Manpage of LYNX

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

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

-

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

-accept_all_cookies

accept all cookies.

-anonymous

apply restrictions for anonymous account, see also -restrictions.

-assume_charset=MIMEname

charset for documents that don't specify it.

-assume_local_charset=MIMEname

charset assumed for local files.

-assume_unrec_charset=MIMEname

use this instead of unrecognized charsets.

-auth=ID:PASSWD

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

-base

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

-bibp=URL

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

-blink

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

-book

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

-buried_news

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

-cache=NUMBER

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

-case

enable case-sensitive string searching.

-center

Toggle center alignment in HTML TABLE.

-cfg=FILENAME

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

-child

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

-cmd_log=FILENAME

write keystroke commands and related information to the specified file.

-cmd_script=FILENAME

read keystroke commands from the specified file. You can use the data written using the -cmd_log option. Lynx will ignore other information which the command-logging may have written to the logfile.

-color

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

-connect_timeout=N

Sets the connection timeout, where N is given in seconds. This is not available under DOS (use the sockdelay parameter of WATTCP under DOS).

-cookie_file=FILENAME

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

-cookie_save_file=FILENAME

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

-cookies

toggles handling of Set-Cookie headers.

-core

toggles forced core dumps on fatal errors.

-crawl

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

-curses_pads

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

-debug_partial

separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs delay

-display=DISPLAY

set the display variable for X rexec-ed programs.

-display_charset=MIMEname

set the charset for the terminal output.

-dont_wrap_pre

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

-dump

dumps the formatted output of the default document or one specified on the command line to standard output. This can be used in the following way:

lynx -dump http://www.trill-home.com/lynx.html

-editor=EDITOR

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

-emacskeys

enable emacs-like key movement.

-enable_scrollback

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

-error_file=FILE

define a file where Lynx will report HTTP access codes.

-exec

enable local program execution (normally not configured).

-fileversions

include all versions of files in local VMS directory listings.

-force_empty_hrefless_a

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

-force_html

forces the first document to be interpreted as HTML.

-force_secure

toggles forcing of the secure flag for SSL cookies.

-forms_options

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

-from

toggles transmissions of From headers.

-ftp

disable ftp access.

-get_data

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

-head

send a HEAD request for the mime headers.

-help

print the Lynx command syntax usage message.

-hiddenlinks=[option]

control the display of hidden links.

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

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

ignore hidden links do not appear even in listings.

-historical

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

-homepage=URL

set homepage separate from start page.

-image_links

toggles inclusion of links for all images.

-index=URL

set the default index file to the specified URL.

-ismap

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

-justify

do justification of text.

-link=NUMBER

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

-localhost

disable URLs that point to remote hosts.

-locexec

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

-lss=FILENAME

specify filename containing color-style information. The default is lynx.lss.

-mime_header

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

-minimal

toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing.

-newschunksize=NUMBER

number of articles in chunked news listings.

-newsmaxchunk=NUMBER

maximum news articles in listings before chunking.

-nobold

disable bold video-attribute.

-nobrowse

disable directory browsing.

-nocc

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

-nocolor

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

-noexec

disable local program execution. (DEFAULT)

-nofilereferer

disable transmissions of Referer headers for file URLs.

-nolist

disable the link list feature in dumps.

-nolog

disable mailing of error messages to document owners.

-nonrestarting_sigwinch

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

-nopause

disable forced pauses for statusline messages.

-noprint

disable most print functions.

-noredir

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

-noreferer

disable transmissions of Referer headers.

-noreverse

disable reverse video-attribute.

-nosocks

disable SOCKS proxy usage by a SOCKSified Lynx.

-nostatus

disable the retrieval status messages.

-nounderline

disable underline video-attribute.

-number_fields

force numbering of links as well as form input fields

-number_links

force numbering of links.

-partial

toggles display partial pages while loading.

-partial_thres=NUMBER

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

-pauth=ID:PASSWD

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

-popup

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

-post_data

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

-preparsed

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

-prettysrc

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

-print

enable print functions. (default)

-pseudo_inlines

toggles pseudo-ALTs for inlines with no ALT string.

-raw

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

-realm

restricts access to URLs in the starting realm.

-reload

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

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

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

all - restricts all options listed below.

bookmark - disallow changing the location of the bookmark file.

bookmark_exec - disallow execution links via the bookmark file.

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

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

dired_support - disallow local file management.

disk_save - disallow saving to disk in the download and print menus.

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

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

editor - disallow external editing.

exec - disable execution scripts.

exec_frozen - disallow the user from changing the local execution option.

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

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

goto - disable the 'g' (goto) command.

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

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

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

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

jump - disable the 'j' (jump) command.

multibook - disallow multiple bookmarks.

mail - disallow mail.

news_post - disallow USENET News posting.

options_save - disallow saving options in .lynxrc.

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

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

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

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

print - disallow most print options.

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

suspend - disallow Unix Control-Z suspends with escape to shell.

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

useragent - disallow modifications of the User-Agent header.

-resubmit_posts

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

-rlogin

disable recognition of rlogin commands.

-scrollbar

toggles showing scrollbar.

-scrollbar_arrow

toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar.

-selective

require .www_browsable files to browse directories.

-short_url

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

-show_cursor

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

-show_rate

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

-soft_dquotes

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

-source

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

-stack_dump

disable SIGINT cleanup handler

-startfile_ok

allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate.

-stdin

read the startfile from standard input (UNIX only).

-syslog=text

information for syslog call.

-tagsoup

initialize parser, using Tag Soup DTD rather than SortaSGML.

-telnet

disable recognition of telnet commands.

-term=TERM

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

-timeout=N

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

-tlog

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

-tna

turns on "Textfields Need Activation" mode.

-trace

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

-trace_mask=value

turn on optional traces, which may result in very large trace files. Logically OR the values to combine options:
1=SGML character parsing states
2=color-style
4=TRST (table layout)

-traversal

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

trim_input_fields

trim input text/textarea fields in forms.

-underscore

toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps.

-use_mouse

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

-useragent=Name

set alternate Lynx User-Agent header.

-validate

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

-verbose

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

-version

print version information.

-vikeys

enable vi-like key movement.

-wdebug

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

-width=NUMBER

number of columns for formatting of dumps, default is 80.

-with_backspaces

emit backspaces in output if -dumping or -crawling (like 'man' does)

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

Others may be created or modified by Lynx to pass data to an external program, or for other reasons. These are listed separately below.

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

Note: Not all environment variables apply to all types of platforms supported by Lynx, though most do. Feedback on platform dependencies is solicited.

COLORTERM: If set, color capability for the terminal is forced on at startup time. The actual value assigned to the variable is ignored. This variable is only meaningful if Lynx was built using the slang screen-handling library.
LYNX_CFG: This variable, if set, will override the default location and name of the global configuration file (normally, lynx.cfg) that was defined by the LYNX_CFG_FILE constant in the userdefs.h file, during installation. See the userdefs.h file for more information.
LYNX_LSS: This variable, if set, specifies the location of the default Lynx character style sheet file. [Currently only meaningful if Lynx was built using experimental color style support.]
LYNX_SAVE_SPACE: This variable, if set, will override the default path prefix for files saved to disk that is defined in the lynx.cfg SAVE_SPACE: statement. See the lynx.cfg file for more information.
LYNX_TEMP_SPACE: This variable, if set, will override the default path prefix for temporary files that was defined during installation, as well as any value that may be assigned to the TMPDIR variable.
MAIL: This variable specifies the default inbox Lynx will check for new mail, if such checking is enabled in the lynx.cfg file.
NEWS_ORGANIZATION: This variable, if set, provides the string used in the Organization: header of USENET news postings. It will override the setting of the ORGANIZATION environment variable, if it is also set the contents of an /etc/organization file, if present).
NNTPSERVER: If set, this variable specifies the default NNTP server that will be used for USENET news reading and posting with Lynx, via news: URL's.
ORGANIZATION: This variable, if set, provides the string used in the Organization: header of USENET news postings. On UNIX, it will override the contents of an /etc/organization file, if present.
PROTOCOL_proxy: Lynx supports the use of proxy servers that can act as firewall gateways and caching servers. They are preferable to the older gateway servers (see WWW_access_GATEWAY, below). Each protocol used by Lynx, (http, ftp, gopher, etc), can be mapped separately by setting environment variables of the form PROTOCOL_proxy (literally: http_proxy, ftp_proxy, gopher_proxy, etc), to "http://some.server.dom:port/". See Lynx Users Guide for additional details and examples.
WWW_access_GATEWAY: Lynx still supports use of gateway servers, with the servers specified via "WWW_access_GATEWAY" variables (where "access" is lower case and can be "http", "ftp", "gopher" or "wais"), however most gateway servers have been discontinued. Note that you do not include a terminal '/' for gateways, but do for proxies specified by PROTOCOL_proxy environment variables. See Lynx Users Guide for details.
WWW_HOME: This variable, if set, will override the default startup URL specified in any of the Lynx configuration files.

LYNX_PRINT_DATE: This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Date: string seen in the document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No Date" under VMS.
LYNX_PRINT_LASTMOD: This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Last Mod: string seen in the document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No LastMod" under VMS.
LYNX_PRINT_TITLE: This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the Linkname: string seen in the document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No Title" under VMS.
LYNX_PRINT_URL: This variable is set by the Lynx p(rint) function, to the URL: string seen in the document's "Information about" page (= cmd), if any. It is created for use by an external program, as defined in a lynx.cfg PRINTER: definition statement. If the field does not exist for the document, the variable is set to a null string under UNIX, or "No URL" under VMS.
LYNX_TRACE: If set, causes Lynx to write a trace file as if the -trace option were supplied.
LYNX_VERSION: This variable is always set by Lynx, and may be used by an external program to determine if it was invoked by Lynx. See also the comments in the distribution's sample mailcap file, for notes on usage in such a file.
TERM: Normally, this variable is used by Lynx to determine the terminal type being used to invoke Lynx. If, however, it is unset at startup time (or has the value "unknown"), or if the -term command-line option is used (see OPTIONS section above), Lynx will set or modify its value to the user specified terminal type (for the Lynx execution environment). Note: If set/modified by Lynx, the values of the LINES and/or COLUMNS environment variables may also be changed.

LYNX

LYNX

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

COMMANDS

ENVIRONMENT

SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT

NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT

NOTES

SEE ALSO

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHORS