AXEL(1)

NAME
axel - A light download accelerator for Linux.

SYNOPSIS
axel [OPTIONS] [url] [local file]

DESCRIPTION
axel is a program that downloads a file from a FTP or HTTP server through multiple connection, each connection downloads a specific part of the file. Unlike most other programs, axel downloads all the data directly to the destination file, using one single thread. Some people claim that this is wrong, but it works perfectly for me.

OPTIONS

One argument is required, the URL to the file you want to download. When downloading from FTP, the filename may contain wildcards. Downloaded data will be put in a local file with the same name, unless you specify a different name as the second argument. This local file can't be - for stdout, of course, since we can't lseek it. Using a temporary file would be necessary for this. You can specify - as a URL, by the way. The program will read the URL from standard input then, so the URL won't show up in the 'ps aux' output.

Other options:

--max-speed=x, -s x
    You can specify a speed (bytes per second) here and axel will try to keep the average speed around this speed. Useful if you don't want the program to suck up all of your bandwidth.

--num-connections=y, -n y
    You can specify an alternative number of connections here.

--no-proxy, -N
    Don't use any proxy server to download the file. Not possible when a transparent proxy is active somewhere, of course.

--quiet, -q
    No output to stdout.

--help, -h
    A brief summary of all the options.

--version, -V
    Get version information.

RESOURCES
The program tries to use as little resources as possible, as explained above. If you know a way to make the program lighter, please tell me.

FILES

/etc/axelrc System-wide configuration file

~/.axelrc Personal configuration file

These files are not documented in a man-page, but the example file which comes with the program contains enough information, I hope. The position of the system-wide configuration file might be different.

COPYRIGHT
axel is Copyright 2001 Wilmer van der Gaast.

BUGS

I'm sure there are some bugs left somewhere, please tell me about them and I will try to fix them.

AUTHORS
Wilmer van der Gaast. (lintux@lintux.cx)