---
name: "linbot"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "linbot"
version: "1.0.0-6"
release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/linbot"
---

# linbot(1)

WWW site link checker

## NAME

linbot - WWW site link checker

## SYNOPSIS

**linbot \[-x** *xurl***\] ... \[-b\]\[-a\]\[-o** *reportdir***\]** *base\_url* **\[***ihost***\] ...**

## DESCRIPTION

The program **linbot** will check the hyperdocument found at *base\_url* and report on it in the directory *reportdir*. A running report of what the robot is doing is written to stdout.

When checking url's, **linbot** checks http:, ftp:, and file: schemas. All other schemas (like mailto:, gopher:, lynxcgi: etc.) are not checked and treated as "external".

The report can be viewed using most Web browsers.  Browsers using frames technology should initially open the *index.html* file.  Browsers not using frames or with frames disabled can initially open the *navbar.html* file.  Note that these are the default filenames for **linbot** and may be changed via the config file.

The report consists of the files (with constant names, so use different directories for different invocations of **linbot**) *broken.html*, *extern.html*, *images.html*, *index.html*, *map.html*, *navbar.html*, *new.html*, and *old.html*. Here *index.html* and *navbar.html* only point at the other files. (The file *index.html* is a page with frames pointing at *navbar.html* and *map.html*, and the file *navbar.html* points at the remaining six pages.) The file *map.html* gives an overview of the hyperdocument (up to depth 5). The file *broken.html* reports the broken links; the file *extern.html* reports the external links; the file *old.html* reports the ancient links; the file *new.html* reports on the links that changed less than a week ago. Finally *images.html* collects the images found.

Executing **linbot** without any command-line arguments will cause it to give a simple synopsis of its usage and then quit.

You should decide beforehand which structures in your hyperdocument should be considered "internal" and which should be considered "external". An *internal* link is a part of your document that you have control of and should be checked, as well as the links that it points to.  Basically an internal link is one that, if broken, you have the power to fix. An *external* link is one that your document points to, but you have no jurisdiction over.  It can also be a link that you may have power to change, but need not be checked for broken links, such as CGI scripts or pages that were generated by an automated tool (such as **linbot** or any program that converts a document of one format to HTML).

**Linbot** honors the *robots.txt* file/protocol. This protocol is useful to indicate to robots that some parts or your site, such as CGI scripts, internal documents, or server stats, should not be explored.  The *robots.txt* protocol is explained at *http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/exclusion-admin.html*. Currently **linbot** identifies itself as \`User-Agent: Linbot'. You can allow **linbot** to search a directory but restrict other bots, for example, like this:\

```
   User-agent: *
   Disallow: /
   User-agent: Linbot
   Allow: /
```

## OPTIONS

- **-x** *url*

  Use this option to tell Linbot to consider any url starting with *url* to be external.  This option can be used multiple times.

- **-b**

  Base URLs only. This option tells **linbot** to consider any url that does not start with the base url to be external.

- **-a**

  Avoid external links.  Normally, if **linbot** is examining an HTML page and finds a link that points to an external document, it will check to see if that document exists. If the -a option is chosen, **linbot** will not check for the existence of external links.

- **-o** *reportdir*

  Used to specify the directory where the report files must be written. The default is the current directory or as specified in *config.py*.

- *ihost*

  This specifies that urls at *ihost* are to be considered internal.  This can be useful, for example, it the base url is on one server but points to "internal" documents on another server. *Ihost* is the name of that server, for example www2.someplaceonthenet.com.  This can also be used, for example, if you have an intranet where some urls may point to www2.someplaceonthenet.com whereas some urls may point to just \`www'.  This option may be used more than once, but must follow the base url.

## BUGS

If you have any questions about Linbot or would like to report a bug, send electronic mail to marduk@gte.net.  Please mention Linbot in the subject of the message.  In order to assist in tracking down bugs, please include either a URL where the problem can be found, an HTML file where the error occurs or a (small) tar file of a site where the error occurs.  Suggestions for improvements are also welcomed.

## SEE ALSO

[**python**(1)](/python/1.md)