lynx
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
NAME
lynx - a general purpose distributed information browser
for the World Wide Web
SYNOPSIS
Lynx [options] [path or URL]
use "lynx -help" to display a complete list of current
options.
DESCRIPTION
Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for
users running cursor-addressable, character-cell display
devices (e.g., vt100 terminals, vt100 emulators running on
PCs or Macs, or any other "curses-oriented" display). It
will display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents
containing links to files residing on the local system, as
well as files residing on remote systems running Gopher,
HTTP, FTP, WAIS, and NNTP servers. Current versions of
Lynx run on UNIX and VMS.
Lynx can be used to access information on the World Wide
Web, or to build information systems intended primarily
for local access. For example, Lynx has been used to
build several Campus Wide Information Systems (CWIS). In
addition, Lynx can be used to build systems isolated
within a single LAN.
OPTIONS
At start up, Lynx will load any local file or remote URL
specified at the command line. For help with URLs, press
"?" or "h" while running Lynx. Then follow the link
titled, "Help on URL's."
- If the only argument is '-', 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).
-anonymous
used to specify the anonymous account.
-ascii disable kanji code translation when Japanese mode
is on.
-auth=ID:PASSWD
set authorization ID and password for protected
documents at startup.
-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 refer-
ences, and converts them to news links. Not recom-
mended 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.
-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.
-crawl with -traversal, output each page to a file. with
-dump, format output as with -traversal, but to
stdout.
-display=DISPLAY
set the display variable for X rexeced programs.
-dump dumps the formatted output of the default document
or one specified on the command line to standard
out. This can be used in the following way: lynx
-dump http://www.w3.org/default.html.
-editor=EDITOR
enable edit mode using the specified EDITOR. (vi,
ed, emacs, etc.)
-emacskeys
enable emacs-like key movement.
-enable_scrollback
toggle compatibility with comm programs' scrollback
keys (may be incompatible with some curses pack-
ages).
-error_file=FILE
define a file where Lynx will report HTTP access
codes.
-euc set kanji code to EUC when Japanese mode is on.
-fileversions
include all versions of files in local VMS
directory listings.
-force_html
forces the first document to be interpreted as
HTML.
-ftp disable ftp access.
-get_data
send form data from stdin using GET method and dump
results.
-head send a HEAD request for the mime headers.
-help print this Lynx command syntax usage message.
-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.
-jpn toggles Japanese character translations on or off.
-link=UMBER
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).
-mime_header
prints the MIME header of a fetched document along
with its source.
-minimal
toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing.
-nobrowse
disable directory browsing.
-noexec
disable local program execution. (DEFAULT)
-nolist
disable the link list feature in dumps.
-nolog disable mailing of error messages to document own-
ers.
-noprint
disable print functions.
-noredir
prevents automatic redirection and prints a message
with a link to the new URL.
-nostatus
disable the retrieval status messages.
-number_links
force numbering of links.
-post_data
send form data from stdin using POST method and
dump results.
-print enable print functions. (default)
-pseudo_inlines
toggles pseudo-ALTs for inlines with no ALT string.
-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 selec-
tively. The following list is printed if no
options are specified.
all - restricts all options.
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 direc-
tories) when local file management is enabled.
default - same as command line option -anonymous.
Disables default services for anonymous users.
Currently set to all restricted except for:
inside_telnet, outside_telnet, inside_news,
inside_ftp, outside_ftp, inside_rlogin, out-
side_rlogin, jump, mail and goto. Defaults are
setable within userdefs.h.
dired_support - disallow local file management.
disk_save - disallow saving binary files to disk in
the download menu.
download - disallow downloaders in the download
menu.
editor - disallow editing.
exec - disable execution scripts.
exec_frozen - disallow the user from changing the
local execution option.
file_url - disallow using G)oto to go to file:
URL's.
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 peo-
ple coming from inside your domain (utmp required
for selectivity).
inside_rlogin - disallow rlogins for people coming
from inside your domain (utmp required for selec-
tivity).
inside_telnet - disallow telnets for people coming
from inside your domain (utmp required for selec-
tivity).
jump - disable the 'j' (jump) command.
mail - disable mailing feature.
news_post - disable USENET News posting.
options_save - disallow saving options in .lynxrc.
outside_ftp - disallow ftps for people coming from
outside your domain (utmp required for selectiv-
ity).
outside_news - disallow USENET news posting for
people coming from outside your domain (utmp
required for selectivity).
outside_rlogin - disallow rlogins for people coming
from outside your domain (utmp required for selec-
tivity).
outside_telnet - disallow telnets for people coming
from outside your domain (utmp required for selec-
tivity).
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.
-rlogin
disable recognition of rlogin commands.
-selective
require .www_browsable files to browse directories.
-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 cur-
sor is the default for systems without FANCY_CURSES
capabilities, and the default configuration can be
changed in userdefs.h.
-sjis set kanji code to Shift JIS when Japanese mode is
on.
-source
works the same as dump but outputs HTML source
instead of formatted text.
-telnet
disable recognition of telnet commands.
-term=TERM
tell Lynx what terminal type to assume its 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.)
-trace turns on WWW trace mode.
-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.
-underscore
toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps.
-validate
accept only http URLs (for validation). Complete
security restrictions also are implemented.
-version
print version information.
-vikeys
enable vi-like key movement.
COMMANDS
o Use Up arrow and Down arrow to scroll through hypertext
links.
o Right arrow or Return will follow a highlighted hyper-
text link.
o Left Arrow will retreat from a link.
o Type "h" or "?" for online help and descriptions of key-
stroke commands.
o Type "k" for a complete list of the current key-stroke
command mappings.
NOTES
This is the Lynx 2.5 Release for UN*X/VMS
If you wish to contribute to the further development of
Lynx, subscribe to our mailing list. Send email to
<majordomo@sig.net> with "subscribe lynx-dev" as the only
line in the body of your message.
Send bug reports, comments, suggestions to <lynx-
dev@sig.net> after subscribing.
Unsubscribe by sending email to <majordomo@sig.net> with
"unsubscribe lynx-dev" as the only line in the body of
your message. Do not send the unsubscribe message to the
lynx-dev list, itself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lynx has incorporated code from a variety of sources along
the way. The earliest versions of Lynx included code from
Earl Fogel of Computing Services at the University of
Saskatchewan, who implemented HYPERREZ in the UN*X
environment. HYPERREZ was developed by Niel Larson of
Think.com and served as the model for the early versions
of Lynx. Those versions also incorporated libraries from
the UN*X Gopher clients developed at the University of
Minnesota, and the later versions of Lynx rely on the WWW
client library code developed by Tim Berners-Lee and the
WWW community. Also a special thanks to Foteos Macrides
who ported much of Lynx to VMS and to everyone on the net
who has contributed to Lynx's development either directly
(through comments or bug reports) or indirectly (through
inspiration and development of other systems).
AUTHORS
Lou Montulli, Garrett Blythe, Craig Lavender, Michael
Grobe, Charles Rezac
Academic Computing Services
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66047
Foteos Macrides
Worcester Foundation
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts 01545
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
Copyright (C) 1998
Hurricane Electric.
All Rights Reserved.