SYNOPSIS

lynx [options] [path or URL]

lynx [options] [path or URL] -get_data
data
--

lynx [options] [path or URL] -post_data
data
--

Use "lynx -help" to display a complete list of current options.

DESCRIPTION

Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for users running cursor-addressable, character-cell display devices (e.g., vt100 terminals, vt100 emulators running on Windows 95/NT or Macintoshes, or any other "curses-oriented" display). It will display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents containing links to files residing on the local system, as well as files residing on remote systems running Gopher, HTTP, FTP, WAIS, and NNTP servers. Current versions of Lynx run on Unix, VMS, Windows 95/NT, 386DOS and OS/2 EMX.

Lynx can be used to access information on the World Wide Web, or to build information systems intended primarily for local access. For example, Lynx has been used to build several Campus Wide Information Systems (CWIS). In addition, Lynx can be used to build systems isolated within a single LAN.

OPTIONS

At start up, Lynx will load any local file or remote URL specified at the command line. For help with URLs, press "?" or "H" while running Lynx. Then follow the link titled, "Help on URLs."

If more than one local file or remote URL is listed on the command line, Lynx will open only the last interactively. All of the names (local files and remote URLs) are added to the G)oto history.

Lynx uses only long option names. Option names can begin with double dash as well, underscores and dashes can be intermixed in option names (in the reference below options are with one dash before them and with underscores).

Lynx provides many command-line options. Some options require a value (string, number or keyword). These are noted in the reference below. The other options set boolean values in the program. There are three types of boolean options: set, unset and toggle. If no option value is given, these have the obvious meaning: set (to true), unset (to false), or toggle (between true/false). For any of these, an explicit value can be given in different forms to allow for operating system constraints, e.g.,

-center:off
-center=off
-center-

Lynx recognizes "1", "+", "on" and "true" for true values, and "0", "-", "off" and "false" for false values. Other option-values are ignored.

The default boolean, number and string option values that are compiled into Lynx are displayed in the help-message provided by lynx -help. Some of those may differ according to how Lynx was built; see the help message itself for these values. The -help option is processed in the third pass of options-processing, so any option which sets a value, as well as runtime configuration values are reflected in the help-message.

-

If the argument is only '-', then Lynx expects to receive the arguments from the standard input. This is to allow for the potentially very long command line that can be associated with the -get_data or -post_data arguments (see below). It can also be used to avoid having sensitive information in the invoking command line (which would be visible to other processes on most systems), especially when the -auth or -pauth options are used.

-accept_all_cookies

accept all cookies.

-anonymous

apply restrictions for anonymous account, see also -restrictions.

-assume_charset=MIMEname

charset for documents that don't specify it.

-assume_local_charset=MIMEname

charset assumed for local files, i.e., files which Lynx creates such as internal pages for the options menu.

-assume_unrec_charset=MIMEname

use this instead of unrecognized charsets.

-auth=ID:PASSWD

set authorization ID and password for protected documents at startup. Be sure to protect any script files which use this switch.

-base

prepend a request URL comment and BASE tag to text/html outputs for -source dumps.

-bibp=URL

specify a local bibp server (default http://bibhost/).

-blink

forces high intensity background colors for color mode, if available and supported by the terminal. This applies to the slang library (for a few terminal emulators), or to OS/2 EMX with ncurses.

-book

use the bookmark page as the startfile. The default or command line startfile is still set for the Main screen command, and will be used if the bookmark page is unavailable or blank.

-buried_news

toggles scanning of news articles for buried references, and converts them to news links. Not recommended because email addresses enclosed in angle brackets will be converted to false news links, and uuencoded messages can be trashed.

-cache=NUMBER

set the NUMBER of documents cached in memory. The default is 10.

-case

enable case-sensitive string searching.

-center

Toggle center alignment in HTML TABLE.

-cfg=FILENAME

specifies a Lynx configuration file other than the default lynx.cfg.

-child

exit on left-arrow in startfile, and disable save to disk and associated print/mail options.

-child_relaxed

exit on left-arrow in startfile, but allow save to disk and associated print/mail options.

-cmd_log=FILENAME

write keystroke commands and related information to the specified file.

-cmd_script=FILENAME

read keystroke commands from the specified file. You can use the data written using the -cmd_log option. Lynx will ignore other information which the command-logging may have written to the logfile. Each line of the command script contains either a comment beginning with "#", or a keyword:

exit

causes the script to stop, and forces Lynx to exit immediately.

key

the character value, in printable form. Cursor and other special keys are given as names, e.g., "Down Arrow". Printable 7-bit ASCII codes are given as-is, and hexadecimal values represent other 8-bit codes.

set

followed by a "name=value" allows one to override values set in the lynx.cfg file.

-color

forces color mode on, if available. Default color control sequences which work for many terminal types are assumed if the terminal capability description does not specify how to handle color. Lynx needs to be compiled with the slang library for this flag, it is equivalent to setting the COLORTERM environment variable. (If color support is instead provided by a color-capable curses library like ncurses, Lynx relies completely on the terminal description to determine whether color mode is possible, and this flag is not needed and thus unavailable.) A saved show_color=always setting found in a .lynxrc file at startup has the same effect. A saved show_color=never found in .lynxrc on startup is overridden by this flag.

-connect_timeout=N

Sets the connection timeout, where N is given in seconds.

-cookie_file=FILENAME

specifies a file to use to read cookies. If none is specified, the default value is ~/.lynx_cookies for most systems, but ~/cookies for MS-DOS.

-cookie_save_file=FILENAME

specifies a file to use to store cookies. If none is specified, the value given by -cookie_file is used.

-cookies

toggles handling of Set-Cookie headers.

-core

toggles forced core dumps on fatal errors. Turn this option off to ask Lynx to force a core dump if a fatal error occurs.

-crawl

with -traversal, output each page to a file. with -dump, format output as with -traversal, but to the standard output.

-curses_pads

toggles the use of curses "pad" feature which supports left/right scrolling of the display.

-debug_partial

separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs delay

-delay

add DebugSecs delay after each progress-message

-display=DISPLAY

set the display variable for X rexec-ed programs.

-display_charset=MIMEname

set the charset for the terminal output.

-dont_wrap_pre

inhibit wrapping of text in <pre> when -dump'ing and -crawl'ing, mark wrapped lines in interactive session.

-dump

dumps the formatted output of the default document or those specified on the command line to standard output. Unlike interactive mode, all documents are processed. This can be used in the following way:

lynx -dump http://www.subir.com/lynx.html

-editor=EDITOR

enable external editing, using the specified EDITOR. (vi, ed, emacs, etc.)

-emacskeys

enable emacs-like key movement.

-enable_scrollback

toggles compatibility with communication programs' scrollback keys (may be incompatible with some curses packages).

-error_file=FILE

define a file where Lynx will report HTTP access codes.

-exec

enable local program execution (normally not configured).

-fileversions

include all versions of files in local VMS directory listings.

-find_leaks

toggle memory leak-checking. Normally this is not compiled-into your executable, but when it is, it can be disabled for a session.

-force_empty_hrefless_a

force HREF-less 'A' elements to be empty (close them as soon as they are seen).

-force_html

forces the first document to be interpreted as HTML.

-force_secure

toggles forcing of the secure flag for SSL cookies.

-forms_options

toggles whether the Options Menu is key-based or form-based.

-from

toggles transmissions of From headers.

-ftp

disable ftp access.

-get_data

properly formatted data for a get form are read in from the standard input and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a line that starts with '---'.

-head

send a HEAD request for the mime headers.

-help

print the Lynx command syntax usage message, and exit.

-hiddenlinks=[option]

control the display of hidden links.

merge

hidden links show up as bracketed numbers and are numbered together with other links in the sequence of their occurrence in the document.

listonly

hidden links are shown only on L)ist screens and listings generated by -dump or from the P)rint menu, but appear separately at the end of those lists. This is the default behavior.

ignore

hidden links do not appear even in listings.

-historical

toggles use of '>' or '-->' as a terminator for comments.

-homepage=URL

set homepage separate from start page.

-image_links

toggles inclusion of links for all images.

-index=URL

set the default index file to the specified URL.

-ismap

toggles inclusion of ISMAP links when client-side MAPs are present.

-justify

do justification of text.

-link=NUMBER

starting count for lnk#.dat files produced by -crawl.

-listonly

for -dump, show only the list of links.

-localhost

disable URLs that point to remote hosts.

-locexec

enable local program execution from local files only (if Lynx was compiled with local execution enabled).

-lss=FILENAME

specify filename containing color-style information. The default is lynx.lss. If you give an empty filename, lynx uses a built-in monochrome scheme which imitates the non-color-style configuration.

-mime_header

prints the MIME header of a fetched document along with its source.

-minimal

toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing.

-nested_tables

toggles nested-tables logic (for debugging).

-newschunksize=NUMBER

number of articles in chunked news listings.

-newsmaxchunk=NUMBER

maximum news articles in listings before chunking.

-nobold

disable bold video-attribute.

-nobrowse

disable directory browsing.

-nocc

disable Cc: prompts for self copies of mailings. Note that this does not disable any CCs which are incorporated within a mailto URL or form ACTION.

-nocolor

force color mode off, overriding terminal capabilities and any -color flags, COLORTERM variable, and saved .lynxrc settings.

-noexec

disable local program execution. (DEFAULT)

-nofilereferer

disable transmissions of Referer headers for file URLs.

-nolist

disable the link list feature in dumps.

-nolog

disable mailing of error messages to document owners.

-nomargins

disable left/right margins in the default style sheet.

-nomore

disable -more- string in statusline messages.

-nonrestarting_sigwinch

This flag is not available on all systems, Lynx needs to be compiled with HAVE_SIGACTION defined. If available, this flag may cause Lynx to react more immediately to window changes when run within an xterm.

-nonumbers

disable link- and field-numbering. This overrides -number_fields and -number_links.

-nopause

disable forced pauses for statusline messages.

-noprint

disable most print functions.

-noredir

prevents automatic redirection and prints a message with a link to the new URL.

-noreferer

disable transmissions of Referer headers.

-noreverse

disable reverse video-attribute.

-nosocks

disable SOCKS proxy usage by a SOCKSified Lynx.

-nostatus

disable the retrieval status messages.

-notitle

disable title and blank line from top of page.

-nounderline

disable underline video-attribute.

-number_fields

force numbering of links as well as form input fields

-number_links

force numbering of links.

-partial

toggles display partial pages while loading.

-partial_thres=NUMBER

number of lines to render before repainting display with partial-display logic

-passive-ftp

toggles passive ftp connections.

-pauth=ID:PASSWD

set authorization ID and password for a protected proxy server at startup. Be sure to protect any script files which use this switch.

-popup

toggles handling of single-choice SELECT options via popup windows or as lists of radio buttons.

-post_data

properly formatted data for a post form are read in from the standard input and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a line that starts with '---'.

-preparsed

show HTML source preparsed and reformatted when used with -source or in source view.

-prettysrc

show HTML source view with lexical elements and tags in color.

-print

enable print functions. (default)

-pseudo_inlines

toggles pseudo-ALTs for inline images with no ALT string.

-raw

toggles default setting of 8-bit character translations or CJK mode for the startup character set.

-realm

restricts access to URLs in the starting realm.

-read_timeout=N

Sets the read-timeout, where N is given in seconds.

-reload

flushes the cache on a proxy server (only the first document affected).

-restrictions=[option][,option][,option]...

allows a list of services to be disabled selectively. Dashes and underscores in option names can be intermixed. The following list is printed if no options are specified.

all

restricts all options listed below.

bookmark

disallow changing the location of the bookmark file.

bookmark_exec

disallow execution links via the bookmark file.

change_exec_perms

disallow changing the eXecute permission on files (but still allow it for directories) when local file management is enabled.

default

same as command line option -anonymous. Disables default services for anonymous users. Set to all restricted, except for: inside_telnet, outside_telnet, inside_ftp, outside_ftp, inside_rlogin, outside_rlogin, inside_news, outside_news, telnet_port, jump, mail, print, exec, and goto. The settings for these, as well as additional goto restrictions for specific URL schemes that are also applied, are derived from definitions within userdefs.h.

dired_support

disallow local file management.

disk_save

disallow saving to disk in the download and print menus.

dotfiles

disallow access to, or creation of, hidden (dot) files.

download

disallow some downloaders in the download menu (does not imply disk_save restriction).

editor

disallow external editing.

exec

disable execution scripts.

exec_frozen

disallow the user from changing the local execution option.

externals

disallow some "EXTERNAL" configuration lines if support for passing URLs to external applications (with the EXTERN command) is compiled in.

file_url

disallow using G)oto, served links or bookmarks for file: URLs.

goto

disable the 'g' (goto) command.

inside_ftp

disallow ftps for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

inside_news

disallow USENET news posting for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

inside_rlogin

disallow rlogins for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

inside_telnet

disallow telnets for people coming from inside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

jump

disable the 'j' (jump) command.

multibook

disallow multiple bookmarks.

mail

disallow mail.

news_post

disallow USENET News posting.

options_save

disallow saving options in .lynxrc.

outside_ftp

disallow ftps for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

outside_news

disallow USENET news reading and posting for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity). This restriction applies to "news", "nntp", "newspost", and "newsreply" URLs, but not to "snews", "snewspost", or "snewsreply" in case they are supported.

outside_rlogin

disallow rlogins for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

outside_telnet

disallow telnets for people coming from outside your domain (utmp required for selectivity).

print

disallow most print options.

shell

disallow shell escapes and lynxexec or lynxprog G)oto's.

suspend

disallow Unix Control-Z suspends with escape to shell.

telnet_port

disallow specifying a port in telnet G)oto's.

useragent

disallow modifications of the User-Agent header.

-resubmit_posts

toggles forced resubmissions (no-cache) of forms with method POST when the documents they returned are sought with the PREV_DOC command or from the History List.

-rlogin

disable recognition of rlogin commands.

-scrollbar

toggles showing scrollbar.

-scrollbar_arrow

toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar.

-selective

require .www_browsable files to browse directories.

-session=FILENAME

resumes from specified file on startup and saves session to that file on exit.

-sessionin=FILENAME

resumes session from specified file.

-sessionout=FILENAME

saves session to specified file.

-short_url

show very long URLs in the status line with "..." to represent the portion which cannot be displayed. The beginning and end of the URL are displayed, rather than suppressing the end.

-show_cfg

Print the configuration settings, e.g., as read from "lynx.cfg", and exit.

-show_cursor

If enabled the cursor will not be hidden in the right hand corner but will instead be positioned at the start of the currently selected link. Show cursor is the default for systems without FANCY_CURSES capabilities. The default configuration can be changed in userdefs.h or lynx.cfg. The command line switch toggles the default.

-show_rate

If enabled the transfer rate is shown in bytes/second. If disabled, no transfer rate is shown. Use lynx.cfg or the options menu to select KB/second and/or ETA.

-soft_dquotes

toggles emulation of the old Netscape and Mosaic bug which treated '>' as a co-terminator for double-quotes and tags.

-source

works the same as dump but outputs HTML source instead of formatted text. For example

lynx -source . >foo.html

generates HTML source listing the files in the current directory. Each file is marked by an HREF relative to the parent directory. Add a trailing slash to make the HREF's relative to the current directory:

lynx -source ./ >foo.html

-stack_dump

disable SIGINT cleanup handler

-startfile_ok

allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate.

-stderr

When dumping a document using -dump or -source, Lynx normally does not display alert (error) messages that you see on the screen in the status line. Use the -stderr option to tell Lynx to write these messages to the standard error.

-stdin

read the startfile from standard input (UNIX only).

-syslog=text

information for syslog call.

-syslog-urls

log requested URLs with syslog.

-tagsoup

initialize parser, using Tag Soup DTD rather than SortaSGML.

-telnet

disable recognition of telnet commands.

-term=TERM

tell Lynx what terminal type to assume it is talking to. (This may be useful for remote execution, when, for example, Lynx connects to a remote TCP/IP port that starts a script that, in turn, starts another Lynx process.)

-timeout=N

For win32, sets the network read-timeout, where N is given in seconds.

-tlog

toggles between using a Lynx Trace Log and stderr for trace output from the session.

-tna

turns on "Textfields Need Activation" mode.

-trace

turns on Lynx trace mode. Destination of trace output depends on -tlog.

-trace_mask=value

turn on optional traces, which may result in very large trace files. Logically OR the values to combine options:

1

SGML character parsing states

2

color-style

4

TRST (table layout)

8

configuration (lynx.cfg, .lynxrc, .lynx-keymaps, mime.types and mailcap contents)

16

binary string copy/append, used in form data construction.

32

cookies

64

character sets

128

GridText parsing

256

timing

-traversal

traverse all http links derived from startfile. When used with -crawl, each link that begins with the same string as startfile is output to a file, intended for indexing. See CRAWL.announce for more information.

-trim_input_fields

trim input text/textarea fields in forms.

-underline_links

toggles use of underline/bold attribute for links.

-underscore

toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps.

-use_mouse

turn on mouse support, if available. Clicking the left mouse button on a link traverses it. Clicking the right mouse button pops back. Click on the top line to scroll up. Click on the bottom line to scroll down. The first few positions in the top and bottom line may invoke additional functions. Lynx must be compiled with ncurses or slang to support this feature. If ncurses is used, clicking the middle mouse button pops up a simple menu. Mouse clicks may only work reliably while Lynx is idle waiting for input.

-useragent=Name

set alternate Lynx User-Agent header.

-validate

accept only http URLs (for validation). Complete security restrictions also are implemented.

-verbose

toggle [LINK], [IMAGE] and [INLINE] comments with filenames of these images.

-version

print version information, and exit.

-vikeys

enable vi-like key movement.

-wdebug

enable Waterloo tcp/ip packet debug (print to watt debugfile). This applies only to DOS versions compiled with WATTCP or WATT-32.

-width=NUMBER

number of columns for formatting of dumps, default is 80. This is limited by the number of columns that Lynx could display, typically 1024 (the MAX_LINE symbol).

-with_backspaces

emit backspaces in output if -dump'ing or -crawl'ing (like 'man' does)

-xhtml_parsing

tells Lynx that it can ignore certain tags which have no content in an XHTML 1.0 document. For example "<p/>" will be discarded.

COMMANDS

o

Use Up arrow and Down arrow to scroll through hypertext links.

o

Right arrow or Return will follow a highlighted hypertext link.

o

Left Arrow will retreat from a link.

o

Type "H" or "?" for online help and descriptions of key-stroke commands.

o

Type "K" for a complete list of the current key-stroke command mappings.

SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT

If built with the cgi-links option enabled, Lynx allows access to a cgi script directly without the need for an http daemon.

When executing such "lynxcgi scripts" (if enabled), the following variables may be set for simulating a CGI environment:

CONTENT_LENGTH

CONTENT_TYPE

DOCUMENT_ROOT

HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET

HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE

HTTP_USER_AGENT

PATH_INFO

PATH_TRANSLATED

QUERY_STRING

REMOTE_ADDR

REMOTE_HOST

REQUEST_METHOD

SERVER_SOFTWARE

Other environment variables are not inherited by the script, unless they are provided via a LYNXCGI_ENVIRONMENT statement in the configuration file. See the lynx.cfg file, and the (draft) CGI 1.1 Specification <http://Web.Golux.Com/coar/cgi/draft-coar-cgi-v11-00.txt> for the definition and usage of these variables.

The CGI Specification, and other associated documentation, should be consulted for general information on CGI script programming.

NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT

If configured and installed with Native Language Support, Lynx will display status and other messages in your local language. See the file ABOUT_NLS in the source distribution, or at your local GNU site, for more information about internationalization.

The following environment variables may be used to alter default settings:

LANG

This variable, if set, will override the default message language. It is an ISO 639 two-letter code identifying the language. Language codes are NOT the same as the country codes given in ISO 3166.

LANGUAGE

This variable, if set, will override the default message language. This is a GNU extension that has higher priority for setting the message catalog than LANG or LC_ALL.

LC_ALL

and

LC_MESSAGES

These variables, if set, specify the notion of native language formatting style. They are POSIXly correct.

LINGUAS

This variable, if set prior to configuration, limits the installed languages to specific values. It is a space-separated list of two-letter codes. Currently, it is hard-coded to a wish list.

NLSPATH

This variable, if set, is used as the path prefix for message catalogs.

NOTES

This is the Lynx v2.8.7 Release; development is in progress for 2.8.8.

If you wish to contribute to the further development of Lynx, subscribe to our mailing list. Send email to <[email protected]> with "subscribe lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of your message.

Send bug reports, comments, suggestions to <[email protected]> after subscribing.

Unsubscribe by sending email to <[email protected]> with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of your message. Do not send the unsubscribe message to the lynx-dev list, itself.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lynx has incorporated code from a variety of sources along the way. The earliest versions of Lynx included code from Earl Fogel of Computing Services at the University of Saskatchewan, who implemented HYPERREZ in the Unix environment. HYPERREZ was developed by Niel Larson of Think.com and served as the model for the early versions of Lynx. Those versions also incorporated libraries from the Unix Gopher clients developed at the University of Minnesota, and the later versions of Lynx rely on the WWW client library code developed by Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW community. Also a special thanks to Foteos Macrides who ported much of Lynx to VMS and did or organized most of its development since the departures of Lou Montulli and Garrett Blythe from the University of Kansas in the summer of 1994 through the release of v2.7.2, and to everyone on the net who has contributed to Lynx's development either directly (through patches, comments or bug reports) or indirectly (through inspiration and development of other systems).

AUTHORS

Lou Montulli, Garrett Blythe, Craig Lavender, Michael Grobe, Charles Rezac
Academic Computing Services
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66047

Foteos Macrides
Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts 01545

Thomas E. Dickey
<[email protected]>