Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 11381
Inconsistent behaviour of wget with Microsoft ftp servers
Last modified: 2014-03-16 22:13:47 EDT
Trying to mirror localy ftp directories from ftp servers operating under Microsoft FTP version 3.0, with the command: wget -N ftp://ftpserver/path/* most of times wget fails saying "No matches on pattern `*'.". But one time of every ten or more attempts it works ok, and it can interpret correctly the directory listing received. I thing you could reproduce such behaviour with: wget -N ftp://ftp.nai.com/pub/antivirus/datfiles/4.x/*
Wget is fine the inconsistency in Microsoft Internet Information Server's FTP service which does not allow file globbing (using wildcards to select multiple files) Here is a quote from wget's manpage that explains the behaviour: -g on/off --glob=on/off Turn FTP globbing on or off. By default, globbing will be turned on if the URL contains a globbing characters (an asterisk, e.g.). Globbing means you may use the special characters (wildcards) to retrieve more files from the same directory at once, like wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/*.msg. Globbing currently works only on UNIX FTP servers. Hope that explains it, -Stan Bubrouski