LYNX(1) General Commands

Manual LYNX(1)

NAME
lynx - a general purpose distributed information browser for the World Wide
Web

SYNOPSIS
lynx [options] [optional paths or URLs]

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/XP/7/8 or any POSIX platform, 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/XP/7/8, DOS DJGPP and OS/2.

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 shown 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 do not 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.

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

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

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

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

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

-case enable case-sensitive string searching.

-center
Toggle center alignment in HTML TABLE.

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

-child exit on left-arrow in startfile, and disable save to disk and

associated print/mail options.

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

-cmd_log=FILENAME
write keystroke commands and related information to the specified
file.

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

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

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 or .lynxrc files. Lynx tries the cfg-file setting first.

-collapse_br_tags
toggles collapsing of BR tags.

-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. The feature is normally available for curses
configurations, but inactive. To activate it, use the “|” character
or the LINEWRAP_TOGGLE command. Toggling this option makes the feature
altogether unavailable.

-debug_partial
separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs delay

-default_colors
toggles the default-colors feature which is normally set in the
lynx.cfg file.

-delay add DebugSecs delay after each progress-message

-display=DISPLAY
set the display variable for X rexec-ed programs.

-display_charset=MIMEname
set the charset for the terminal output.

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

-dump dumps the formatted output of the default document or those

specified on the command line to standard output. Unlike interactive mode, all
documents are processed. This can be used in the following way:

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

Files specified on the command line are formatted as HTML if their

names end with one of the standard web suffixes such as “.htm” or
“.html”. Use the -force_html option to format files whose names do
not follow this convention.

-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.

This is most useful when processing files specified on the command

line which have an unrecognized suffix (or the suffix is associated with
a non-HTML type, such as “.txt” for plain text files).

Lynx recognizes these file suffixes as HTML:

“.ht3”,
“.htm”,
“.html3”,
“.html”,
“.htmlx”,
“.php3”,
“.php”,
“.phtml”,
“.sht”, and
“.shtml”.

-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 “---”.

Lynx issues an HTTP GET, sending the form to the path or URL given on
the command-line and prints the response of the server. If no path or
URL is given, Lynx sends the form to the start-page.

-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.

-list_inline
for -dump, show the links inline with the text.

-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 “---”.

Lynx issues an HTTP POST, sending the form to the path or URL given
on the command-line and prints the response of the server. If no path
or URL is given, Lynx sends the form to the start-page.
 -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 given on
the command-line is 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_blank_lines
toggles trimming of trailing blank lines as well as the related
trimming of blank lines while collapsing BR tags.

-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.

-unique_urls
check for duplicate link numbers in each page and corresponding
lists, and reuse the original link number.

-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
More than one key can be mapped to a given command. Here are some of the
most useful:

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

 • Right arrow or Return will follow a highlighted hypertext link.

• Left Arrow or “u” will retreat from a link.

• Type “H”, “?”, or F1 for online help and descriptions of key-stroke

commands.

• Type “k” or “K” for a list of the current key-stroke command mappings.

If the same command is mapped to the same letter differing only by

upper/lowercase only the lowercase mapping is shown.

• Type Delete to view history list.

ENVIRONMENT
In addition to various “standard” environment variables such as
HOME, PATH, USER, DISPLAY, TMPDIR, etc, Lynx utilizes several Lynx-specific
environment variables, if they exist.

Others may be created or modified by Lynx to pass data to an external

program, or for other reasons. These are listed separately below.

See also the sections on SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT and NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT,
below.

Note: Not all environment variables apply to all types of platforms

supported by Lynx, though most do. Feedback on platform dependencies is
solicited.

Environment Variables Used By Lynx:

COLORTERM If set, color capability for the terminal is forced on

at startup time. The actual value assigned to the variable is ignored.
This variable is only meaningful if Lynx was built using
the slang screen-handling library.

LYNX_CFG This variable, if set, will override the default

location and name of the global configuration file (normally, lynx.cfg) that
was defined by the LYNX_CFG_FILE constant in the
userdefs.h file, during installation.

See the userdefs.h file for more information.

LYNX_CFG_PATH If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in search-

list of directories used to find the configuration files, e.g., lynx.cfg
and lynx.lss. The list is delimited with ":" (or ";"
for Windows) like the PATH environment variable.

LYNX_HELPFILE If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in URL and

configuration file URL for the Lynx help file.

LYNX_LOCALEDIR If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in location

of the locale directory which contains native language (NLS) message
text.

LYNX_LSS This variable, if set, specifies the location of the

default Lynx character style sheet file. [Currently only meaningful if
Lynx was built using curses color style support.]
 LYNX_SAVE_SPACE This variable, if set, will override the default path
prefix for files saved to disk that is defined in the lynx.cfg
SAVE_SPACE: statement.

See the lynx.cfg file for more information.

LYNX_TEMP_SPACE This variable, if set, will override the default path

prefix for temporary files that was defined during installation, as well
as any value that may be assigned to the TMPDIR
variable.

MAIL This variable specifies the default inbox Lynx will

check for new mail, if such checking is enabled in the lynx.cfg file.

NEWS_ORGANIZATION This variable, if set, provides the string used in the

Organization: header of USENET news postings. It will override the
setting of the ORGANIZATION environment variable, if
it is also set (and, on UNIX, the contents of an /etc/organization file,
if present).

NNTPSERVER If set, this variable specifies the default NNTP server

that will be used for USENET news reading and posting with Lynx, via
news: URL's.

ORGANIZATION This variable, if set, provides the string used in the

Organization: header of USENET news postings. On UNIX, it will override
the contents of an /etc/organization file, if present.

PROTOCOL_proxy Lynx supports the use of proxy servers that can act as
firewall gateways and caching servers. They are preferable to the older
gateway servers (see WWW_access_GATEWAY, below).

Each protocol used by Lynx, (http, ftp, gopher,

etc), can be mapped separately by setting environment variables of the form
PROTOCOL_proxy. Protocols are indicated in a URI by the
name before “:”, e.g., “http” in “http://some.server.dom:port/” for
HTML.

Depending on your system configuration and supported

protocols, the environment variables recognized by lynx may include

cso_proxy
finger_proxy
ftp_proxy
gopher_proxy
https_proxy
http_proxy
newspost_proxy
newsreply_proxy
news_proxy
nntp_proxy
no_proxy
snewspost_proxy
snewsreply_proxy
snews_proxy
wais_proxy

See Lynx Users Guide for additional details and

examples.

SSL_CERT_DIR Set to the directory containing trusted certificates.

SSL_CERT_FILE Set to the full path and filename for your file of
trusted certificates.

WWW_access_GATEWAY Lynx still supports use of gateway servers, with the

servers specified via “WWW_access_GATEWAY” variables (where “access” is
lower case and can be “http”, “ftp”, “gopher” or
“wais”). However most gateway servers have been discontinued. Note that you
do not include a terminal “/” for gateways, but do for
proxies specified by PROTOCOL_proxy environment variables.

See Lynx Users Guide for details.

WWW_HOME This variable, if set, will override the default startup

URL specified in any of the Lynx configuration files.

Environment Variables Set or Modified By Lynx:

LYNX_PRINT_DATE This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to

the Date: string seen in the document's “Information about” page (= cmd),
if any. It is created for use by an external program,
as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field
does not exist for the document, the variable is set to
a null string under UNIX, or “No Date” under VMS.

LYNX_PRINT_LASTMOD This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to

the Last Mod: string seen in the document's “Information about” page (=
cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external
program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the
field does not exist for the document, the variable is
set to a null string under UNIX, or “No LastMod” under VMS.

LYNX_PRINT_TITLE This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to

the Linkname: string seen in the document's “Information about” page (=
cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external
program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the
field does not exist for the document, the variable is
set to a null string under UNIX, or “No Title” under VMS.

LYNX_PRINT_URL This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to

the URL: string seen in the document's “Information about” page (= cmd),
if any. It is created for use by an external program,
as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field
does not exist for the document, the variable is set to
a null string under UNIX, or “No URL” under VMS.

LYNX_TRACE If set, causes Lynx to write a trace file as if the

-trace option were supplied.

LYNX_TRACE_FILE If set, overrides the compiled-in name of the

trace file, which is either Lynx.trace or LY-TRACE.LOG (the latter on the
DOS/Windows platforms). The trace file is in either
case relative to the home directory.

LYNX_VERSION This variable is always set by Lynx, and may be used by

an external program to determine if it was invoked by Lynx.
 See also the comments in the distribution's sample
mailcap file, for notes on usage in such a file.

TERM Normally, this variable is used by Lynx to determine the

terminal type being used to invoke Lynx. If, however, it is unset at
startup time (or has the value “unknown”), or if the
-term command-line option is used (see OPTIONS section above), Lynx will
set or modify its value to the user specified terminal
type (for the Lynx execution environment). Note: If set/modified by
Lynx, the values of the LINES and/or COLUMNS environment
variables may also be changed.

SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT

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

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

CONTENT_LENGTH

CONTENT_TYPE

DOCUMENT_ROOT

HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET

HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE

HTTP_USER_AGENT

PATH_INFO

PATH_TRANSLATED

QUERY_STRING

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 v2.8.9 Release; development is in progress for 2.9.0.

If you wish to contribute to the further development of Lynx, subscribe

to our mailing list. Send email to <[email protected]> with
“subscribe lynx-dev” as the only line in the body of your message.

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

subscribing.

Unsubscribe by sending email to <[email protected]> with

“unsubscribe lynx-dev” as the only line in the body of your message. Do not
send the unsubscribe message to the lynx-dev list, itself.

SEE ALSO
catgets(3), curses(3), environ(7), execve(2), ftp(1), gettext(GNU),
localeconv(3), ncurses(3), setlocale(3), slang(?), termcap(5), terminfo(5),
wget(GNU)

Note that man page availability and section numbering is somewhat platform
dependent, and may vary from the above references.

A section shown as (GNU), is intended to denote that the topic may be

available via an info page, instead of a man page (i.e., try “info subject”,
rather than “man subject”).

A section shown as (?) denotes that documentation on the topic exists,

but is not part of an established documentation retrieval system (see the
distribution files associated with the topic, or contact your System
Administrator for further information).

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 Ser‐
vices 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 Uni‐
versity 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 Montul‐
li 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 con‐
tributed 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]>

LYNX(1)