0% found this document useful (0 votes)

50 views47 pages

Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )

Curl is a command line tool used to transfer data from or to a server using supported protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, and more. It is designed to work without user interaction and offers features like proxy support, user authentication, file transfers, SSL connections, cookies, and more. Curl uses libcurl for all transfer-related features and can resume file transfers, reuse connections, and guess protocols when URLs are missing prefixes. It provides progress meters and supports options specified with single or double dashes to configure transfers.

Uploaded by

zhenguoli

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

50 views47 pages

Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )

Uploaded by

zhenguoli

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 47

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

NAME
curl − transfer a URL
SYNOPSIS
curl [options] [URL...]
DESCRIPTION
curl is a tool to transfer data from or to a server, using one of the supported protocols (DICT, FILE, FTP,
FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP,
SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET and TFTP). The command is designed to work without user
interaction.

curl offers a busload of useful tricks like proxy support, user authentication, FTP upload, HTTP post, SSL
connections, cookies, file transfer resume, Metalink, and more. As you will see below, the number of fea-
tures will make your head spin!

curl is powered by libcurl for all transfer-related features. See libcurl(3) for details.
URL
The URL syntax is protocol-dependent. You’ll find a detailed description in RFC 3986.

You can specify multiple URLs or parts of URLs by writing part sets within braces as in:

http://site.{one,two,three}.com

or you can get sequences of alphanumeric series by using [] as in:

ftp://ftp.example.com/file[1-100].txt

ftp://ftp.example.com/file[001-100].txt (with leading zeros)

ftp://ftp.example.com/file[a-z].txt

Nested sequences are not supported, but you can use several ones next to each other:

http://example.com/archive[1996-1999]/vol[1-4]/part{a,b,c}.html

You can specify any amount of URLs on the command line. They will be fetched in a sequential manner in
the specified order.

You can specify a step counter for the ranges to get every Nth number or letter:

http://example.com/file[1-100:10].txt

http://example.com/file[a-z:2].txt

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 ’&’, ’?’ and ’*’.

Provide the IPv6 zone index in the URL with an escaped percentage sign and the interface name. Like in

http://[fe80::3%25eth0]/

If you specify URL without protocol:// prefix, curl will attempt to guess what protocol you might want. It
will then default to HTTP but try other protocols based on often-used host name prefixes. For example, for

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 1

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

host names starting with "ftp." curl will assume you want to speak FTP.

curl will do its best to use what you pass to it as a URL. It is not trying to validate it as a syntactically cor-
rect URL by any means but is instead very liberal with what it accepts.

curl will attempt to re-use connections for multiple file transfers, so that getting many files from the same
server will not do multiple connects / handshakes. This improves speed. Of course this is only done on files
specified on a single command line and cannot be used between separate curl invokes.
PROGRESS METER
curl normally displays a progress meter during operations, indicating the amount of transferred data, trans-
fer speeds and estimated time left, etc. The progress meter displays number of bytes and the speeds are in
bytes per second. The suffixes (k, M, G, T, P) are 1024 based. For example 1k is 1024 bytes. 1M is
1048576 bytes.

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 (>), -o, --output or similar.

It is not the same case for FTP upload as that operation does not spit out any response data to the terminal.

If you prefer a progress "bar" instead of the regular meter, -#, --progress-bar is your friend. You can also
disable the progress meter completely with the -s, --silent option.
OPTIONS
Options start with one or two dashes. Many of the options require an additional value next to them.

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, -d, --data for
example, requires a space between it and its value.

Short version options that don’t 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.

In general, all boolean options are enabled with --option and yet again disabled with --no-option. That is,
you use the exact same option name but prefix it with "no-". However, in this list we mostly only list and
show the --option version of them. (This concept with --no options was added in 7.19.0. Previously most
options were toggled on/off on repeated use of the same command line option.)
--abstract-unix-socket <path>
(HTTP) Connect through an abstract Unix domain socket, instead of using the network. Note: net-
stat shows the path of an abstract socket prefixed with ’@’, however the <path> argument should
not have this leading character.

Added in 7.53.0.
--anyauth
(HTTP) Tells curl to figure out authentication method by itself, 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 is used instead of setting a spe-
cific 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

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 2

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

from stdin, the upload operation will fail.

Used together with -u, --user.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 3

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

suggests that the server certificate has been revoked, or no response at all is received, the verifica-
tion fails.

This is currently only implemented in the OpenSSL, GnuTLS and NSS backends.

Added in 7.41.0.
--cert-type <type>
(TLS) Tells curl what certificate type the provided certificate is in. PEM, DER and ENG are recog-
nized types. If not specified, PEM is assumed.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 4

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

-K, --config <file>

Specify a text file to read curl arguments from. The command line arguments found in the text file
will be 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 white-
space, colon, or the equals sign. Long option names can optionally be given in the config file with-
out 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 is to contain whitespace, the parameter must be enclosed within quotes. Within
double quotes, the following escape sequences are available: \\, \", \t, \n, \r and \v. A backslash pre-
ceding any other letter is ignored. If the first column of a config line is a ’#’ character, the rest of
the line will be treated as a comment. Only write one option per physical line in the config file.

Specify the filename to -K, --config as ’-’ 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 simply writing the URL on its own line. So, it could look similar to this:

url = "https://curl.haxx.se/docs/"

When curl is invoked, it (unless -q, --disable is used) checks for a default config file and uses it if
found. The default config file is checked for in the following places in this order:

1) curl tries to find the "home dir": It first checks for the CURL_HOME and then the HOME envi-
ronment variables. Failing that, it uses getpwuid() on Unix-like systems (which returns the home
dir given the current user in your system). On Windows, it then checks for the APPDATA variable,
or as a last resort the ’%USERPROFILE%\Application Data’.

2) On windows, if there is no _curlrc file in the home dir, it checks for one in the same dir the curl
executable is placed. On Unix-like systems, it will simply try to load .curlrc from the determined
home dir.

# --- 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 ---

This option can be used multiple times to load multiple config files.
--connect-timeout <seconds>
Maximum time in seconds that you allow curl’s connection to take. This only limits the connec-
tion phase, so if curl connects within the given period it will continue - if not it will exit. Since
version 7.32.0, this option accepts decimal values.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 5

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 6

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

or the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file format.

The file specified with -b, --cookie is only used as input. No cookies will be written to the file. To
store cookies, use the -c, --cookie-jar option.

Exercise caution if you are using this option and multiple transfers may occur. If you use the
NAME1=VALUE1; format, or in a file use the Set-Cookie format and don’t specify a domain, then
the cookie is sent for any domain (even after redirects are followed) and cannot be modified by a
server-set cookie. If the cookie engine is enabled and a server sets a cookie of the same name then
both will be sent on a future transfer to that server, likely not what you intended. To address these
issues set a domain in Set-Cookie (doing that will include sub domains) or use the Netscape for-
mat.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Users very often want to both read cookies from a file and write updated cookies back to a file, so
using both -b, --cookie and -c, --cookie-jar in the same command line is common.
--create-dirs
When used in conjunction with the -o, --output option, curl will create the necessary local direc-
tory hierarchy as needed. This option creates the dirs mentioned with the -o, --output option, noth-
ing else. If the --output file name uses no dir or if the dirs it mentions already exist, no dir will be
created.

To create remote directories when using FTP or SFTP, try --ftp-create-dirs.

--crlf (FTP SMTP) Convert LF to CRLF in upload. Useful for MVS (OS/390).

(SMTP added in 7.40.0)

--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 this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.19.7.
--data-ascii <data>
(HTTP) This is just an alias for -d, --data.
--data-binary <data>
(HTTP) This posts data exactly as specified with no extra processing whatsoever.

If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename. Data is posted in a similar
manner as -d, --data does, except that newlines and carriage returns are preserved and conversions
are never done.

If this option is used several times, the ones following the first will append data as described in -d,
--data.
--data-raw <data>
(HTTP) This posts data similarly to -d, --data but without the special interpretation of the @ char-
acter.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 7

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--data-urlencode <data>
(HTTP) This posts data, similar to the other -d, --data options with the exception that this per-
forms 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 This will make curl URL-encode the content and pass that on. Just be careful so that the
content doesn’t contain any = or @ symbols, as that will then make the syntax match one
of the other cases below!
=content
This will make curl URL-encode the content and pass that on. The preceding = symbol is
not included in the data.
name=content
This will make curl URL-encode the content part and pass that on. Note that the name
part is expected to be URL-encoded already.
@filename
This will make curl load data from the given file (including any newlines), URL-encode
that data and pass it on in the POST.
name@filename
This will make curl 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, result-
ing in name=urlencoded-file-content. Note that the name is expected to be URL-encoded
already.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 8

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

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.
--digest (HTTP) Enables HTTP Digest authentication. This is an authentication scheme that prevents the
password from being sent over the wire in clear text. Use this in combination with the normal -u,
--user option to set user name and password.

If this option is used several times, only the first one is used.

See also -u, --user and --proxy-digest and --anyauth. This option overrides --basic and --ntlm and
--negotiate.
--disable-eprt
(FTP) Tell curl to disable the use of the EPRT and LPRT commands when doing active FTP trans-
fers. Curl will normally always first attempt to use EPRT, then LPRT before using PORT, but with
this option, it will use PORT right away. EPRT and LPRT are extensions to the original FTP proto-
col, and may not work on all servers, but they enable 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 will have 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 -P, --ftp-port or force it with --ftp-pasv.
--disable-epsv
(FTP) (FTP) Tell curl to disable the use of the EPSV command when doing passive FTP transfers.
Curl will normally always first attempt to use EPSV before PASV, but with this option, it will not
try using 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 will have 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 -P, --ftp-port.
-q, --disable
If used as the first parameter on the command line, the curlrc config file will not be read and used.
See the -K, --config for details on the default config file search path.
--dns-interface <interface>
(DNS) Tell curl to send outgoing DNS requests through <interface>. This option is a counterpart
to --interface (which does not affect DNS). The supplied string must be an interface name (not an
address).

See also --dns-ipv4-addr and --dns-ipv6-addr. --dns-interface requires that the underlying libcurl
was built to support c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-ipv4-addr <address>
(DNS) Tell curl to bind to <ip-address> when making IPv4 DNS requests, so that the DNS
requests originate from this address. The argument should be a single IPv4 address.

See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv6-addr. --dns-ipv4-addr requires that the underlying libcurl
was built to support c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 9

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--dns-ipv6-addr <address>
(DNS) Tell curl to bind to <ip-address> when making IPv6 DNS requests, so that the DNS
requests originate from this address. The argument should be a single IPv6 address.

See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv4-addr. --dns-ipv6-addr requires that the underlying libcurl
was built to support c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-servers <addresses>
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 as :<port-number>
after each IP address.

--dns-servers requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
-D, --dump-header <filename>
(HTTP FTP) Write the received protocol headers to the specified file.

This option is handy to use when you want to store the headers that an HTTP site sends to you.
Cookies from the headers could then be read in a second curl invocation by using the -b, --cookie
option! The -c, --cookie-jar option is a better way to store cookies.

When used in FTP, the FTP server response lines are considered being "headers" and thus are
saved there.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 10

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.

This option does not imply -f, --fail, which causes transfers to fail due to the server’s HTTP status
code. You can combine the two options, however note -f, --fail is not global and is therefore con-
tained by -:, --next.

Added in 7.52.0.
-f, --fail
(HTTP) Fail silently (no output at all) on server errors. This is mostly done to better enable scripts
etc to better deal with failed attempts. In normal cases when an HTTP server fails to deliver a doc-
ument, it returns an HTML document stating so (which often also describes why and more). This
flag will prevent curl from outputting that and return error 22.

This method is not fail-safe and there are occasions where non-successful response codes will slip
through, especially when authentication is involved (response codes 401 and 407).
--false-start
(TLS) Tells curl to use false start during the TLS handshake. False start is a mode where a TLS
client will start sending application data before verifying the server’s Finished message, thus sav-
ing a round trip when performing a full handshake.

This is currently only implemented in the NSS and Secure Transport (on iOS 7.0 or later, or OS X
10.9 or later) backends.

Added in 7.42.0.
--form-string <name=string>
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) Similar to -F, --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 -F, --form if there’s any possibility that the string value may
accidentally trigger the ’@’ or ’<’ features of -F, --form.

curl -F [email protected] https://example.com/upload.cgi

To read content from stdin instead of a file, use - as the filename. This goes for both @ and < con-
structs. If stdin is not attached to a regular file, it is buffered first to determine its size and allow a
possible resend. Defining a part’s data from a named non-regular file (such as a named pipe or
similar) is unfortunately not subject to buffering and will be effectively read at transmission time;
since the full size is unknown before the transfer starts, data is sent as chunks by HTTP and

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 11

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

rejected by IMAP.

You can also tell curl what Content-Type to use by using ’type=’, in a manner similar to:

curl -F "[email protected];type=text/html" example.com

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 ’,’ or ’;’, it must be quoted by double-quotes like:

curl -F "file=@\"localfile\";filename=\"nameinpost\"" example.com

curl -F ’file=@"localfile";filename="nameinpost"’ 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 ’colors="red; green; blue";type=text/x-myapp’ 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

curl -F "submit=OK;headers=@headerfile" example.com

The headers= keyword may appear more that once and above notes about quoting apply. When
headers are read from a file, Empty lines and lines starting with ’#’ are comments and 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 contain 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,

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 12

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

- if data starts with ’(’, this signals to start a new multipart: it can be followed by a content type
specification.
- a multipart can be terminated with a ’=)’ argument.

Example: the following command sends an SMTP mime e-mail consisting in an inline part in two
alternative formats: plain text and HTML. It attaches a text file:

curl -F ’=(;type=multipart/alternative’ \
-F ’=plain text message’ \
-F ’= <body>HTML message</body>;type=text/html’ \
-F ’=)’ -F ’[email protected]’ ... 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 ’=text message;encoder=quoted-printable’ \

-F ’=@localfile;encoder=base64’ ... smtp://example.com

See further examples and details in the MANUAL.

This option can be used multiple times.

This option overrides -d, --data and -I, --head and --upload.
--ftp-account <data>
(FTP) When an FTP server asks for "account data" after user name and password has been pro-
vided, this data is sent off using the ACCT command.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.13.0.
--ftp-alternative-to-user <command>
(FTP) If authenticating with the USER and PASS commands fails, send this command. When
connecting to Tumbleweed’s Secure Transport server over FTPS using a client certificate, using
"SITE AUTH" will tell the server to retrieve the username from the certificate.

Added in 7.15.5.
--ftp-create-dirs
(FTP SFTP) When an FTP or SFTP URL/operation uses a path that doesn’t currently exist on the
server, the standard behavior of curl is to fail. Using this option, curl will instead attempt to create
missing directories.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 13

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

This is the default but the slowest behavior.

nocwd curl does no CWD at all. curl will do SIZE, RETR, STOR etc and give a full path to the
server for all these commands. This is the fastest behavior.
singlecwd
curl does one CWD with the full target directory and then operates on the file "normally"
(like in the multicwd case). This is somewhat more standards compliant than ’nocwd’ but
without the full penalty of ’multicwd’.

Added in 7.15.1.
--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 -P, --ftp-port option.

If this option is used several times, only the first one is used. Undoing an enforced passive really
isn’t doable but you must then instead enforce the correct -P, --ftp-port again.

Passive mode means that curl will try the EPSV command first and then PASV, unless --disable-
epsv is used.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 14

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--ftp-skip-pasv-ip
(FTP) Tell curl to not use the IP address the server suggests in its response to curl’s PASV com-
mand when curl connects the data connection. Instead curl will re-use the same IP address it
already uses for the control connection.

This option has no effect if PORT, EPRT or EPSV is used instead of PASV.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 15

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

"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 will make 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 will only mess things up for you.

Starting in 7.55.0, this option can take an argument in @filename style, which then adds a header
for each line in the input file. Using @- will make curl read the header file from stdin.

curl -H "X-First-Name: Joe" http://example.com/

WARNING: headers set with this option will be set in all requests - even after redirects are fol-
lowed, like when told with -L, --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 redi-
rects.

This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove multiple headers.

-h, --help
Usage help. This lists all current command line options with a short description.
--hostpubmd5 <md5>
(SFTP SCP) Pass a string containing 32 hexadecimal digits. The string should be the 128 bit MD5
checksum of the remote host’s public key, curl will refuse the connection with the host unless the
md5sums match.

Added in 7.17.1.
-0, --http1.0
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 1.0 instead of using its internally preferred HTTP version.

This option overrides --http1.1 and --http2.

--http1.1
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 1.1.

This option overrides -0, --http1.0 and --http2. Added in 7.33.0.

--http2-prior-knowledge
(HTTP) Tells curl to issue its non-TLS HTTP requests using HTTP/2 without HTTP/1.1 Upgrade.
It requires prior knowledge that the server supports HTTP/2 straight away. HTTPS requests will
still do HTTP/2 the standard way with negotiated protocol version in the TLS handshake.

--http2-prior-knowledge requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support HTTP/2. This
option overrides --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2. Added in 7.49.0.
--http2 (HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 2.

See also --no-alpn. --http2 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support HTTP/2. This
option overrides --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2-prior-knowledge. Added in 7.33.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 16

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--ignore-content-length
(FTP HTTP) For HTTP, Ignore the Content-Length header. This is particularly useful for servers
running Apache 1.x, which will report incorrect Content-Length for files larger than 2 gigabytes.

For FTP (since 7.46.0), skip the RETR command to figure out the size before downloading a file.
-i, --include
Include the HTTP response headers in the output. The HTTP response headers can include things
like server name, cookies, date of the document, HTTP version and more...

To view the request headers, consider the -v, --verbose option.

See this online resource for further details:

https://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html

curl --interface eth0:1 https://www.example.com/

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

On Linux it can be used to specify a VRF, but the binary needs to either have CAP_NET_RAW or
to be ran as root. More information about Linux VRF: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documenta-
tion/networking/vrf.txt

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 17

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--keepalive-time <seconds>
This option sets 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 offer-
ing the TCP_KEEPIDLE and TCP_KEEPINTVL socket options (meaning Linux, recent AIX,
HP-UX and more). This option has no effect if --no-keepalive is used.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used. If unspecified, the option defaults to
60 seconds.

Added in 7.18.0.
--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 this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--key <key>
(TLS SSH) Private key file name. Allows you to provide your private key in this separate file. For
SSH, if not specified, curl tries the following candidates in order:

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--krb <level>
(FTP) 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’
will instead be used.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

--krb requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support Kerberos.
--libcurl <file>
Append this option to any ordinary curl command line, and you will get a libcurl-using C source
code written to the file that does the equivalent of what your command-line operation does!

If this option is used several times, the last given file name will be used.

Added in 7.16.1.
--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’d like your transfer not to use your entire band-
width. To make it slower than it otherwise would be.

The given speed is measured in bytes/second, unless a suffix is appended. Appending ’k’ or ’K’
will count the number as kilobytes, ’m’ or ’M’ makes it megabytes, while ’g’ or ’G’ makes it giga-
bytes. Examples: 200K, 3m and 1G.

If you also use the -Y, --speed-limit option, that option will take precedence and might cripple the
rate-limiting slightly, to help keeping the speed-limit logic working.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-l, --list-only
(FTP POP3) (FTP) When listing an FTP directory, this switch forces a name-only view. This is
especially useful if the user wants to machine-parse the contents of an FTP directory since the nor-
mal directory view doesn’t use a standard look or format. When used like this, the option causes a

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 18

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

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 sub-directo-
ries and symbolic links.

(POP3) 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 mes-
sage id exists on the server and what size it is.

Note: When combined with -X, --request, this option can be used to send an UIDL command
instead, so the user may use the email’s unique identifier rather than it’s message id to make the
request.

Added in 7.21.5.
--local-port <num/range>
Set a preferred single number or range (FROM-TO) of local port numbers to use for the connec-
tion(s). Note that port numbers by nature are a scarce resource that will be busy at times so setting
this range to something too narrow might cause unnecessary connection setup failures.

Added in 7.15.2.
--location-trusted
(HTTP) Like -L, --location, but will allow sending the name + password to all hosts that the site
may redirect to. This may or may not introduce a security breach if the site redirects you to a site
to which you’ll send your authentication info (which is plaintext in the case of HTTP Basic
authentication).

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 19

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

Added in 7.34.0.
--mail-auth <address>
(SMTP) Specify a single address. This will be used to specify the authentication address (identity)
of a submitted message that is being relayed to another server.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 20

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

Example to use a remote Metalink file:

curl --metalink http://www.example.com/example.metalink

To use a Metalink file in the local file system, use FILE protocol (file://):

curl --metalink file://example.metalink

Please note that if FILE protocol is disabled, there is no way to use a local Metalink file at the time
of this writing. Also note that if --metalink and -i, --include are used together, --include will be
ignored. This is because including headers in the response will break Metalink parser and if the
headers are included in the file described in Metalink file, hash check will fail.

--metalink requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support metalink. Added in 7.27.0.
--negotiate
(HTTP) Enables Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication.

This option requires a library built with GSS-API or SSPI support. Use -V, --version to see if your
curl supports GSS-API/SSPI or SPNEGO.

When using this option, you must also provide a fake -u, --user option to activate the authentica-
tion code properly. Sending a ’-u :’ is enough as the user name and password from the -u, --user
option aren’t actually used.

If this option is used several times, only the first one is used.

It will abide by --netrc-optional if specified.

This option overrides -n, --netrc. Added in 7.21.5.

--netrc-optional
Very similar to -n, --netrc, but this option makes the .netrc usage optional and not mandatory as
the -n, --netrc option does.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 21

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

authentication. See netrc(5) ftp(1) for details on the file format. Curl will not complain if that file
doesn’t have the right permissions (it should not be either world- or group-readable). The environ-
ment variable "HOME" is used to find the home directory.

A quick and very simple example of how to setup a .netrc to allow curl to FTP to the machine
host.domain.com with user name ’myself’ and password ’secret’ should look similar to:

machine host.domain.com login myself password secret

-:, --next
Tells curl to 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 dif-
ferent user names or custom requests for each.

-:, --next will reset all local options and only global ones will have their values survive over to the
operation following the -:, --next instruction. Global options include -v, --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

Added in 7.36.0.
--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.

See also --no-npn and --http2. --no-alpn requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
TLS. Added in 7.36.0.
-N, --no-buffer
Disables the buffering of the output stream. In normal work situations, curl will use a standard
buffered output stream that will have the effect that it will output the data in chunks, not necessar-
ily exactly when the data arrives. Using this option will disable that buffering.

Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use --buffer to enforce the
buffering.
--no-keepalive
Disables 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.
--no-npn
(HTTPS) 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.

See also --no-alpn and --http2. --no-npn requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
TLS. Added in 7.36.0.
--no-sessionid
(TLS) Disable curl’s 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

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 22

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

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 ses-
sion-ID caching.

Added in 7.16.0.
--noproxy <no-proxy-list>
Comma-separated list of hosts which do not 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 exam-
ple, local.com would match local.com, local.com:80, and www.local.com, but not www.notlo-
cal.com.

Since 7.53.0, This option overrides the environment variables that disable the proxy. If there’s an
environment variable disabling a proxy, you can set noproxy list to "" to override it.

Added in 7.19.4.
--ntlm-wb
(HTTP) Enables NTLM much in the style --ntlm does, but hand over the authentication to the sep-
arate binary ntlmauth application that is executed when needed.

curl http://{one,two}.example.com -o "file_#1.txt"

or use several variables like:

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 23

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

curl http://{site,host}.host[1-5].com -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 doesn’t matter, just 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 ’-’ (a single dash) will force the output to be done to stdout.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 24

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--post302
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 7231/6.4.3 and not convert POST requests into GET requests
when following a 302 redirection. The non-RFC behaviour is ubiquitous in web browsers, so curl
does the conversion by default to maintain consistency. However, a server may require a POST to
remain a POST after such a redirection. This option is meaningful only when using -L, --location.

See also --post301 and --post303 and -L, --location. Added in 7.19.1.
--post303
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 7231/6.4.4 and not convert POST requests into GET requests
when following a 303 redirection. The non-RFC behaviour is ubiquitous in web browsers, so curl
does the conversion by default to maintain consistency. However, a server may require a POST to
remain a POST after such a redirection. This option is meaningful only when using -L, --location.

See also --post302 and --post301 and -L, --location. Added in 7.26.0.
--preproxy [protocol://]host[:port]
Use the specified SOCKS proxy before connecting to an HTTP or HTTPS -x, --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 pro-
tocols. Use socks4://, socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to request the specific SOCKS version to
be used. No protocol specified will make 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 this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.52.0.
-#, --progress-bar
Make curl display transfer progress as a simple progress bar instead of the standard, more informa-
tional, meter.

This progress bar draws a single line of ’#’ characters across the screen and shows a percentage if
the transfer size is known. For transfers without a known size, it will instead output one ’#’ charac-
ter for every 1024 bytes transferred.
--proto-default <protocol>
Tells curl to use protocol for any URL missing a scheme name.

Example:

curl --proto-default https ftp.mozilla.org

An unknown or unsupported protocol causes error CURLE_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL (1).

This option does not change the default proxy protocol (http).

Without this option curl would make a guess based on the host, see --url for details.

Added in 7.45.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 25

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--proto-redir <protocols>
Tells curl to limit what protocols it may use on redirect. Protocols denied by --proto are not over-
ridden by this option. See --proto for how protocols are represented.

Example, allow only HTTP and HTTPS on redirect:

curl --proto-redir -all,http,https http://example.com

By default curl will allow all protocols on redirect except several disabled for security reasons:
Since 7.19.4 FILE and SCP are disabled, and since 7.40.0 SMB and SMBS are also disabled.
Specifying all or +all enables all protocols on redirect, including those disabled for security.

Added in 7.20.2.
--proto <protocols>
Tells curl to limit what protocols it may use in the transfer. Protocols are evaluated left to right, are
comma separated, and are each a protocol name or
+ 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 modifica-
tion 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 protocols produce a warning. This allows scripts to safely rely on being able to disable poten-
tially 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.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 26

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

See also --proxy-capath and --cacert and --capath and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-capath <dir>
Same as --capath but used in HTTPS proxy context.

See also --proxy-cacert and -x, --proxy and --capath. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-cert-type <type>
Same as --cert-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.

Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-cert <cert[:passwd]>
Same as -E, --cert but used in HTTPS proxy context.

Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-ciphers <list>
Same as --ciphers but used in HTTPS proxy context.

Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-crlfile <file>
Same as --crlfile but used in HTTPS proxy context.

Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-digest
Tells curl to use HTTP Digest authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use
--digest for enabling HTTP Digest with a remote host.

This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove multiple headers.

Added in 7.37.0.
--proxy-insecure
Same as -k, --insecure but used in HTTPS proxy context.

Added in 7.52.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 27

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--proxy-key-type <type>
Same as --key-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.

Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-key <key>
Same as --key but used in HTTPS proxy context.
--proxy-negotiate
Tells curl to use HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication when communicating with the given
proxy. Use --negotiate for enabling HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) with a remote host.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 28

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-x, --proxy [protocol://]host[:port]
Use the specified proxy.

The proxy string can be specified with a protocol:// prefix. No protocol specified or http:// will be
treated as HTTP proxy. Use socks4://, socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to request a specific
SOCKS version to be used. (The protocol support was added in curl 7.21.7)

HTTPS proxy support via https:// protocol prefix was added in 7.52.0 for OpenSSL, GnuTLS and
NSS.

Unrecognized and unsupported proxy protocols cause an error since 7.52.0. Prior versions may
ignore the protocol and use http:// instead.

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’s an envi-
ronment variable setting a proxy, you can set proxy to "" to override it.

All operations that are performed over an HTTP proxy will transparently be 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 -p, --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 exact same way as the proxy environment variables, including
the protocol prefix (http://) and the embedded user + password.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--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 -x, --proxy, is that attempts to use
CONNECT through the proxy will specify an HTTP 1.0 protocol instead of the default HTTP 1.1.
-p, --proxytunnel
When an HTTP proxy is used -x, --proxy, this option will cause non-HTTP protocols to attempt to
tunnel through the proxy instead of merely using it to do HTTP-like operations. The tunnel
approach is made with the HTTP proxy CONNECT request and requires that the proxy allows
direct connect 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.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 29

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

-Q, --quote
(FTP SFTP) Send an arbitrary command to the remote FTP or SFTP server. Quote commands are
sent BEFORE the transfer takes place (just 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 ’-’.
To make commands be sent after curl has changed the working directory, just before the transfer
command(s), prefix the command with a ’+’ (this is only supported for FTP). You may specify any
number of commands.

If the server returns failure for one of the commands, the entire operation will be 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.

This option can be used multiple times. When speaking to an FTP server, prefix the command with
an asterisk (*) to make curl continue even if the command fails as by default curl will stop at first
failure.

SFTP is a binary protocol. Unlike for FTP, curl interprets SFTP quote commands itself before
sending them to the server. File names may be quoted shell-style to embed spaces or special char-
acters. Following is the list of all supported SFTP quote commands:
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.
pwd The pwd command returns the absolute pathname 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, pro-
vided it is empty.
symlink source_file target_file
See ln.
--random-file <file>
Specify the path name to file containing what will be considered as random data. The data may be
used to seed the random engine for SSL connections. See also the --egd-file option.
-r, --range <range>
(HTTP FTP SFTP FILE) Retrieve a byte range (i.e a partial document) from a HTTP/1.1, FTP or
SFTP server or a local FILE. Ranges can be specified in a number of ways.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 30

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

0-499 specifies the first 500 bytes

500-999 specifies the second 500 bytes
-500 specifies the last 500 bytes
9500- specifies the bytes from offset 9500 and forward
0-0,-1 specifies the first and last byte only(*)(HTTP)
100-199,500-599
specifies two separate 100-byte ranges(*) (HTTP)
(*) = NOTE that this will cause the server to reply with a multipart response!

Only digit characters (0-9) are valid in the ’start’ and ’stop’ fields of the ’start-stop’ range syntax.
If a non-digit character is given in the range, the server’s response will be unspecified, depending
on the server’s configuration.

You should also be aware that many HTTP/1.1 servers do not have this feature enabled, so that
when you attempt to get a range, you’ll instead get the whole document.

FTP and SFTP range downloads only support the simple ’start-stop’ syntax (optionally with one of
the numbers omitted). FTP use depends on the extended FTP command SIZE.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--raw (HTTP) When used, it disables all internal HTTP decoding of content or transfer encodings and
instead makes them passed on unaltered, raw.

Added in 7.16.2.
-e, --referer <URL>
(HTTP) Sends the "Referrer Page" information to the HTTP server. This can also be set with the
-H, --header flag of course. When used with -L, --location you can append ";auto" to the -e, --ref-
erer 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 don’t set an initial -e, --referer.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 31

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

has been used, you must use "-o -" or --no-remote-name.

Added in 7.19.0.
-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 will be 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.

The remote file name to use for saving is extracted from the given URL, nothing else, and if it
already exists it will be overwritten. If you want the server to be able to choose the file name refer
to -J, --remote-header-name which can be used in addition to this option. If the server chooses a
file name and that name already exists it will not be overwritten.

There is no URL decoding done on the file name. If it has %20 or other URL encoded parts of the
name, they will end up as-is as file name.

You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have.
-R, --remote-time
When used, this will make curl attempt to figure out the timestamp of the remote file, and if that is
available make the local file get that same timestamp.
--request-target
(HTTP) Tells curl to 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 doesn’t follow the regular URL pattern, like "OPTIONS *".

Added in 7.55.0.
-X, --request <command>
(HTTP) Specifies a custom request method to use when communicating with the HTTP server.
The specified request method will be 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, but related technologies like WebDAV offers PROPFIND,
COPY, MOVE and more.

Normally you don’t 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. So for example if you want to make a proper HEAD request, using -X HEAD will not
suffice. You need to use the -I, --head option.

The method string you set with -X, --request will be used for all requests, which if you for exam-
ple use -L, --location may cause unintended side-effects when curl doesn’t change request method
according to the HTTP 30x response codes - and similar.

(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. (Added in 7.26.0)

(IMAP) Specifies a custom IMAP command to use instead of LIST. (Added in 7.30.0)

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 32

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

(SMTP) Specifies a custom SMTP command to use instead of HELP or VRFY. (Added in 7.34.0)

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--resolve <host:port:address>
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 will be used for. It means you need several
entries if you want to provide address for the same host but different ports.

The provided address set by this option will be used even if -4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6 is set to make
curl use another IP version.

Support for providing the IP address within [brackets] was added in 7.57.0.

This option can be used many times to add many host names to resolve.

Added in 7.21.3.
--retry-connrefused
In addition to the other conditions, consider ECONNREFUSED as a transient error too for --retry.
This option is used together with --retry.

Added in 7.52.0.
--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 interest-
ing if --retry is also used. Setting this delay to zero will make curl use the default backoff time.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.12.3.
--retry-max-time <seconds>
The retry timer is reset before the first transfer attempt. Retries will be done as usual (see --retry)
as long as the timer hasn’t reached this given limit. Notice that if the timer hasn’t reached the limit,
the request will be made and while performing, it may take longer than this given time period. To
limit a single request´s maximum time, use -m, --max-time. Set this option to zero to not timeout
retries.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.12.3.
--retry <num>
If a transient error is returned when curl tries to perform a transfer, it will retry 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 5xx response code.

When curl is about to retry a transfer, it will first wait one second and then for all forthcoming
retries it will double the waiting time until it reaches 10 minutes which then will be the delay
between the rest of the retries. By using --retry-delay you disable this exponential backoff algo-
rithm. See also --retry-max-time to limit the total time allowed for retries.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 33

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

Added in 7.12.3.
--sasl-ir
Enable initial response in SASL authentication.

Added in 7.31.0.
--service-name <name>
This option allows you to change the service name for SPNEGO.

Examples: --negotiate --service-name sockd would use sockd/server-name.

Added in 7.43.0.
-S, --show-error
When used with -s, --silent, it makes curl show an error message if it fails.
-s, --silent
Silent or quiet mode. Don’t show progress meter or error messages. Makes Curl mute. It will still
output the data you ask for, potentially even to the terminal/stdout unless you redirect it.

Use -S, --show-error in addition to this option to disable progress meter but still show error mes-
sages.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 34

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--socks5-basic
Tells curl to 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.

Added in 7.55.0.
--socks5-gssapi-nec
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.

Added in 7.19.4.
--socks5-gssapi-service <name>
The default service name for a socks server is rcmd/server-fqdn. This option allows you to change
it.

Examples: --socks5 proxy-name --socks5-gssapi-service sockd would use sockd/proxy-name

--socks5 proxy-name --socks5-gssapi-service sockd/real-name would use sockd/real-name for
cases where the proxy-name does not match the principal name.

Added in 7.19.4.
--socks5-gssapi
Tells curl to 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.

Added in 7.55.0.
--socks5-hostname <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy (and let the proxy resolve the host name). If the port number is
not specified, it is assumed at port 1080.

This option overrides any previous use of -x, --proxy, as they are mutually exclusive.

Since 7.21.7, this option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 hostname proxy with -x,
--proxy using a socks5h:// protocol prefix.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.18.0.
--socks5 <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy - but resolve the host name locally. If the port number is not
specified, it is assumed at port 1080.

This option overrides any previous use of -x, --proxy, as they are mutually exclusive.

Since 7.21.7, this option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 proxy with -x, --proxy using
a socks5:// protocol prefix.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 35

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

This option (as well as --socks4) does not work with IPV6, FTPS or LDAP.

Added in 7.18.0.
-Y, --speed-limit <speed>
If a download is slower than this given speed (in bytes per second) for speed-time seconds it gets
aborted. speed-time is set with -y, --speed-time and is 30 if not set.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-y, --speed-time <seconds>
If a download is slower than speed-limit bytes per second during a speed-time period, the down-
load gets aborted. If speed-time is used, the default speed-limit will be 1 unless set with -Y,
--speed-limit.

This option controls transfers and thus will not affect slow connects etc. If this is a concern for
you, try the --connect-timeout option.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--ssl-allow-beast
This option tells curl to not work around a security flaw in the SSL3 and TLS1.0 protocols known
as BEAST. If this option isn’t used, the SSL layer may use workarounds known to cause interop-
erability problems with some older SSL implementations. WARNING: this option loosens the SSL
security, and by using this flag you ask for exactly that.

Added in 7.25.0.
--ssl-no-revoke
(WinSSL) This option tells curl to disable certificate revocation checks. WARNING: this option
loosens the SSL security, and by using this flag you ask for exactly that.

Added in 7.44.0.
--ssl-reqd
(FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP) Require SSL/TLS for the connection. Terminates the connection if the
server doesn’t support SSL/TLS.

This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl-reqd.

Added in 7.20.0.
--ssl (FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP) Try to use SSL/TLS for the connection. Reverts to a non-secure con-
nection if the server doesn’t support SSL/TLS. See also --ftp-ssl-control and --ssl-reqd for differ-
ent levels of encryption required.

This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl (Added in 7.11.0). That option name can still be used
but will be removed in a future version.

Added in 7.20.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 36

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

-2, --sslv2
(SSL) Forces curl to use SSL version 2 when negotiating with a remote SSL server. Sometimes
curl is built without SSLv2 support. SSLv2 is widely considered insecure (see RFC 6176).

See also --http1.1 and --http2. -2, --sslv2 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
TLS. This option overrides -3, --sslv3 and -1, --tlsv1 and --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2.
-3, --sslv3
(SSL) Forces curl to use SSL version 3 when negotiating with a remote SSL server. Sometimes
curl is built without SSLv3 support. SSLv3 is widely considered insecure (see RFC 7568).

See also --http1.1 and --http2. -3, --sslv3 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
TLS. This option overrides -2, --sslv2 and -1, --tlsv1 and --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2.
--stderr Redirect all writes to stderr to the specified file instead. If the file name is a plain ’-’, it is instead
written to stdout.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

TTYPE=<term> Sets the terminal type.

XDISPLOC=<X display> Sets the X display location.

NEW_ENV=<var,val> Sets an environment variable.

--tftp-blksize <value>
(TFTP) Set TFTP BLKSIZE option (must be >512). This is the block size that curl will try to use
when transferring data to or from a TFTP server. By default 512 bytes will be used.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

Added in 7.20.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 37

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--tftp-no-options
(TFTP) Tells curl not to send TFTP options requests.

This option improves interop with some legacy servers that do not acknowledge or properly imple-
ment TFTP options. When this option is used --tftp-blksize is ignored.

Added in 7.48.0.
-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
doesn’t match any internal ones, it is taken as a filename and tries to get the modification date
(mtime) from <file> instead. See the curl_getdate(3) man pages 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 this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--tls-max <VERSION>
(SSL) VERSION defines maximum supported TLS version. A minimum is defined by arguments
tlsv1.0 or tlsv1.1 or tlsv1.2.

default Use up to 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.

See also --tlsv1.0 and --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2. --tls-max requires that the underlying libcurl was built to sup-
port TLS. Added in 7.54.0.
--tlsauthtype <type>
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".

Added in 7.21.4.
--tlspassword
Set password for use with the TLS authentication method specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires
that --tlsuser also be set.

Added in 7.21.4.
--tlsuser <name>
Set username for use with the TLS authentication method specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires
that --tlspassword also is set.

Added in 7.21.4.
--tlsv1.0
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.0 when connecting to a remote TLS server.

Added in 7.34.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 38

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

--tlsv1.1
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.1 when connecting to a remote TLS server.

Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.2
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.2 when connecting to a remote TLS server.

Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.3
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.3 when connecting to a remote TLS server.

Note that TLS 1.3 is only supported by a subset of TLS backends. At the time of this writing, they
are BoringSSL, NSS, and Secure Transport (on iOS 11 or later, and macOS 10.13 or later).

Added in 7.52.0.
-1, --tlsv1
(SSL) Tells curl to use TLS version 1.x when negotiating with a remote TLS server. That means
TLS version 1.0, 1.1 or 1.2.

See also --http1.1 and --http2. -1, --tlsv1 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
TLS. This option overrides --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3.
--tr-encoding
(HTTP) Request a compressed Transfer-Encoding response using one of the algorithms curl sup-
ports, and uncompress the data while receiving it.

Added in 7.21.6.
--trace-ascii <file>
Enables a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including descriptive information, to
the given output file. Use "-" as filename to have the output sent to stdout.

This is very 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.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

This option overrides --trace and -v, --verbose.

--trace-time
Prepends a time stamp to each trace or verbose line that curl displays.

Added in 7.14.0.
--trace <file>
Enables a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including descriptive information, to
the given output file. Use "-" as filename to have the output sent to stdout. Use "%" as filename to
have the output sent to stderr.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.

This option overrides -v, --verbose and --trace-ascii.

--unix-socket <path>
(HTTP) Connect through this Unix domain socket, instead of using the network.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 39

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

Added in 7.40.0.
-T, --upload-file <file>
This transfers the specified local file to the remote URL. If there is no file part in the specified
URL, curl will append the local file name. NOTE that you must use a trailing / on the last directory
to really prove to Curl that there is no file name or curl will think that your last directory name is
the remote file name to use. That will most likely cause the upload operation to fail. If this is used
on an HTTP(S) server, the PUT command will be used.

Use the file name "-" (a single dash) to use stdin instead of a given file. Alternately, the file name
"." (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.

You can specify one -T, --upload-file for each URL on the command line. Each -T, --upload-file +
URL pair specifies what to upload and to where. curl also supports "globbing" of the -T, --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, like this:

curl --upload-file "{file1,file2}" http://www.example.com

or even

curl -T "img[1-1000].png" ftp://ftp.example.com/upload/

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
will not transcode nor encode it further in any way.
--url <url>
Specify a URL to fetch. This option is mostly handy when you want to specify URL(s) in a config
file.

If the given URL is missing a scheme name (such as "http://" or "ftp://" etc) then curl will make a
guess based on the host. If the outermost sub-domain name matches DICT, FTP, IMAP, LDAP,
POP3 or SMTP then that protocol will be used, otherwise HTTP will be used. Since 7.45.0 guess-
ing can be disabled by setting a default protocol, see --proto-default for details.

This option may be used any number of times. To control where this URL is written, use the -o,
--output or the -O, --remote-name options.
-B, --use-ascii
(FTP LDAP) Enable ASCII transfer. For FTP, this can also be enforced by using a URL that ends
with ";type=A". This option causes data sent to stdout to be in text mode for win32 systems.
-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 can also be set with the -H, --header option of
course.

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-u, --user <user:password>
Specify the user name and password to use for server authentication. Overrides -n, --netrc and
--netrc-optional.

If you simply specify the user name, curl will prompt for a password.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 40

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

The user name and passwords are split up on the first colon, which makes it impossible to use a
colon in the user name with this option. The password can, still.

When using Kerberos V5 with a Windows based server you should include the Windows domain
name in the user name, in order for the server to successfully obtain a Kerberos Ticket. If you
don’t then the initial authentication handshake may fail.

When using NTLM, the user name can be specified simply as the user name, 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, EXAMPLE\user and [email protected] 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 user name and password from your envi-
ronment by specifying a single colon with this option: "-u :".

If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
-v, --verbose
Makes curl verbose during the operation. Useful for debugging and seeing what’s going on "under
the hood". A line starting with ’>’ means "header data" sent by curl, ’<’ means "header data"
received by curl that is hidden in normal cases, and a line starting with ’*’ means additional info
provided by curl.

If you only want HTTP headers in the output, -i, --include might be the option you’re looking for.

If you think this option still doesn’t give you enough details, consider using --trace or --trace-ascii
instead.

Use -s, --silent to make curl really quiet.

See also -i, --include. This option overrides --trace and --trace-ascii.
-V, --version
Displays 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.

The second line (starts with "Protocols:") shows all protocols that libcurl reports to support.

The third line (starts with "Features:") shows specific features libcurl reports to offer. Available
features include:
IPv6 You can use IPv6 with this.
krb4 Krb4 for FTP is supported.
SSL SSL versions of various protocols are supported, such as HTTPS, FTPS, POP3S and so
on.
libz Automatic decompression of compressed files over HTTP is supported.
NTLM NTLM authentication is supported.
Debug This curl uses a libcurl built with Debug. This enables more error-tracking and memory
debugging etc. For curl-developers only!

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 41

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

AsynchDNS
This curl uses asynchronous name resolves. Asynchronous name resolves can be done
using either the c-ares or the threaded resolver backends.
SPNEGO
SPNEGO authentication is supported.
Largefile
This curl supports transfers of large files, files larger than 2GB.
IDN This curl supports IDN - international domain names.
GSS-API
GSS-API is supported.
SSPI SSPI is supported.
TLS-SRP
SRP (Secure Remote Password) authentication is supported for TLS.
HTTP2 HTTP/2 support has been built-in.
UnixSockets
Unix sockets support is provided.
HTTPS-proxy
This curl is built to support HTTPS proxy.
Metalink
This curl supports Metalink (both version 3 and 4 (RFC 5854)), which describes mirrors
and hashes. curl will use mirrors for failover if there are errors (such as the file or server
not being available).
PSL PSL is short for Public Suffix List and means that this curl has been built with knowledge
about "public suffixes".
-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 will be 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 just write them as %%. You can output a newline by using \n, a carriage return with \r and a
tab space with \t.

NOTE: The %-symbol is a special symbol in the win32-environment, where all occurrences of %
must be doubled when using this option.

The variables available are:

content_type The Content-Type of the requested document, if there was any.
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 -O, --remote-name or -o, --output option. It’s most
useful in combination with the -J, --remote-header-name option. (Added in
7.26.0)
ftp_entry_path The initial path curl ended up in when logging on to the remote FTP server.
(Added in 7.15.4)

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 42

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

http_code The numerical response code that was found in the last retrieved HTTP(S) or
FTP(s) transfer. In 7.18.2 the alias response_code was added to show the same
info.
http_connect The numerical code that was found in the last response (from a proxy) to a curl
CONNECT request. (Added in 7.12.4)
http_version The http version that was effectively used. (Added in 7.50.0)
local_ip The IP address of the local end of the most recently done connection - can be
either IPv4 or IPv6 (Added in 7.29.0)
local_port The local port number of the most recently done connection (Added in 7.29.0)
num_connects Number of new connects made in the recent transfer. (Added in 7.12.3)
num_redirects Number of redirects that were followed in the request. (Added in 7.12.3)
proxy_ssl_verify_result
The result of the HTTPS proxy’s SSL peer certificate verification that was
requested. 0 means the verification was successful. (Added in 7.52.0)
redirect_url When an HTTP request was made without -L, --location to follow redirects (or
when --max-redir is met), this variable will show the actual URL a redirect
would have gone to. (Added in 7.18.2)
remote_ip The remote IP address of the most recently done connection - can be either
IPv4 or IPv6 (Added in 7.29.0)
remote_port The remote port number of the most recently done connection (Added in
7.29.0)
scheme The URL scheme (sometimes called protocol) that was effectively used (Added
in 7.52.0)
size_download The total amount of bytes that were downloaded.
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.
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. (Added in 7.19.0)
time_appconnect
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the SSL/SSH/etc connect/hand-
shake to the remote host was completed. (Added in 7.19.0)
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 com-
pleted.
time_pretransfer
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the file transfer was just about
to begin. This includes all pre-transfer commands and negotiations that are spe-
cific to the particular protocol(s) involved.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 43

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

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.
(Added in 7.12.3)
time_starttransfer
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the first byte was just about to
be transferred. 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.
url_effective The URL that was fetched last. This is most meaningful if you’ve told curl to
follow location: headers.
If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
--xattr When saving output to a file, this option tells curl to store certain file metadata in extended file
attributes. Currently, 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.
FILES
˜/.curlrc
Default config file, see -K, --config for details.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variables can be specified in lower case or upper case. The lower case version has prece-
dence. 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 -x, --proxy option.

http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for HTTP.
HTTPS_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for HTTPS.
[url-protocol]_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for [url-protocol], where the protocol is a protocol that curl supports
and as specified in a URL. FTP, FTPS, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, LDAP etc.
ALL_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is set.
NO_PROXY <comma-separated list of hosts>
list of host names that shouldn’t go through any proxy. If set to a asterisk ’*’ only, it matches all
hosts.

Since 7.53.0, this environment variable disable the proxy even if specify -x, --proxy option. That is
NO_PROXY=direct.example.com curl -x http://proxy.example.com http://direct.exam-
ple.com accesses the target URL directly, and NO_PROXY=direct.example.com curl -x
http://proxy.example.com http://somewhere.example.com accesses the target URL through
proxy.

PROXY PROTOCOL PREFIXES

Since curl version 7.21.7, 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 doesn’t match a supported one, the proxy will

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 44

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

be treated as an HTTP proxy.

The supported proxy protocol prefixes are as follows:

http:// Makes it use it as a HTTP proxy. The default if no scheme prefix is used.
https:// Makes it treated as a HTTPS proxy.
socks4://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks4
socks4a://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks4a
socks5://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks5
socks5h://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks5-hostname
EXIT CODES
There are a bunch of different error codes and their corresponding error messages that may appear during
bad conditions. At the time of this writing, the exit codes are:
1 Unsupported protocol. This build of curl has no support for this protocol.
2 Failed to initialize.
3 URL malformed. The syntax was not correct.
4 A feature or option that was needed to perform the desired request was not enabled or was explic-
itly disabled at build-time. To make curl able to do this, you probably need another build of
libcurl!
5 Couldn’t resolve proxy. The given proxy host could not be resolved.
6 Couldn’t resolve host. The given remote host was not resolved.
7 Failed to connect to host.
8 Weird server reply. The server sent data curl couldn’t parse.
9 FTP access denied. The server denied login or denied access to the particular resource or directory
you wanted to reach. Most often you tried to change to a directory that doesn’t exist on the server.
10 FTP accept failed. While waiting for the server to connect back when an active FTP session is
used, an error code was sent over the control connection or similar.
11 FTP weird PASS reply. Curl couldn’t parse the reply sent to the PASS request.
12 During an active FTP session while waiting for the server to connect back to curl, the timeout
expired.
13 FTP weird PASV reply, Curl couldn’t parse the reply sent to the PASV request.
14 FTP weird 227 format. Curl couldn’t parse the 227-line the server sent.
15 FTP can’t get host. Couldn’t resolve the host IP we got in the 227-line.
16 HTTP/2 error. A problem was detected in the HTTP2 framing layer. This is somewhat generic and
can be one out of several problems, see the error message for details.
17 FTP couldn’t set binary. Couldn’t change transfer method to binary.
18 Partial file. Only a part of the file was transferred.
19 FTP couldn’t download/access the given file, the RETR (or similar) command failed.
21 FTP quote error. A quote command returned error from the server.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 45

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

22 HTTP page not retrieved. The requested url was not found or returned another error with the
HTTP error code being 400 or above. This return code only appears if -f, --fail is used.
23 Write error. Curl couldn’t write data to a local filesystem or similar.
25 FTP couldn’t STOR file. The server denied the STOR operation, used for FTP uploading.
26 Read error. Various reading problems.
27 Out of memory. A memory allocation request failed.
28 Operation timeout. The specified time-out period was reached according to the conditions.
30 FTP PORT failed. The PORT command failed. Not all FTP servers support the PORT command,
try doing a transfer using PASV instead!
31 FTP couldn’t use REST. The REST command failed. This command is used for resumed FTP
transfers.
33 HTTP range error. The range "command" didn’t work.
34 HTTP post error. Internal post-request generation error.
35 SSL connect error. The SSL handshaking failed.
36 Bad download resume. Couldn’t continue an earlier aborted download.
37 FILE couldn’t read file. Failed to open the file. Permissions?
38 LDAP cannot bind. LDAP bind operation failed.
39 LDAP search failed.
41 Function not found. A required LDAP function was not found.
42 Aborted by callback. An application told curl to abort the operation.
43 Internal error. A function was called with a bad parameter.
45 Interface error. A specified outgoing interface could not be used.
47 Too many redirects. When following redirects, curl hit the maximum amount.
48 Unknown option specified to libcurl. This indicates that you passed a weird option to curl that was
passed on to libcurl and rejected. Read up in the manual!
49 Malformed telnet option.
51 The peer’s SSL certificate or SSH MD5 fingerprint was not OK.
52 The server didn’t reply anything, which here is considered an error.
53 SSL crypto engine not found.
54 Cannot set SSL crypto engine as default.
55 Failed sending network data.
56 Failure in receiving network data.
58 Problem with the local certificate.
59 Couldn’t use specified SSL cipher.
60 Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with known CA certificates.
61 Unrecognized transfer encoding.
62 Invalid LDAP URL.
63 Maximum file size exceeded.
64 Requested FTP SSL level failed.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 46

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

65 Sending the data requires a rewind that failed.

66 Failed to initialise SSL Engine.
67 The user name, password, or similar was not accepted and curl failed to log in.
68 File not found on TFTP server.
69 Permission problem on TFTP server.
70 Out of disk space on TFTP server.
71 Illegal TFTP operation.
72 Unknown TFTP transfer ID.
73 File already exists (TFTP).
74 No such user (TFTP).
75 Character conversion failed.
76 Character conversion functions required.
77 Problem with reading the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?).
78 The resource referenced in the URL does not exist.
79 An unspecified error occurred during the SSH session.
80 Failed to shut down the SSL connection.
82 Could not load CRL file, missing or wrong format (added in 7.19.0).
83 Issuer check failed (added in 7.19.0).
84 The FTP PRET command failed
85 RTSP: mismatch of CSeq numbers
86 RTSP: mismatch of Session Identifiers
87 unable to parse FTP file list
88 FTP chunk callback reported error
89 No connection available, the session will be queued
90 SSL public key does not matched pinned public key
91 Invalid SSL certificate status.
92 Stream error in HTTP/2 framing layer.
XX More error codes will appear here in future releases. The existing ones are meant to never change.
AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS
Daniel Stenberg is the main author, but the whole list of contributors is found in the separate THANKS file.
WWW
https://curl.haxx.se
SEE ALSO
ftp(1), wget(1)

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 47

Curl Vs Wget by Daniel Stenberg
No ratings yet
Curl Vs Wget by Daniel Stenberg
3 pages
Curl Command Cheatsheet
No ratings yet
Curl Command Cheatsheet
1 page
Everything Curl PDF
100% (1)
Everything Curl PDF
308 pages
Everything Curl
No ratings yet
Everything Curl
268 pages
Everything Curl: Readme
No ratings yet
Everything Curl: Readme
350 pages
Curl Tutorial
No ratings yet
Curl Tutorial
15 pages
TODO
No ratings yet
TODO
24 pages
Everything Curl
0% (1)
Everything Curl
510 pages
Curl
No ratings yet
Curl
7 pages
Everything Curl
No ratings yet
Everything Curl
271 pages
BAGUS GE - NGT & Generator Protection Calculation
100% (2)
BAGUS GE - NGT & Generator Protection Calculation
140 pages
TODO
No ratings yet
TODO
20 pages
TODO
No ratings yet
TODO
24 pages
Spaces - LvW30LMWx5oHe1 SY3L PDF 4038903156 PDF
No ratings yet
Spaces - LvW30LMWx5oHe1 SY3L PDF 4038903156 PDF
401 pages
Libcurl Programming Tutorial
No ratings yet
Libcurl Programming Tutorial
28 pages
Curl
No ratings yet
Curl
105 pages
Frequently Askkk
No ratings yet
Frequently Askkk
15 pages
Everything Curl
No ratings yet
Everything Curl
290 pages
Curl
No ratings yet
Curl
35 pages
Hyatt's Interpretation of Pulmonary Function Tests 5th Edition (FULL VERSION DOWNLOAD)
100% (10)
Hyatt's Interpretation of Pulmonary Function Tests 5th Edition (FULL VERSION DOWNLOAD)
15 pages
Curl Guides
No ratings yet
Curl Guides
5 pages
Everything cURL
No ratings yet
Everything cURL
403 pages
NC
No ratings yet
NC
6 pages
Curl Command
100% (1)
Curl Command
16 pages
CouchDB - Curl & Futon
No ratings yet
CouchDB - Curl & Futon
8 pages
Command Line Basics - Everything Curl
No ratings yet
Command Line Basics - Everything Curl
2 pages
Curl Commands
No ratings yet
Curl Commands
7 pages
cURL Command Tutorial With Examples
100% (1)
cURL Command Tutorial With Examples
19 pages
58 Curl
No ratings yet
58 Curl
1 page
FAQ
No ratings yet
FAQ
27 pages
Curl, Wget
No ratings yet
Curl, Wget
10 pages
Tutorial CURL
No ratings yet
Tutorial CURL
14 pages
FAQ
No ratings yet
FAQ
27 pages
cURL - How To Use
No ratings yet
cURL - How To Use
51 pages
cURL - How To Use
No ratings yet
cURL - How To Use
38 pages
Everything Curl
No ratings yet
Everything Curl
309 pages
FAQ
No ratings yet
FAQ
26 pages
Curl Manual
No ratings yet
Curl Manual
3 pages
CURL
No ratings yet
CURL
11 pages
Manual Nagios
No ratings yet
Manual Nagios
7 pages
Linux Fundamentals 5
No ratings yet
Linux Fundamentals 5
1 page
Curl Cheat Sheet
No ratings yet
Curl Cheat Sheet
7 pages
Small Codes: Tutorial
No ratings yet
Small Codes: Tutorial
15 pages
Proxies - Everything Curl
No ratings yet
Proxies - Everything Curl
10 pages
Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )
No ratings yet
Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )
30 pages
Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )
No ratings yet
Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )
35 pages
Curl
No ratings yet
Curl
24 pages
FAQ
No ratings yet
FAQ
27 pages
Ace 150 250 Manual English
No ratings yet
Ace 150 250 Manual English
50 pages
Curl - How To Use
No ratings yet
Curl - How To Use
84 pages
Curl
No ratings yet
Curl
9 pages
Downloading and Installing cURL: $ Sudo Apt-Get Install Curl
No ratings yet
Downloading and Installing cURL: $ Sudo Apt-Get Install Curl
2 pages
Curl Tutorial: Simple Usage
No ratings yet
Curl Tutorial: Simple Usage
26 pages
Web Requests
No ratings yet
Web Requests
37 pages
Bochs User Manual
No ratings yet
Bochs User Manual
70 pages
Trubend 5000 Series Retrofitting Guide
No ratings yet
Trubend 5000 Series Retrofitting Guide
18 pages
15 Tips On How To Use Curl' Command in Linux
No ratings yet
15 Tips On How To Use Curl' Command in Linux
5 pages
Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )
No ratings yet
Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )
27 pages
Payslip
No ratings yet
Payslip
1 page
Mock Drill Report
No ratings yet
Mock Drill Report
2 pages
Ifrs 7 Financial Instruments Disclosures
No ratings yet
Ifrs 7 Financial Instruments Disclosures
70 pages
Mep 2020 Nov
No ratings yet
Mep 2020 Nov
1 page
Bochs Developers Guide
No ratings yet
Bochs Developers Guide
57 pages
15 Practical Linux cURL Command Examples (cURL Download Examples)
No ratings yet
15 Practical Linux cURL Command Examples (cURL Download Examples)
4 pages
Conference Interpreting
No ratings yet
Conference Interpreting
28 pages
China e Rotchields
No ratings yet
China e Rotchields
155 pages
Encoders
No ratings yet
Encoders
24 pages
Agenda & Report 2024-2
No ratings yet
Agenda & Report 2024-2
67 pages
#2 Lab Report Revised
No ratings yet
#2 Lab Report Revised
2 pages
Criminal Procedure - Reviewer
No ratings yet
Criminal Procedure - Reviewer
16 pages
Social Emotional Learning Self-Regulation. Education Presentation Colorful Illustrative Style
No ratings yet
Social Emotional Learning Self-Regulation. Education Presentation Colorful Illustrative Style
23 pages
Roccal SDS
No ratings yet
Roccal SDS
7 pages
annotated-BUREAU OF CORRECTIONS
No ratings yet
annotated-BUREAU OF CORRECTIONS
6 pages
Channel Partner Training Deck
No ratings yet
Channel Partner Training Deck
5 pages
OASIS Native QuickHelp
No ratings yet
OASIS Native QuickHelp
21 pages
Hw6 Solution
No ratings yet
Hw6 Solution
11 pages
7.PELAN ID 6116 - EC221 - Updated 26.02.2019
No ratings yet
7.PELAN ID 6116 - EC221 - Updated 26.02.2019
1 page
Limitations of Social Welfare System.
No ratings yet
Limitations of Social Welfare System.
7 pages
The Short-Run Trade-Off Between Inflation and Unemployment (Chapter 22, N. Gregory Mankiw, "Principles of Macroeconomics")
No ratings yet
The Short-Run Trade-Off Between Inflation and Unemployment (Chapter 22, N. Gregory Mankiw, "Principles of Macroeconomics")
7 pages
Kaleen Butterfield Resume Summer 2014
No ratings yet
Kaleen Butterfield Resume Summer 2014
2 pages
7z Manual
No ratings yet
7z Manual
3 pages
Se Bits Unit Bit 5
No ratings yet
Se Bits Unit Bit 5
5 pages
DWG-04.11-ME-021 Pri - Sludge - Pump - Station1 (r.6) PDF
No ratings yet
DWG-04.11-ME-021 Pri - Sludge - Pump - Station1 (r.6) PDF
5 pages
Drager Fabius Gs Draeger Medical
No ratings yet
Drager Fabius Gs Draeger Medical
8 pages
Odyssey Battery ODX-AGM31
No ratings yet
Odyssey Battery ODX-AGM31
1 page
Cuple Bosal
No ratings yet
Cuple Bosal
9 pages
LSHW
No ratings yet
LSHW
2 pages
Pages From (Peter L Booen) FIDIC-Contracts-Guide For New Editions-5
No ratings yet
Pages From (Peter L Booen) FIDIC-Contracts-Guide For New Editions-5
1 page
Name Synopsis: Chroot Chroot OPTION
No ratings yet
Name Synopsis: Chroot Chroot OPTION
1 page
Hack into your Friends Computer
From Everand
Hack into your Friends Computer
Magelan Cyber Security
No ratings yet
Living with Linux in the Industrial World
From Everand
Living with Linux in the Industrial World
Elaiya Iswera Lallan
No ratings yet
CompTIA Security+: Network Attacks
From Everand
CompTIA Security+: Network Attacks
AS Snipes
5/5 (1)
DRBD-Cookbook: How to create your own cluster solution, without SAN or NAS!
From Everand
DRBD-Cookbook: How to create your own cluster solution, without SAN or NAS!
Joerg Christian Seubert
No ratings yet
First Hop Redundancy Protocol: Network Redundancy Protocol
From Everand
First Hop Redundancy Protocol: Network Redundancy Protocol
Mulayam Singh
No ratings yet
Configuration of a Simple Samba File Server, Quota and Schedule Backup
From Everand
Configuration of a Simple Samba File Server, Quota and Schedule Backup
Dr. Hidaia Mahmood Alassouli
No ratings yet

Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )

Uploaded by

Name Synopsis Description: Curl (Options) (URL... )

Uploaded by

curl(1) Curl Manual curl(1)

or you can get sequences of alphanumeric series by using [] as in:

ftp://ftp.example.com/file[001-100].txt (with leading zeros)

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 1

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 2

from stdin, the upload operation will fail.

Used together with -u, --user.

See also --proxy-anyauth and --basic and --digest.

Used together with -u, --user.

See also --proxy-basic.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 3

See also -E, --cert and --key and --key-type.

See also --cert-type and --key and --key-type.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 4

-K, --config <file>

# --- Example file ---

# and fetch another URL too

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 5

See also -m, --max-time.

See also --resolve and -H, --header. Added in 7.49.0.

See also -r, --range.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 6

or the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file format.

To create remote directories when using FTP or SFTP, try --ftp-create-dirs.

(SMTP added in 7.40.0)

See also -d, --data. Added in 7.43.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 7

See also -d, --data and --data-raw. Added in 7.18.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 8

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 9

See also -o, --output.

See also --random-file.

See also --connect-timeout. Added in 7.47.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 10

See also -F, --form.

curl -F [email protected] https://example.com/upload.cgi

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 11

curl -F "[email protected];type=text/html" example.com

curl -F "name=daniel;type=text/foo" example.com

curl -F "file=@localfile;filename=nameinpost" example.com

If filename/path contains ’,’ or ’;’, it must be quoted by double-quotes like:

curl -F "file=@\"localfile\";filename=\"nameinpost\"" example.com

curl -F ’file=@"localfile";filename="nameinpost"’ example.com

curl -F ’colors="red; green; blue";type=text/x-myapp’ example.com

curl -F "submit=OK;headers=\"X-submit-type: OK\"" example.com

curl -F "submit=OK;headers=@headerfile" example.com

# This file contain two headers.

# The following header is folded.

To support sending multipart mail messages, the syntax is extended as follows:

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 12

curl -F ’=text message;encoder=quoted-printable’ \

See further examples and details in the MANUAL.

This option can be used multiple times.

See also --create-dirs.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 13

This is the default but the slowest behavior.

See also --disable-epsv. Added in 7.11.0.

See also --ftp-pasv and --disable-eprt.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 14

See also --ftp-pasv. Added in 7.14.2.

See also --ftp-ssl-ccc. Added in 7.16.2.

See also --ssl and --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode. Added in 7.16.1.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 15

See also the -A, --user-agent and -e, --referer options.

curl -H "X-First-Name: Joe" http://example.com/

This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove multiple headers.

This option overrides --http1.1 and --http2.

This option overrides -0, --http1.0 and --http2. Added in 7.33.0.

Curl 7.58.0 November 16, 2016 16

To view the request headers, consider the -v, --verbose option.

See also -v, --verbose.

See this online resource for further details:

See also --proxy-insecure and --cacert.

curl --interface eth0:1 https://www.example.com/

See also --dns-interface.

See also -b, --cookie and -c, --cookie-jar.