linkcheckerrc(5)

linkcheckerrc5

Configuration file for linkchecker

Overview

linkcheckerrc is the configuration file for LinkChecker. The file is written in an INI-style format. The default file location is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/linkchecker/linkcheckerrc or else ~/.config/linkchecker/linkcheckerrc on Unix, %HOMEPATH%\.config\linkchecker\linkcheckerrc on Windows systems.

Settings

checking

cookiefile=filename

Read a file with initial cookie data. The cookie data format is explained in linkchecker(1). Command line option: --cookiefile

debugmemory=[0|1]

Write memory allocation statistics to a file on exit, requires meliae. The default is not to write the file. Command line option: none

localwebroot=STRING

When checking absolute URLs inside local files, the given root directory is used as base URL. Note that the given directory must have URL syntax, so it must use a slash to join directories instead of a backslash. And the given directory must end with a slash. Command line option: none

recursionlevel=NUMBER

Check recursively all links up to given depth. A negative depth will enable infinite recursion. Default depth is infinite. Command line option: --recursion-level

threads=NUMBER

Generate no more than the given number of threads. Default number of threads is 10. To disable threading specify a non-positive number. Command line option: --threads

timeout=NUMBER

Set the timeout for connection attempts in seconds. The default timeout is 60 seconds. Command line option: --timeout

aborttimeout=NUMBER

Time to wait for checks to finish after the user aborts the first time (with Ctrl-C or the abort button). The default abort timeout is 300 seconds. Command line option: none

useragent=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. Command line option: --user-agent

sslverify=[0|1|filename]

If set to zero disables SSL certificate checking. If set to one (the default) enables SSL certificate checking with the provided CA certificate file. If a filename is specified, it will be used as the certificate file. Command line option: none

maxrunseconds=NUMBER

Stop checking new URLs after the given number of seconds. Same as if the user stops (by hitting Ctrl-C) after the given number of seconds. The default is not to stop until all URLs are checked. Command line option: none

maxfilesizedownload=NUMBER

Files larger than NUMBER bytes will be ignored, without downloading anything if accessed over http and an accurate Content-Length header was returned. No more than this amount of a file will be downloaded. The default is 5242880 (5 MB). Command line option: none

maxfilesizeparse=NUMBER

Files larger than NUMBER bytes will not be parsed for links. The default is 1048576 (1 MB). Command line option: none

maxnumurls=NUMBER

Maximum number of URLs to check. New URLs will not be queued after the given number of URLs is checked. The default is to queue and check all URLs. Command line option: none

maxrequestspersecond=NUMBER

Limit the maximum number of HTTP requests per second to one host. The average number of requests per second is approximately one third of the maximum. Values less than 1 and at least 0.001 can be used. To use values greater than 10, the HTTP server must return a LinkChecker response header. The default is 10. Command line option: none

robotstxt=[0|1]

When using http, fetch robots.txt, and confirm whether each URL should be accessed before checking. The default is to use robots.txt files. Command line option: --no-robots

allowedschemes=NAME[,NAME...]

Allowed URL schemes as comma-separated list. Command line option: none

resultcachesize=NUMBER

Set the result cache size. The default is 100 000 URLs. Command line option: none

filtering

ignore=REGEX (MULTILINE)

Only check syntax of URLs matching the given regular expressions. Command line option: --ignore-url

ignorewarnings=NAME[,NAME...]

Ignore the comma-separated list of warnings. See WARNINGS for the list of supported warnings. Messages are logged as information. Command line option: none

ignorewarningsforurls=URL_REGEX [NAME_REGEX] (MULTILINE)

Specify regular expressions to ignore warnings for matching URLs, one per line. On each line, you can specify a second regular expression, ensuring that only the warnings with names matching the second expression will be ignored for that URL. If the second expression is omitted, all warnings are ignored for that URL.

Default is to not ignore any warnings. See WARNINGS for the list of supported warnings. Messages are logged as information. Command line option: none

Example:

[filtering]
ignorewarningsforurls=
  ^https://redirected\.example\.com ^http-redirected
internlinks=REGEX

Regular expression to add more URLs recognized as internal links. Default is that URLs given on the command line are internal. Command line option: none

nofollow=REGEX (MULTILINE)

Check but do not recurse into URLs matching the given regular expressions. Command line option: --no-follow-url

checkextern=[0|1]

Check external links. Default is to check internal links only. Command line option: --check-extern

authentication

entry=REGEX USER [PASS] (MULTILINE)

Provide individual username/password pairs for different links. In addition to a single login page specified with loginurl multiple FTP and HTTP (Basic Authentication) links are supported. Entries are a triple (URL regex, username, password) or a tuple (URL regex, username), where the entries are separated by whitespace. The password is optional and if missing it has to be entered at the commandline. If the regular expression matches the checked URL, the given username/password pair is used for authentication. The command line options -u and -p match every link and therefore override the entries given here. The first match wins. Command line option: -u, -p

loginurl=URL

The URL of a login page to be visited before link checking. The page is expected to contain an HTML form to collect credentials and submit them to the address in its action attribute using an HTTP POST request. The name attributes of the input elements of the form and the values to be submitted need to be available (see entry for an explanation of username and password values).

loginuserfield=STRING

The name attribute of the username input element. Default: login.

loginpasswordfield=STRING

The name attribute of the password input element. Default: password.

loginextrafields=NAME:VALUE (MULTILINE)

Optionally the name attributes of any additional input elements and the values to populate them with. Note that these are submitted without checking whether matching input elements exist in the HTML form.

output

URL checking results

fileoutput=TYPE[,TYPE...]

Output to a file linkchecker-out.TYPE, or $XDG_DATA_HOME/linkchecker/failures for the failures output type. Valid file output types are text, html, sql, csv, gml, dot, xml, none or failures. Default is no file output. The various output types are documented below. Note that you can suppress all console output with output=none. Command line option: --file-output

log=TYPE[/ENCODING]

Specify the console output type as text, html, sql, csv, gml, dot, xml, none or failures. 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 https://docs.python.org/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings. Command line option: --output

verbose=[0|1]

If set log all checked URLs once, overriding warnings. Default is to log only errors and warnings. Command line option: --verbose

warnings=[0|1]

If set log warnings. Default is to log warnings. Command line option: --no-warnings

ignoreerrors=URL_REGEX [MESSAGE_REGEX] (MULTILINE)

Specify regular expressions to ignore errors for matching URLs, one per line. A second regular expression can be specified per line to only ignore matching error messages per corresponding URL. If the second expression is omitted, all errors are ignored. In contrast to filtering, this happens after checking, which allows checking URLs despite certain expected and tolerable errors. Default is to not ignore any errors. Example:

[output]
ignoreerrors=
  ^https://deprecated\.example\.com ^410 Gone
  # ignore all errors (no second expression), also for syntax check:
  ^mailto:.*@example\.com$

Progress updates

status=[0|1]

Control printing URL checker status messages. Default is 1. Command line option: --no-status

Application

debug=STRING[,STRING...]

Print debugging output for the given logger. Available debug loggers are cmdline, checking, cache, plugin and all. all is an alias for all available loggers. Command line option: --debug

Quiet

quiet=[0|1]

If set, operate quiet. An alias for log=none that also hides application information messages. This is only useful with fileoutput, else no results will be output. Command line option: --quiet

Output types

text

filename=STRING

Specify output filename for text logging. Default filename is linkchecker-out.txt. Command line option: --file-output

parts=STRING

Comma-separated list of parts that have to be logged. See LOGGER PARTS below. Command line option: none

encoding=STRING

Valid encodings are listed in https://docs.python.org/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings. Default encoding is the system default locale encoding.

wraplength=NUMBER

The number of characters at which to wrap each message line. The default is 65. Command line option: none

color*

Color settings for the various log parts, syntax is color or type;color. The type can be bold, light, blink, invert. The color can be default, black, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, cyan, white, Black, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple, Cyan or White. Command line option: none

colorparent=STRING

Set parent color. Default is white.

colorurl=STRING

Set URL color. Default is default.

colorname=STRING

Set name color. Default is default.

colorreal=STRING

Set real URL color. Default is cyan.

colorbase=STRING

Set base URL color. Default is purple.

colorvalid=STRING

Set valid color. Default is bold;green.

colorinvalid=STRING

Set invalid color. Default is bold;red.

colorinfo=STRING

Set info color. Default is default.

colorwarning=STRING

Set warning color. Default is bold;yellow.

colordltime=STRING

Set download time color. Default is default.

colorreset=STRING

Set reset color. Default is default.

gml

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
parts=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

dot

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
parts=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

csv

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.

parts=STRING

See [text] section above.

encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

separator=CHAR

Set CSV separator. Default is a semicolon (;).

quotechar=CHAR

Set CSV quote character. Default is a double quote (").

dialect=STRING

Controls the output formatting. See https://docs.python.org/3/library/csv.html#csv.Dialect. Default is excel.

sql

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
parts=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.
dbname=STRING

Set database name to store into. Default is linksdb.
separator=CHAR

Set SQL command separator character. Default is a semicolon (;).

html

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
parts=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.
colorbackground=COLOR

Set HTML background color. Default is #fff7e5.
colorurl=

Set HTML URL color. Default is #dcd5cf.
colorborder=

Set HTML border color. Default is #000000.
colorlink=

Set HTML link color. Default is #191c83.
colorwarning=

Set HTML warning color. Default is #e0954e.
colorerror=

Set HTML error color. Default is #db4930.
colorok=

Set HTML valid color. Default is #3ba557.

failures

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

xml

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
parts=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

gxml

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.
parts=STRING

See [text] section above.
encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

sitemap

filename=STRING

See [text] section above.

parts=STRING

See [text] section above.

encoding=STRING

See [text] section above.

priority=FLOAT

A number between 0.0 and 1.0 determining the priority. The default priority for the first URL is 1.0, for all child URLs 0.5.

frequency=[always|hourly|daily|weekly|monthly|yearly|never]

How frequently pages are changing. Default is daily.

Logger parts

all

for all parts
id

a unique ID for each logentry
realurl

the full url link
result

valid or invalid, with messages
extern

1 or 0, only in some logger types reported
base

base href=...
name

<a href=...>name</a> and <img alt="name">
parenturl

if any
info

some additional info, e.g. FTP welcome messages
warning

warnings
dltime

download time
checktime

check time
url

the original url name, can be relative
intro

the blurb at the beginning, "starting at ..."
outro

the blurb at the end, "found x errors ..."

Multiline

Some option values can span multiple lines. Each line has to be indented for that to work. Lines starting with a hash (#) will be ignored, though they must still be indented.

ignore=
  lconline
  bookmark
  # a comment
  ^mailto:

Examples

[output]
log=html
[checking]
threads=5
[filtering]
ignorewarnings=http-moved-permanent

Plugins

All plugins have a separate section. If the section appears in the configuration file the plugin is enabled. Some plugins read extra options in their section.

AnchorCheck

Checks validity of HTML anchors. When checking local files, URLs with anchors that link to directories e.g. "example/#anchor" are not supported. There is no such limitation when using http(s).

LocationInfo

Adds the country and if possible city name of the URL host as info. Needs GeoIP or pygeoip and a local country or city lookup DB installed.

RegexCheck

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.

warningregex=REGEX

Use this to check for pages that contain some form of error message, for example "This page has moved" or "Oracle Application error". REGEX should be unquoted.

Note that multiple values can be combined in the regular expression, for example "(This page has moved|Oracle Application error)".

SslCertificateCheck

Check SSL certificate expiration date. Only internal https: links will be checked. A domain will only be checked once to avoid duplicate warnings.

sslcertwarndays=NUMBER

Configures the expiration warning time in days.

HtmlSyntaxCheck

Check the syntax of HTML pages by submitting their URLs to the online W3C HTML validator. If a page URL is not accessible to the validator no check is performed and no warning given. See https://validator.w3.org/docs/api.html.

NOTE:

The HtmlSyntaxCheck plugin is currently broken and is disabled.

HttpHeaderInfo

Print HTTP headers in URL info.

prefixes=prefix1[,*prefix2*]...

List of comma separated header prefixes. For example to display all HTTP headers that start with "X-".

CssSyntaxCheck

Check the syntax of CSS stylesheets by submitting their URLs to the online W3C CSS validator. If a stylesheet URL is not accessible to the validator no check is performed and no warning given. See https://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/manual.html#expert.

VirusCheck

Checks the page content for virus infections with clamav. A local clamav daemon must be installed.

clamavconf=filename

Filename of clamd.conf config file.

PdfParser

Parse PDF files for URLs to check. Needs the pdfminer.six Python package installed.

WordParser

Parse Word files for URLs to check. Needs the pywin32 Python extension installed.

MarkdownCheck

Parse Markdown files for URLs to check.

filename_re=REGEX

Regular expression matching the names of Markdown files.

Warnings

The following warnings are recognized by ignorewarnings and ignorewarningsforurls:

file-anchorcheck-directory

A local directory with an anchor, not supported by AnchorCheck.
file-missing-slash

The file: URL is missing a trailing slash.
file-system-path

The file: path is not the same as the system specific path.
ftp-missing-slash

The ftp: URL is missing a trailing slash.
http-cookie-store-error

An error occurred while storing a cookie.
http-empty-content

The URL had no content.
http-rate-limited

Too many HTTP requests.
http-redirected

Redirected to a different URL.
mail-no-mx-host

The mail MX host could not be found.
url-content-size-zero

The URL content size is zero.
url-content-too-large

The URL content size is too large.
url-content-type-unparseable

The URL content type is not parseable.
url-effective-url

The effective URL is different from the original.
url-error-getting-content

Could not get the content of the URL.
url-obfuscated-ip

The IP is obfuscated.
url-whitespace

The URL contains leading or trailing whitespace.

Releases

9 releases since Debian 5.0 (Lenny); the text changed 7 times.

  1. 5.0
  2. 6.0
  3. 7
  4. 8–9
  5. 10
  6. 11
  7. 12
  8. 13

Author

Bastian Kleineidam <[email protected]>

From linkchecker 10.5.0-1 in Debian 13 (Trixie). Parsed by carta from the page's man source.