LYNX(1) General Commands Manual LYNX(1)
NAME
lynx - a general purpose distributed information browser for the World Wide Web
SYNOPSIS
lynx [options] [optional paths or URLs]
lynx [options] [path or URL] -get_data
data
--
lynx [options] [path or URL] -post_data
data
--
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 Windows 95/NT/XP/7/8 or any POSIX platform, 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, VMS, Windows 95/NT/XP/7/8, DOS DJGPP and OS/2.
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 URLs.”
If more than one local file or remote URL is listed on the command line, Lynx will open only the last interactively. All of
the names (local files and remote URLs) are added to the G)oto history.
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 shown with one dash “-” before them, and with underscores
“_”).
Lynx provides many command-line options. Some options require a value (string, number or keyword). These are noted in the
reference below. The other options set boolean values in the program. There are three types of boolean options: set, unset
and toggle. If no option value is given, these have the obvious meaning: set (to true), unset (to false), or toggle
(between true/false). For any of these, an explicit value can be given in different forms to allow for operating system
constraints, e.g.,
-center:off
-center=off
-center-
Lynx recognizes “1”, “+”, “on” and “true” for true values, and “0”, “-”, “off” and “false” for false values. Other option-
values are ignored.
The default boolean, number and string option values that are compiled into Lynx are displayed in the help-message provided
by lynx -help. Some of those may differ according to how Lynx was built; see the help message itself for these values. The
-help option is processed in the third pass of options-processing, so any option which sets a value, as well as runtime
configuration values are reflected in the help-message.
- If the argument is only “-”, then Lynx expects to receive the arguments from the standard input. 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 do not specify it.
-assume_local_charset=MIMEname
charset assumed for local files, i.e., files which Lynx creates such as internal pages for the options menu.
-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 outputs for -source dumps.
-bibhost=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 and associated print/mail options.
-child_relaxed
exit on left-arrow in startfile, but allow save to disk and associated print/mail options.
-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. Each line of the command script
contains either a comment beginning with “#”, or a keyword:
exit
causes the script to stop, and forces Lynx to exit immediately.
key
the character value, in printable form. Cursor and other special keys are given as names, e.g., “Down Arrow”.
Printable 7-bit ASCII codes are given as-is, and hexadecimal values represent other 8-bit codes.
set
followed by a “name=value” allows one to override values set in the lynx.cfg or .lynxrc files. Lynx tries the
cfg-file setting first.
-collapse_br_tags
toggles collapsing of BR tags.
-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.
-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. Turn this option off to ask Lynx to force a core dump if a fatal error
occurs.
-crawl with -traversal, output each page to a file. with -dump, format output as with -traversal, but to the standard
output.
-curses_pads
toggles the use of curses “pad” feature which supports left/right scrolling of the display. The feature is normally
available for curses configurations, but inactive. To activate it, use the “|” character or the LINEWRAP_TOGGLE
command. Toggling this option makes the feature altogether unavailable.
-debug_partial
separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs delay
-default_colors
toggles the default-colors feature which is normally set in the lynx.cfg file.
-delay add DebugSecs delay after each progress-message
-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 when -dump'ing and -crawl'ing, mark wrapped lines of in interactive session.
-dump dumps the formatted output of the default document or those specified on the command line to standard output. Unlike
interactive mode, all documents are processed. This can be used in the following way:
lynx -dump http://www.subir.com/lynx
Files specified on the command line are formatted as HTML if their names end with one of the standard web suffixes
such as “.htm” or “”. Use the -force option to format files whose names do not follow this convention.
-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.
-find_leaks
toggle memory leak-checking. Normally this is not compiled-into your executable, but when it is, it can be disabled
for a session.
-force_empty_hrefless_a
force HREF-less “A” elements to be empty (close them as soon as they are seen).
-force
forces the first document to be interpreted as HTML.
This is most useful when processing files specified on the command line which have an unrecognized suffix (or the
suffix is associated with a non-HTML type, such as “.txt” for plain text files).
Lynx recognizes these file suffixes as HTML:
“.ht3”,
“.htm”,
“3”,
“”,
“x”,
“.php3”,
“.php”,
“.”,
“.sht”, and
“.”.
-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 the standard input and passed to the form. Input is
terminated by a line that starts with “---”.
Lynx issues an HTTP GET, sending the form to the path or URL given on the command-line and prints the response of the
server. If no path or URL is given, Lynx sends the form to the start-page.
-head send a HEAD request for the mime headers.
-help print the Lynx command syntax usage message, and exit.
-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.
-list_inline
for -dump, show the links inline with the text.
-listonly
for -dump, show only the list of links.
-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. If you give an empty filename, Lynx
uses a built-in monochrome scheme which imitates the non-color-style configuration.
-mime_header
prints the MIME header of a fetched document along with its source.
-minimal
toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing.
-nested_tables
toggles nested-tables logic (for debugging).
-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.
-nomargins
disable left/right margins in the default style sheet.
-nomore
disable -more- string in statusline messages.
-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.
-nonumbers
disable link- and field-numbering. This overrides -number_fields and -number_links.
-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.
-notitle
disable title and blank line from top of page.
-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
-passive_ftp
toggles passive ftp connections.
-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 the standard input and passed to the form. Input is
terminated by a line that starts with “---”.
Lynx issues an HTTP POST, sending the form to the path or URL given on the command-line and prints the response of
the server. If no path or URL is given, Lynx sends the form to the start-page.
-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 inline images 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.
-read_timeout=N
Sets the read-timeout, where N is given in seconds.
-reload
flushes the cache on a proxy server (only the first document given on the command-line is 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.
-session=FILENAME
resumes from specified file on startup and saves session to that file on exit.
-sessionin=FILENAME
resumes session from specified file.
-sessionout=FILENAME
saves session to specified file.
-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_cfg
Print the configuration settings, e.g., as read from “lynx.cfg”, and exit.
-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. For example
lynx -source . >foo
generates HTML source listing the files in the current directory. Each file is marked by an HREF relative to the
parent directory. Add a trailing slash to make the HREF's relative to the current directory:
lynx -source ./ >foo
-stack_dump
disable SIGINT cleanup handler
-startfile_ok
allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate.
-stderr
When dumping a document using -dump or -source, Lynx normally does not display alert (error) messages that you see on
the screen in the status line. Use the -stderr option to tell Lynx to write these messages to the standard error.
-stdin read the startfile from standard input (UNIX only).
-syslog=text
information for syslog call.
-syslog_urls
log requested URLs with syslog.
-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)
8 configuration (lynx.cfg, .lynxrc, .lynx-keymaps, mime.types and mailcap contents)
16 binary string copy/append, used in form data construction.
32 cookies
64 character sets
128
GridText parsing
256
timing
-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_blank_lines
toggles trimming of trailing blank lines as well as the related trimming of blank lines while collapsing BR tags.
-trim_input_fields
trim input text/textarea fields in forms.
-underline_links
toggles use of underline/bold attribute for links.
-underscore
toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps.
-unique_urls
check for duplicate link numbers in each page and corresponding lists, and reuse the original link number.
-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, and exit.
-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. This is limited by the number of columns that Lynx could
display, typically 1024 (the MAX_LINE symbol).
-with_backspaces
emit backspaces in output if -dump'ing or -crawl'ing (like man does)
-_parsing
tells Lynx that it can ignore certain tags which have no content in an XHTML 1.0 document. For example “” will
be discarded.
COMMANDS
More than one key can be mapped to a given command. Here are some of the most useful:
· Use Up arrow and Down arrow to scroll through hypertext links.
· Right arrow or Return will follow a highlighted hypertext link.
· Left Arrow or “u” will retreat from a link.
· Type “H”, “?”, or F1 for online help and descriptions of key-stroke commands.
· Type “k” or “K” for a list of the current key-stroke command mappings.
If the same command is mapped to the same letter differing only by upper/lowercase only the lowercase mapping is shown.
· Type Delete to view history list.
ENVIRONMENT
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.
Environment Variables Used By Lynx:
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_CFG_PATH If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in search-list of directories used to find the
configuration files, e.g., lynx.cfg and lynx.lss. The list is delimited with ":" (or ";" for Windows)
like the PATH environment variable.
LYNX_HELPFILE If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in URL and configuration file URL for the Lynx help file.
LYNX_LOCALEDIR If set, this variable overrides the compiled-in location of the locale directory which contains native
language (NLS) message text.
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 curses 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 (and, on UNIX, 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. Protocols are indicated in a URI by the name before “:”, e.g.,
“http” in “http://some.server.dom:port/” for HTML.
Depending on your system configuration and supported protocols, the environment variables recognized by
lynx may include
cso_proxy
finger_proxy
ftp_proxy
gopher_proxy
https_proxy
http_proxy
newspost_proxy
newsreply_proxy
news_proxy
nntp_proxy
no_proxy
snewspost_proxy
snewsreply_proxy
snews_proxy
wais_proxy
See Lynx Users Guide for additional details and examples.
SSL_CERT_DIR Set to the directory containing trusted certificates.
SSL_CERT_FILE Set to the full path and filename for your file of trusted certificates.
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.
Environment Variables Set or Modified By Lynx:
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_TRACE_FILE If set, overrides the compiled-in name of the trace file, which is either Lynx.trace or LY-TRACE.LOG
(the latter on the DOS/Windows platforms). The trace file is in either case relative to the home
directory.
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.
SIMULATED CGI SUPPORT
If built with the cgi-links option enabled, Lynx allows access to a cgi script directly without the need for an http daemon.
When executing such “lynxcgi scripts” (if enabled), the following variables may be set for simulating a CGI environment:
CONTENT_LENGTH
CONTENT_TYPE
DOCUMENT_ROOT
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE
HTTP_USER_AGENT
PATH_INFO
PATH_TRANSLATED
QUERY_STRING
REMOTE_ADDR
REMOTE_HOST
REQUEST_METHOD
SERVER_SOFTWARE
Other environment variables are not inherited by the script, unless they are provided via a LYNXCGI_ENVIRONMENT statement in
the configuration file. See the lynx.cfg file, and the (draft) CGI 1.1 Specification for the definition and usage of these variables.
The CGI Specification, and other associated documentation, should be consulted for general information on CGI script
programming.
NATIVE LANGUAGE SUPPORT
If configured and installed with Native Language Support, Lynx will display status and other messages in your local
language. See the file ABOUT_NLS in the source distribution, or at your local GNU site, for more information about
internationalization.
The following environment variables may be used to alter default settings:
LANG This variable, if set, will override the default message language. It is an ISO 639 two-letter code
identifying the language. Language codes are NOT the same as the country codes given in ISO 3166.
LANGUAGE This variable, if set, will override the default message language. This is a GNU extension that has
higher priority for setting the message catalog than LANG or LC_ALL.
LC_ALL and
LC_MESSAGES These variables, if set, specify the notion of native language formatting style. They are POSIXly
correct.
LINGUAS This variable, if set prior to configuration, limits the installed languages to specific values. It is
a space-separated list of two-letter codes. Currently, it is hard-coded to a wish list.
NLSPATH This variable, if set, is used as the path prefix for message catalogs.
NOTES
This is the Lynx v2.8.8 Release; development is in progress for 2.8.9.
If you wish to contribute to the further development of Lynx, subscribe to our mailing list. Send email to with “subscribe lynx-dev” as the only line in the body of your message.
Send bug reports, comments, suggestions to after subscribing.
Unsubscribe by sending email to 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.
SEE ALSO
catgets(3), curses(3), environ(7), execve(2), ftp(1), gettext(GNU), localeconv(3), ncurses(3), setlocale(3), slang(?),
termcap(5), terminfo(5), wget(GNU)
Note that man page availability and section numbering is somewhat platform dependent, and may vary from the above refer‐
ences.
A section shown as (GNU), is intended to denote that the topic may be available via an info page, instead of a man page
(i.e., try “info subject”, rather than “man subject”).
A section shown as (?) denotes that documentation on the topic exists, but is not part of an established documentation re‐
trieval system (see the distribution files associated with the topic, or contact your System Administrator for further in‐
formation).
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 Unix environment. HYPERREZ
was developed by Niel Larson of Think.com and served as the model for the early versions of Lynx. Those versions also in‐
corporated libraries from the Unix 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 did or organized most of its development since the departures of Lou Montulli
and Garrett Blythe from the University of Kansas in the summer of 1994 through the release of v2.7.2, and to everyone on the
net who has contributed to Lynx's development either directly (through patches, 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 for Biomedical Research
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts 01545
Thomas E. Dickey
LYNX(1)
Go-to-top