25

Is there a way to pass the username and password from a file instead of the command line via --user and --password?

Background: I want to run wget via cron and don't want the username/password show up in process view

3 Answers 3

13

Use a .wgetrc file (GNU manual) in which you can set username and passwords for either or both ftp and http.

To use the same credentials for both specify

user=casper
password=CasperPassword

or individually

ftp_user=casperftp
ftp_password=casperftppass
http_user=casperhttp
http_password=casperhttppass
3
  • 2
    The GNU wget manual also suggests using the -i option and feeding the username and password in from standard input.
    – Richard
    May 8, 2011 at 15:08
  • Does .wgetrc provide the flexibility to work with more than one server? If not, .netrc is a better solution, see the other answer from tobias.pal
    – ryenus
    Feb 6, 2017 at 13:26
  • I obviously missed wget using a .netrc file, but it's documented. Feb 6, 2017 at 18:13
28

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the .netrc file. Create the file if it doesn't exists and set safe permissions:

touch ~/.netrc
chmod 600 ~/.netrc

Subsequently add the hostname, username and password with the machine login and password keywords:

echo 'machine example.com login casper password CasperPassword' >> ~/.netrc

If you then run wget https://example.com and the server responds with 401 Authorization Required, wget will retry using the username and password from the ~/.netrc file.

With curl it's needed to add the --netrc (or --netrc-optional or --netrc-file) parameter, because curl will not read the .netrc file without that.

When using this from cron, ensure that the correct HOME environment variable is set. Cron often defaults to HOME=/ (in that case you would have to create the file as /.netrc, yet a better solution would be to set an appropriate HOME at the script's start, like export HOME=/root).

The ~/.netrc file can be used for multiple hosts. More info about .netrc at inetutils manual and curl manual.

3
  • 2
    For the syntax of .netrc, see its manual, or the related curl doc.
    – ryenus
    Feb 6, 2017 at 13:32
  • At first I'm too careless to see the man netrc in the OP, wondering WHY this works, then @ryenus your comment saves me, thanks~ Manual is always welcome :P Then I know it's a rc file used by ftp, that is, it may not work for http. I'll try it on http later.
    – Weekend
    Apr 29, 2019 at 13:13
  • Quick update: .netrc does work with wget and HTTP (at least on Ubuntu 18.04). Also related cURL doc was moved here. Mar 2, 2022 at 9:47
2

In many regards curl can be a better choice. Wget became a bit stale over time.

curl's -n switch can be used for this task: http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html#-n

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