ARIA2C(1)

DESCRIPTION

aria2 is a utility for downloading files. The supported protocols are HTTP(S), FTP, BitTorrent, and Metalink. It can download a file from multiple sources/protocols and tries to utilize your maximum download bandwidth. It supports downloading a file from HTTP(S)/FTP and BitTorrent at the same time, while the data downloaded from HTTP(S)/FTP is uploaded to the BitTorrent swarm. Using Metalink's chunk checksums, aria2 automatically validates chunks of data while downloading a file like BitTorrent.

OPTIONS

Basic Options

-d, --dir=DIR: The directory to store the downloaded file.
-i, --input-file=FILE: Downloads URIs found in FILE. You can specify multiple URIs for a single entity: separate URIs on a single line using the TAB character. Reads input from stdin when - is specified.
-l, --log=LOG: The file name of the log file. If - is specified, log is written to stdout.
-j, --max-concurrent-downloads=N: Set maximum number of parallel downloads for every static (HTTP/FTP) URL, torrent and metalink. Default: 5
--check-integrity=true|false: Check file integrity by validating piece hash. This option only affects in BitTorrent downloads and Metalink downloads with chunk checksums. Use this option to re-download a damaged portion of a file. Default: false
-c, --continue: Continue downloading a partially downloaded file. Use this option to resume a download started by a web browser or another program which downloads files sequentially from the beginning. Currently this option is only applicable to HTTP(S)/FTP downloads.
-h, --help[=CATEGORY]: Print usage and exit. The help messages are classified in several categories. For example, type "--help=http" for detailed explanation for the options related to HTTP. If no matching category is found, search option name using a given word in middle match and print the result. Available Values: basic, advanced, http, ftp, metalink, bittorrent, all Default: basic

HTTP/FTP Options

--connect-timeout=SEC: Set the connect timeout in seconds to establish connection to HTTP/FTP/proxy server. After the connection is established, this option makes no effect and --timeout option is used instead. Default: 60
--lowest-speed-limit=SPEED: Close connection if download speed is lower than or equal to this value(bytes per sec). 0 means aria2 does not have a lowest speed limit. You can append K or M(1K = 1024, 1M = 1024K). This option does not affect BitTorrent downloads. Default: 0
--max-file-not-found=NUM: If aria2 recieves `file not found' status from the remote HTTP/FTP servers NUM times without getting a single byte, then force the download to fail. Specify 0 to disable this option. This options is only effective only when using HTTP/FTP servers. Default: 0
-m, --max-tries=N: Set number of tries. 0 means unlimited. Default: 5
-o, --out=FILE: The file name of the downloaded file.

Note	In Metalink, BitTorrent download you cannot specify file name. The file name specified here is only used when the URLs fed to aria2 is done by command line without -i, -Z option, like this: aria2c -o myfile.zip http://mirror1/file.zip http://mirror2/file.zip

-R, --remote-time[=true|false]: Retrieve timestamp of the remote file from the remote HTTP/FTP server and if it is available, apply it to the local file. Default: false
--retry-wait=SEC: Set the seconds to wait to retry after an error has occured. Specify a value between 0 and 60. Default: 5
--server-stat-of=FILE: Specify the filename to which performance profile of the servers is saved. You can load saved data using --server-stat-if option. See SERVER PERFORMANCE PROFILE section below for file format.
--server-stat-if=FILE: Specify the filename to load performance profile of the servers. The loaded data will be used in some URI selector such as feedback. See also --uri-selector option. See SERVER PERFORMANCE PROFILE section below for file format.
--server-stat-timeout=SEC: Specifies timeout in seconds to invalidate performance profile of the servers since the last contact to them. Default: 86400 (24hours)
-s, --split=N: Download a file using N connections. If more than N URLs are given, first N URLs are used and remaining URLs are used for backup. If less than N URLs are given, those URLs are used more than once so that N connections total are made simultaneously. N must be between 1 and 16. Please see -j option too. Default: 5
-t, --timeout=SEC: Set timeout in seconds. Default: 60
--uri-selector=SELECTOR: Specify URI selection algorithm. Possible values are inorder and feedback. If inorder is given, URI is tried in the order appeared in the URI list. If feedback is given, aria2 uses download speed observed in the previous downloads and choose fastest server in the URI list. This also effectively skips dead mirrors. The observed download speed is a part of performance profile of servers mentioned in --server-stat-of and --server-stat-if options. Default: inorder

HTTP Specific Options

--http-auth-scheme=SCHEME: Set HTTP authentication scheme. Currently, basic is the only supported scheme. Default: basic
--http-user=USER: Set HTTP user. This affects all URLs.
--http-passwd=PASSWD: Set HTTP password. This affects all URLs.
--http-proxy=HOST:PORT: Use HTTP proxy server. This affects all URLs.
--http-proxy-user=USER: Set HTTP proxy user. This affects all URLs.
--http-proxy-passwd=PASSWD: Set HTTP proxy password. This affects all URLs.
--http-proxy-method=METHOD: Set the method to use in proxy request. METHOD is either get or tunnel. Default: tunnel
--referer=REFERER: Set Referer. This affects all URLs.
--enable-http-keep-alive[=true|false]: Enable HTTP/1.1 persistent connection. Default: true
--enable-http-pipelining[=true|false]: Enable HTTP/1.1 pipelining. Default: false
--header=HEADER: Append HEADER to HTTP request header. You can use this option repeatedly to specify more than one header: aria2c --header="X-A: b78" --header="X-B: 9J1" http://host/file
--load-cookies=FILE: Load Cookies from FILE using the Firefox3 format(SQLite3) and the Mozilla/Firefox(1.x/2.x)/Netscape format.

Note	If aria2 is build without libsqlite3, then it doesn't support Firefox3 cookie.

-U, --user-agent=USER_AGENT: Set user agent for HTTP(S) downloads.

FTP Specific Options

--ftp-user=USER: Set FTP user. This affects all URLs. Default: anonymous
--ftp-passwd=PASSWD: Set FTP password. This affects all URLs. Default: ARIA2USER@
-p, --ftp-pasv: Use passive mode in FTP.
--ftp-type=TYPE: Set FTP transfer type. TYPE is either binary or ascii. Default: binary
--ftp-reuse-connection[=true|false]: Reuse connection in FTP. Default: true
--ftp-via-http-proxy=METHOD: Use HTTP proxy in FTP. METHOD is either get or tunnel. Default: tunnel
-n, --no-netrc: Disables netrc support. netrc support is enabled by default.

BitTorrent/Metalink Options

--select-file=INDEX…: Set file to download by specifing its index. You can find the file index using the --show-files option. Multiple indexes can be specified by using ",", for example: 3,6. You can also use "-" to specify a range: 1-5. "," and "-" can be used together: 1-5,8,9. When used with the -M option, index may vary depending on the query (see --metalink-* options).

Note	In multi file torrent, the adjacent files specified by this option may also be downloaded. This is by design, not a bug. A single piece may include several files or part of files, and aria2 writes the piece to the appropriate files.

-S, --show-files: Print file listing of .torrent or .metalink file and exit. In case of .torrent file, additional information (infohash, piece length, etc) is also printed.

BitTorrent Specific Options

--bt-max-open-files=NUM: Specify maximum number of files to open in each BitTorrent download. Default: 100
--bt-min-crypto-level=plain|arc4: Set minimum level of encryption method. If several encryption methods are provided by a peer, aria2 chooses a lowest one which satisfies the given level. Default: plain
--bt-require-crypto=true|false: If true is given, aria2 doesn't accept and establish connection with legacy BitTorrent handshake(\19BitTorrent protocol). Thus aria2 always uses Obfuscation handshake. Default: false
--bt-request-peer-speed-limit=SPEED: In BitTorrent downloads, if the download speed is lower than SPEED, aria2 initiates and accepts connections ignoring max peer cap. You can append K or M(1K = 1024, 1M = 1024K). Default: 51200
--bt-seed-unverified[=true|false]: Seed previously downloaded files without verifying piece hashes. Default: false
--dht-entry-point=HOST:PORT: Set host and port as an entry point to DHT network.
--dht-file-path=PATH: Change the DHT routing table file to PATH. Default: $HOME/.aria2/dht.dat
--dht-listen-port=PORT…: Set UDP listening port for DHT. Multiple ports can be specified by using ",", for example: 6881,6885. You can also use "-" to specify a range: 6881-6999. "," and "-" can be used together. Default: 6881-6999
--direct-file-mapping=true|false: Directly read from and write to each file mentioned in .torrent file. Use this option if lots of files are listed in .torrent file and aria2 complains it cannot open files anymore. Default: true
--enable-dht[=true|false]: Enable DHT functionality. If a private flag is set in a torrent, aria2 doesn't use DHT for that download even if true is given. Default: false
--enable-peer-exchange[=true|false]: Enable Peer Exchange extension. If a private flag is set in a torrent, this feature is disabled for that download even if true is given. Default: true
--follow-torrent=true|false|mem: If true or mem is specified, when a file whose suffix is ".torrent" or content type is "application/x-bittorrent" is downloaded, aria2 parses it as a torrent file and downloads files mentioned in it. If mem is specified, a torrent file is not written to the disk, but is just kept in memory. If false is specified, the action mentioned above is not taken. Default: true
--listen-port=PORT…: Set TCP port number for BitTorrent downloads. Multiple ports can be specified by using ",", for example: 6881,6885. You can also use "-" to specify a range: 6881-6999. "," and "-" can be used together: 6881-6889,6999. Default: 6881-6999

Note	Make sure that the specified ports are open for incoming TCP traffic.

--max-upload-limit=SPEED: Set max upload speed in bytes per sec. 0 means unrestricted. You can append K or M(1K = 1024, 1M = 1024K). Default: 0
--peer-id-prefix=PEERI_ID_PREFIX: Specify the prefix of peer ID. The peer ID in BitTorrent is 20 byte length. If more than 20 bytes are specified, only first 20 bytes are used. If less than 20 bytes are specified, the random alphabet characters are added to make it's length 20 bytes. Default: -aria2-
--seed-ratio=RATIO: Specify share ratio. Seed completed torrents until share ratio reaches] RATIO. I strongly encourages you to specify equals or more than 1.0 here. Specify 0.0 if you intend to do seeding regardless of share ratio. If --seed-time option is specified along with this option, seeding ends when at least one of the conditions is satisfied. Default: 1.0
--seed-time=MINUTES: Specify seeding time in minutes. Also see the --seed-ratio option.
-T, --torrent-file=TORRENT_FILE: The path to the .torrent file. You may not use this option because you can specify torrent file without -T.

Metalink Specific Options

--follow-metalink=true|false|mem: If true or mem is specified, when a file whose suffix is ".metaink" or content type is "application/metalink+xml" is downloaded, aria2 parses it as a metalink file and downloads files mentioned in it. If mem is specified, a metalink file is not written to the disk, but is just kept in memory. If false is specified, the action mentioned above is not taken. Default: true
-M, --metalink-file=METALINK_FILE: The file path to .metalink file. You may not use this option because you can specify metalink file without -M.
-C, --metalink-servers=NUM_SERVERS: The number of servers to connect to simultaneously. Some metalinks regulates the number of servers to connect. aria2 respects them. Default: 5
--metalink-language=LANGUAGE: The language of the file to download.
--metalink-location=LOCATION[,…]: The location of the preferred server. A comma-deliminated list of locations is acceptable, for example, JP,US.
--metalink-os=OS: The operating system of the file to download.
--metalink-version=VERSION: The version of the file to download.
--metalink-preferred-protocol=PROTO: Specify preferred protocol. The possible values are http, https, ftp and none. Specifiy none to disable this feature. Default: none
--metalink-enable-unique-protocol=true|false: If true is given and several protocols are available for a mirror in a metalink file, aria2 uses one of them. Use --metalink-preferred-protocol option to specify the preference of protocol. Default: true

Advanced Options

--allow-overwrite=true|false: If false is given, aria2 doesn't download a file which already exists but the corresponding .aria2 file doesn't exist. In HTTP(S)/FTP download, if --auto-file-renaming=true then, file name will be renamed. See --auto-file-renaming for details. Default: false
--allow-piece-length-change=true|false: If false is given, aria2 aborts download when a piece length is different from one in a control file. If true is given, you can proceed but some download progress will be lost. Default: false
--async-dns[=true|false]: Enable asynchronous DNS. Default: true
--auto-file-renaming[=true|false]: Rename file name if the same file already exists. This option works only in HTTP(S)/FTP download. The new file name has a dot and a number(1..9999) appended. Default: true
--auto-save-interval=SEC: Save a control file(*.aria2) every SEC seconds. If 0 is given, a control file is not saved during download. aria2 saves a control file when it stops regardless of the value. The possible values are between 0 to 600. Default: 60
--conf-path=PATH: Change the configuration file path to PATH. Default: $HOME/.aria2/aria2.conf
-D, --daemon: Run as daemon.
--enable-direct-io[=true|false]: Enable directI/O, which lowers cpu usage while allocating/checking files. Turn off if you encounter any error. Default: false
--file-allocation=METHOD: Specify file allocation method. METHOD is either none or prealloc. none doesn't pre-allocate file space. prealloc pre-allocates file space before download begins. This may take some time depending on the size of the file. Default: prealloc
--log-level=LEVEL: Set log level to output. LEVEL is either debug, info, notice, warn or error. Default: debug
--summary-interval=SEC: Set interval in seconds to output download progress summary. Setting 0 suppresses the output. Default: 60

Note	In multi file torrent, the files adjacent forward to the specified files are also allocated if they share a same piece.

-Z, --force-sequential[=true|false]: Fetch URIs in the command-line sequentially and download each URI in a separate session, like the usual command-line download utilities. Default: false
--max-download-limit=SPEED: Set max download speed in bytes per sec. 0 means unrestricted. You can append K or M(1K = 1024, 1M = 1024K). Default: 0
--no-conf: Disable loading aria2.conf file.
--no-file-allocation-limit=SIZE: No file allocation is made for files whose size is smaller than SIZE. You can append K or M(1K = 1024, 1M = 1024K). Default: 5M
-P, --parameterized-uri[=true|false]: Enable parameterized URI support. You can specify set of parts: http://{sv1,sv2,sv3}/foo.iso. Also you can specify numeric sequences with step counter: http://host/image[000-100:2].img. A step counter can be omitted. If all URIs do not point to the same file, such as the second example above, -Z option is required. Default: false
-q, --quiet[=true|false]: Make aria2 quite (no console output). Default: false
--realtime-chunk-checksum=true|false: Validate chunk of data by calculating checkusm while download a file if chunk checksums are provided. Currently Metalink is the only way to to provide chunk checksums. Default: true
--stop=SEC: Stop application after SEC seconds has passed. If 0 is given, this feature is disabled. Default: 0
-v, --version: Print the version number, copyright and the configuration information and exit.

URL, TORRENT_FILE, METALINK_FILE

You can specify multiple URLs in command-line. Unless you specify -Z option, all URLs must point to the same file or downloading will fail.

You can also specify arbitrary number of torrent files and metalink files stored in a local drive. Please note that they are always treated as a separate download.

You can specify both torrent file with -T option and URLs. By doing this, download a file from both torrent swarm and HTTP(S)/FTP server at the same time, while the data from HTTP(S)/FTP are uploaded to the torrent swarm. Note that only single file torrent can be integrated with HTTP(S)/FTP.

Note	Make sure that URL is quoted with single(') or double(") quotation if it contains "&" or any characters that have special meaning in shell.

EXAMPLES

HTTP/FTP Segmented Download

Download a file

aria2c http://host/file.zip

Note	aria2 uses 5 connections to download 1 file by default.

Download a file using 1 connection

aria2c -s1 http://host/file.zip

Note	aria2 uses 5 connections to download 1 file by default. -s1 limtis the number of connections to just 1.

Note	To pause a download, press Ctrl-C. You can resume the transfer by running aria2c with the same argument at the same directory. You can change URLs as long as they are pointing to the same file.

Download a file from 2 different HTTP servers

aria2c http://host/file.zip http://mirror/file.zip

Download a file from HTTP and FTP servers

aria2c http://host1/file.zip ftp://host2/file.zip

Download files listed in a file concurrently

aria2c -ifiles.txt -j2

Note	-j option specifies the number of parallel downloads.

Metalink Download

Download files with remote Metalink

aria2c --follow-metalink=mem http://host/file.metalink

Download using a local metalink file

aria2c -p --lowest-speed-limit=4000 file.metalink

Note	To pause a download, press Ctrl-C. You can resume the transfer by running aria2c with the same argument at the same directory.

Download several local metalink files

aria2c -j2 file1.metalink file2.metalink

Download only selected files using index

aria2c --select-file=1-4,8 file.metalink

Note	The index is printed to the console using -S option.

Download a file using a local .metalink file with user preference

aria2c --metalink-location=JP,US --metalink-version=1.1 --metalink-language=en-US file.metalink

BitTorrent Download

Download files from remote BitTorrent file

aria2c --follow-torrent=mem http://host/file.torrent

Download using a local torrent file

aria2c --max-upload-limit=40K file.torrent

Note	--max-upload-limit specifies the max of upload rate.

Note	To pause a download, press Ctrl-C. You can resume the transfer by run aria2c with the same argument at the same directory.

Download 2 torrents

aria2c -j2 file1.torrent file2.torrent

Download a file using torrent and HTTP/FTP server

aria2c -Ttest.torrent http://host1/file ftp://host2/file

Note	Downloading multi file torrent with HTTP/FTP is not supported.

Download only selected files using index(usually called "selectable download")

aria2c --select-file=1-4,8 file.torrent

Note	The index is printed to the console using -S option.

Change the listening port for incoming peer

aria2c --listen-port=7000-7001,8000 file.torrent

Note	Since aria2 doesn't configure firewall or router for port forwarding, it's up to you to do it manually.

Specify the condition to stop program after torrent download finished

aria2c --seed-time=120 --seed-ratio=1.0 file.torrent

Note	In the above example, the program exists when the 120 minutes has elapsed since download completed or seed ratio reaches 1.0.

Throttle upload speed

aria2c --max-upload-limit=100K file.torrent

Enable DHT

aria2c --enable-dht --dht-listen-port=6881 file.torrent

Note	DHT uses udp port. Since aria2 doesn't configure firewall or router for port forwarding, it's up to you to do it manually.

More advanced HTTP features

Load cookies

aria2c --load-cookies=cookies.txt http://host/file.zip

Note	You can use Firefox/Mozilla's cookie file without modification.

Resume download started by web browsers or another programs

aria2c -c -s2 http://host/partiallydownloadedfile.zip

And more advanced features

Throttle download speed

aria2c --max-download-limit=100K file.metalink

Repair a damaged download using --check-integrity option

aria2c --check-integrity=true file.metalink

Note	This option is only available used with BitTorrent or metalink with chunk checksums.

Drop connection if download speed is lower than specified value

aria2c --lowest-speed-limit=10K file.metalink

Parameterized URI support

You can specify set of parts:

aria2c -P http://{host1,host2,host3}/file.iso

You can specify numeric sequence:

aria2c -Z -P http://host/image[000-100].png

Note	-Z option is required if the all URIs don't point to the same file, such as the above example.

You can specify step counter:

aria2c -Z -P http://host/image[A-Z:2].png

Parallel downloads of arbitrary number of URL,metalink,torrent

aria2c -j3 -Z http://host/file1 file2.torrent file3.metalink

BitTorrent Encryption

Encrypt whole payload using ARC4:

aria2c --bt-min-crypto-level=arc4 --bt-require-crypto=true file.torrent

CONTROL FILE

aria2 uses a control file to keep track the progress of download. A control file is placed at the same directory of the dowloading file and its filename is the filename of downloading file with ".aria2" appended. For example, if you are downloading file.zip, then the control file should be file.zip.aria2. (There is a exception for this naming convention. If you are downloading a multi torrent, its control file is the "top directory" name of the torrent with ".aria2" appended. The "top directory" name is a value of "name" key in "info" directory in a torrent file.)

Usually a control file is deleted once download completed. If aria2 decides that download cannot be resumed(for example, when downloading a file from a HTTP server which doesn't support resume), a control file is not created.

Normally if you lose a control file, you cannot resume download. But if you have a torrent or metalink with chunk checksums for the file, you can resume the download without a control file by giving --check-integrity=true option to aria2c in command-line.

SERVER PERFORMANCE PROFILE

This section describes the format of server performance profile. The file is plain text and each line has several NAME=VALUE pair, delimited by comma. Currently following NAMEs are recognized:

host: Hostname of the server. Required.
protocol: Protocol for this profile, such as ftp, http. Required.
dl_speed: The average download speed observed in the previous download in bytes per sec. Required.
last_updated: Last contact time in GMT with this server, specified in the seconds from the Epoch. Required.
status: ERROR is set when server cannot be reached or out-of-service or timeout occurred. Otherwise, OK is set.

Those fields must exist in one line. The order of the fields is not significant.You can put pairs other than above; they are simply ignored.

An example is follow:

host=localhost, protocol=http, dl_speed=32000, last_updated=1222491640, status=OK
host=localhost, protocol=ftp, dl_speed=0, last_updated=1222491632, status=ERROR

FILES

aria2.conf

User configuration file. It must be placed under $HOME/.aria2 and must be named as aria2.conf. In each line, there is 1 parameter whose syntax is name=value pair, where name is the long command-line option name without -- prefix. The lines beginning # are treated as comments.

# sample configuration file for aria2c
listen-port=60000
dht-listen-port=60000
seed-ratio=1.0
max-upload-limit=50K
ftp-pasv=true

dht.dat

By default, the routing table of DHT is saved to the path $HOME/.aria2/dht.dat.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

In addition, as a special exception, the copyright holders give permission to link the code of portions of this program with the OpenSSL library under certain conditions as described in each individual source file, and distribute linked combinations including the two. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the code used other than OpenSSL. If you modify file(s) with this exception, you may extend this exception to your version of the file(s), but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version. If you delete this exception statement from all source files in the program, then also delete it here.

ARIA2C(1) Manual Page

NAME

SYNOPSIS