadata in extended
file attributes. Currently, "curl" is stored in the "creator" attribute,
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.
Providing --xattr multiple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --n-xattr.
Example:
curl-xattr-o storage https://example.com
See also --remote-time, --write-out and --verbose.
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 --proxy option.
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 does not
match a supported one, the proxy is treated as an HTTP proxy.
There are a bunch of different error codes and their corresponding error
messages that may appear under error conditions. At the time of this writing,
the exit codes are:
If you experience any problems with curl, submit an issue in the projectaqs bug
tracker on GitHub:
Daniel Stenberg is the main author, but the whole list of contributors is
found in the separate THANKS file.