Provided by: linkchecker_9.3-1+deb8u1build0.16.04.1_amd64 bug

NAME

       linkchecker - command line client to check HTML documents and websites for broken links

SYNOPSIS

       linkchecker [options] [file-or-url]...

DESCRIPTION

       LinkChecker features

       •      recursive and multithreaded checking,

       •      output  in  colored  or  normal  text,  HTML,  SQL,  CSV, XML or a sitemap graph in
              different formats,

       •      support for HTTP/1.1, HTTPS, FTP, mailto:, news:,  nntp:,  Telnet  and  local  file
              links,

       •      restriction of link checking with URL filters,

       •      proxy support,

       •      username/password authorization for HTTP, FTP and Telnet,

       •      support for robots.txt exclusion protocol,

       •      support for Cookies

       •      support for HTML5

       •      HTML and CSS syntax check

       •      Antivirus check

       •      a command line, GUI and web interface

EXAMPLES

       The most common use checks the given domain recursively:
         linkchecker http://www.example.com/
       Beware  that  this  checks  the  whole  site which can have thousands of URLs.  Use the -r
       option to restrict the recursion depth.
       Don't check URLs with /secret in its name. All other links are checked as usual:
         linkchecker --ignore-url=/secret mysite.example.com
       Checking a local HTML file on Unix:
         linkchecker ../bla.html
       Checking a local HTML file on Windows:
         linkchecker c:\temp\test.html
       You can skip the http:// url part if the domain starts with www.:
         linkchecker www.example.com
       You can skip the ftp:// url part if the domain starts with ftp.:
         linkchecker -r0 ftp.example.com
       Generate a sitemap graph and convert it with the graphviz dot utility:
         linkchecker -odot -v www.example.com | dot -Tps > sitemap.ps

OPTIONS

   General options
       -fFILENAME, --config=FILENAME
              Use   FILENAME   as   configuration   file.    As    default    LinkChecker    uses
              ~/.linkchecker/linkcheckerrc.

       -h, --help
              Help me! Print usage information for this program.

       --stdin
              Read list of white-space separated URLs to check from stdin.

       -tNUMBER, --threads=NUMBER
              Generate  no  more  than  the given number of threads. Default number of threads is
              100. To disable threading specify a non-positive number.

       -V, --version
              Print version and exit.

       --list-plugins
              Print available check plugins and exit.

   Output options
       -DSTRING, --debug=STRING
              Print debugging output for  the  given  logger.   Available  loggers  are  cmdline,
              checking,  cache,  gui, dns and all.  Specifying all is an alias for specifying all
              available loggers.  The option can be given multiple times to debug with more  than
              one logger.   For accurate results, threading will be disabled during debug runs.

       -FTYPE[/ENCODING][/FILENAME], --file-output=TYPE[/ENCODING][/FILENAME]
              Output  to  a file linkchecker-out.TYPE, $HOME/.linkchecker/blacklist for blacklist
              output, or FILENAME if specified.  The ENCODING specifies the output encoding,  the
              default    is   that   of   your   locale.    Valid   encodings   are   listed   at
              http://docs.python.org/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings.
              The FILENAME and ENCODING parts of the none output type will be  ignored,  else  if
              the  file already exists, it will be overwritten.  You can specify this option more
              than once. Valid file output types  are  text,  html,  sql,  csv,  gml,  dot,  xml,
              sitemap,  none  or  blacklist.  Default is no file output. The various output types
              are documented below. Note that you can suppress all console output with the option
              -o none.

       --no-status
              Do not print check status messages.

       --no-warnings
              Don't log warnings. Default is to log warnings.

       -oTYPE[/ENCODING], --output=TYPE[/ENCODING]
              Specify  output  type  as  text,  html,  sql,  csv, gml, dot, xml, sitemap, none or
              blacklist.  Default type is text. The various output types are documented below.
              The ENCODING specifies the output encoding, the default is  that  of  your  locale.
              Valid  encodings are listed at http://docs.python.org/library/codecs.html#standard-
              encodings.

       -q, --quiet
              Quiet operation, an alias for -o none.  This is only useful with -F.

       -v, --verbose
              Log all checked URLs. Default is to log only errors and warnings.

       -WREGEX, --warning-regex=REGEX
              Define a regular expression which prints a warning if it matches any content of the
              checked link.  This applies only to valid pages, so we can get their content.
              Use this to check for pages that contain some form of error, for example "This page
              has moved" or "Oracle Application error".
              Note that multiple values can be combined in the regular  expression,  for  example
              "(This page has moved|Oracle Application error)".
              See section REGULAR EXPRESSIONS for more info.

   Checking options
       --cookiefile=FILENAME
              Read a file with initial cookie data. The cookie data format is explained below.

       --check-extern
              Check external URLs.

       --ignore-url=REGEX
              URLs matching the given regular expression will be ignored and not checked.
              This option can be given multiple times.
              See section REGULAR EXPRESSIONS for more info.

       -NSTRING, --nntp-server=STRING
              Specify  an  NNTP  server  for  news:  links.  Default  is the environment variable
              NNTP_SERVER. If no host is given, only the syntax of the link is checked.

       --no-follow-url=REGEX
              Check but do not recurse into URLs matching the given regular expression.
              This option can be given multiple times.
              See section REGULAR EXPRESSIONS for more info.

       -p, --password
              Read a password from console and use it for HTTP and FTP  authorization.   For  FTP
              the default password is anonymous@. For HTTP there is no default password. See also
              -u.

       -rNUMBER, --recursion-level=NUMBER
              Check recursively all links up to  given  depth.   A  negative  depth  will  enable
              infinite recursion.  Default depth is infinite.

       --timeout=NUMBER
              Set  the  timeout  for  connection  attempts  in seconds. The default timeout is 60
              seconds.

       -uSTRING, --user=STRING
              Try the given username for  HTTP  and  FTP  authorization.   For  FTP  the  default
              username is anonymous. For HTTP there is no default username. See also -p.

       --user-agent=STRING
              Specify   the   User-Agent   string  to  send  to  the  HTTP  server,  for  example
              "Mozilla/4.0". The default is "LinkChecker/X.Y" where X.Y is the current version of
              LinkChecker.

CONFIGURATION FILES

       Configuration files can specify all options above. They can also specify some options that
       cannot be set on the command line.  See linkcheckerrc(5) for more info.

OUTPUT TYPES

       Note that by default only errors and warnings are logged.  You should  use  the  --verbose
       option to get the complete URL list, especially when outputting a sitemap graph format.

       text   Standard text logger, logging URLs in keyword: argument fashion.

       html   Log  URLs  in keyword: argument fashion, formatted as HTML.  Additionally has links
              to the referenced pages.  Invalid  URLs  have  HTML  and  CSS  syntax  check  links
              appended.

       csv    Log check result in CSV format with one URL per line.

       gml    Log parent-child relations between linked URLs as a GML sitemap graph.

       dot    Log parent-child relations between linked URLs as a DOT sitemap graph.

       gxml   Log check result as a GraphXML sitemap graph.

       xml    Log check result as machine-readable XML.

       sitemap
              Log   check   result   as   an   XML   sitemap  whose  protocol  is  documented  at
              http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html.

       sql    Log check result as SQL script with INSERT commands. An example  script  to  create
              the initial SQL table is included as create.sql.

       blacklist
              Suitable  for cron jobs. Logs the check result into a file ~/.linkchecker/blacklist
              which only contains entries with invalid URLs and the number  of  times  they  have
              failed.

       none   Logs nothing. Suitable for debugging or checking the exit code.

REGULAR EXPRESSIONS

       LinkChecker    accepts    Python   regular   expressions.    See   http://docs.python.org/
       howto/regex.html for an introduction.

       An addition is that a leading exclamation mark negates the regular expression.

COOKIE FILES

       A cookie file contains standard HTTP header (RFC 2616) data with  the  following  possible
       names:

       Host (required)
              Sets the domain the cookies are valid for.

       Path (optional)
              Gives the path the cookies are value for; default path is /.

       Set-cookie (required)
              Set cookie name/value. Can be given more than once.

       Multiple  entries  are separated by a blank line.  The example below will send two cookies
       to all URLs starting with http://example.com/hello/ and one  to  all  URLs  starting  with
       https://example.org/:

        Host: example.com
        Path: /hello
        Set-cookie: ID="smee"
        Set-cookie: spam="egg"

        Host: example.org
        Set-cookie: baggage="elitist"; comment="hologram"

PROXY SUPPORT

       To  use  a  proxy  on  Unix  or  Windows  set  the $http_proxy, $https_proxy or $ftp_proxy
       environment  variables  to  the   proxy   URL.   The   URL   should   be   of   the   form
       http://[user:pass@]host[:port].    LinkChecker  also  detects  manual  proxy  settings  of
       Internet Explorer under Windows systems, and gconf or KDE on Linux systems.  On a Mac  use
       the  Internet Config to select a proxy.  You can also set a comma-separated domain list in
       the $no_proxy environment variables to  ignore  any  proxy  settings  for  these  domains.
       Setting a HTTP proxy on Unix for example looks like this:

         export http_proxy="http://proxy.example.com:8080"

       Proxy authentication is also supported:

         export http_proxy="http://user1:mypass@proxy.example.org:8081"

       Setting a proxy on the Windows command prompt:

         set http_proxy=http://proxy.example.com:8080

PERFORMED CHECKS

       All  URLs  have  to  pass  a  preliminary syntax test. Minor quoting mistakes will issue a
       warning, all other invalid syntax issues are errors.  After the syntax check  passes,  the
       URL is queued for connection checking. All connection check types are described below.

       HTTP links (http:, https:)
              After connecting to the given HTTP server the given path or query is requested. All
              redirections are followed, and if  user/password  is  given  it  will  be  used  as
              authorization  when  necessary.   All  final  HTTP  status codes other than 2xx are
              errors.  HTML page contents are checked for recursion.

       Local files (file:)
              A regular, readable file that can be opened is valid. A readable directory is  also
              valid.  All other files, for example device files, unreadable or non-existing files
              are errors.  HTML or other parseable file contents are checked for recursion.

       Mail links (mailto:)
              A mailto: link eventually resolves to a list of email addresses.   If  one  address
              fails,  the  whole  list  will  fail.  For each mail address we check the following
              things:
                1) Check the adress syntax, both of the part before and after
                   the @ sign.
                2) Look up the MX DNS records. If we found no MX record,
                   print an error.
                3) Check if one of the mail hosts accept an SMTP connection.
                   Check hosts with higher priority first.
                   If no host accepts SMTP, we print a warning.
                4) Try to verify the address with the VRFY command. If we got
                   an answer, print the verified address as an info.

       FTP links (ftp:)

                For FTP links we do:

                1) connect to the specified host
                2) try to login with the given user and password. The default
                   user is ``anonymous``, the default password is ``anonymous@``.
                3) try to change to the given directory
                4) list the file with the NLST command

       Telnet links (``telnet:``)

                We try to connect and if user/password are given, login to the
                given telnet server.

       NNTP links (``news:``, ``snews:``, ``nntp``)

                We try to connect to the given NNTP server. If a news group or
                article is specified, try to request it from the server.

       Unsupported links (``javascript:``, etc.)

                An unsupported link will only print a warning. No further checking
                will be made.

                The complete list of recognized, but unsupported links can be found
                in the linkcheck/checker/unknownurl.py source file.
                The most prominent of them should be JavaScript links.

PLUGINS

       There are two plugin types: connection and content plugins.  Connection  plugins  are  run
       after  a  successful  connection to the URL host.  Content plugins are run if the URL type
       has content (mailto: URLs have no content for example) and if the check is  not  forbidden
       (ie.  by HTTP robots.txt).  See linkchecker --list-plugins for a list of plugins and their
       documentation. All plugins are enabled via the linkcheckerrc(5) configuration file.

RECURSION

       Before descending recursively into a URL, it has to fulfill several conditions.  They  are
       checked in this order:

       1. A URL must be valid.

       2. A URL must be parseable. This currently includes HTML files,
          Opera bookmarks files, and directories. If a file type cannot
          be determined (for example it does not have a common HTML file
          extension, and the content does not look like HTML), it is assumed
          to be non-parseable.

       3. The URL content must be retrievable. This is usually the case
          except for example mailto: or unknown URL types.

       4. The maximum recursion level must not be exceeded. It is configured
          with the --recursion-level option and is unlimited per default.

       5. It must not match the ignored URL list. This is controlled with
          the --ignore-url option.

       6. The Robots Exclusion Protocol must allow links in the URL to be
          followed recursively. This is checked by searching for a
          "nofollow" directive in the HTML header data.

       Note  that  the  directory  recursion reads all files in that directory, not just a subset
       like index.htm*.

NOTES

       URLs on the commandline starting with ftp. are treated like ftp://ftp., URLs starting with
       www. are treated like http://www..  You can also give local files as arguments.

       If you have your system configured to automatically establish a connection to the internet
       (e.g. with diald), it will connect when checking links not pointing to  your  local  host.
       Use the --ignore-url option to prevent this.

       Javascript links are not supported.

       If your platform does not support threading, LinkChecker disables it automatically.

       You can supply multiple user/password pairs in a configuration file.

       When  checking  news: links the given NNTP host doesn't need to be the same as the host of
       the user browsing your pages.

ENVIRONMENT

       NNTP_SERVER - specifies default NNTP server
       http_proxy - specifies default HTTP proxy server
       ftp_proxy - specifies default FTP proxy server
       no_proxy - comma-separated list of domains to not contact over a proxy server
       LC_MESSAGES, LANG, LANGUAGE - specify output language

RETURN VALUE

       The return value is 2 when

       •      a program error occurred.

       The return value is 1 when

       •      invalid links were found or

       •      link warnings were found and warnings are enabled

       Else the return value is zero.

LIMITATIONS

       LinkChecker consumes memory for each queued URL to check. With thousands  of  queued  URLs
       the  amount of consumed memory can become quite large. This might slow down the program or
       even the whole system.

FILES

       ~/.linkchecker/linkcheckerrc - default configuration file
       ~/.linkchecker/blacklist - default blacklist logger output filename
       linkchecker-out.TYPE - default logger file output name
       http://docs.python.org/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings - valid output encodings
       http://docs.python.org/howto/regex.html - regular expression documentation

SEE ALSO

       linkcheckerrc(5)

AUTHOR

       Bastian Kleineidam <bastian.kleineidam@web.de>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2000-2014 Bastian Kleineidam