Curl CHEAT SHEET

This Curl cheat sheet contains commands and examples of some common Curl tricks.

urlrequest
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Cards

#Getting Started

Introduction

Curl is a tool for transferring data between servers, supporting protocols, including:

  • HTTP
  • HTTPS
  • FTP
  • IMAP
  • LDAP
  • POP3
  • SCP
  • SFTP
  • SMB
  • SMTP
  • etc...

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Options
-o <file>    # --output: write to file
-u user:pass # --user: authentication

-v   # --verbose: Make curl verbose during operation
-vv  # more verbose
-s   # --silent: don't show progress meter or errors
-S   # --show-error: When used with --silent (-sS), show errors but no progress meter

-i  # --include: include HTTP headers in the output
-I  # --head: header only
Request
-X POST # --request
-L # If the page redirects, follow the link
-F # --form: HTTP POST data for multipart/form-data
data
# --data: HTTP post data
# URL encoding (eg, status="Hello")
-d 'data'

# --data pass file
-d @file

# --get: send -d data via get
-G
Header information Headers
-A <str>      # --user-agent

-b name=val   # --cookie

-b, --cookie FILE           # Load cookies from the specified file for the URL
-c, --cookie-jar FILE       # Save cookies to the specified file from the URL

-H "X-Foo: y" # --header

--compressed  # use deflate/gzip
SSL
    --cacert <file>
    --capath <dir>
-E, --cert <cert> # --cert: client certificate file
    --cert-type # der/pem/eng
-k, --insecure # For self-signed certificates

Install

apk add --update curl # install in alpine linux

#Example

CURL GET/HEAD
commanddescription
curl -I https://cheatsheets.zipcurl sends a request
curl -v -I https://cheatsheets.zipcurl request with details
curl -X GET https://cheatsheets.zipuse explicit http method for curl
curl --noproxy 127.0.0.1 http://www.stackoverflow.comcurl without http proxy
curl --connect-timeout 10 -I -k https://cheatsheets.zipcurl has no timeout by default
curl --verbose --header "Host: www.mytest.com:8182" cheatsheets.zipcurl get extra header
curl -k -v https://www.google.comcurl get response with headers
Multiple file upload
$ curl -v --include \
--form key1=value1 \
    --form upload=@localfilename URL
Prettify json output for curl response
$ curl -XGET http://${elasticsearch_ip}:9200/_cluster/nodes | python -m json.tool
CURL POST
commanddescription
curl -d "name=username&password=123456" <URL>curl send request
curl <URL> -H "content-type: application/json" -d "{ \"woof\": \"bark\"}"curl sends json
CURL script install rvm
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash
CURL Advanced
commanddescription
curl -L -s http://ipecho.net/plain, curl -L -s http://whatismijnip.nlget my public IP
curl -u $username:$password http://repo.dennyzhang.com/README.txtcurl with credentials
curl -v -F key1=value1 -F upload=@localfilename <URL>curl upload
curl -k -v --http2 https://www.google.com/use http2 curl
curl -T cryptopp552.zip -u test:test ftp://10.32.99.187/curl ftp upload
curl -u test:test ftp://10.32.99.187/cryptopp552.zip -o cryptopp552.zipcurl ftp download
curl -v -u admin:admin123 --upload-file package1.zip http://mysever:8081/dir/package1.zipupload with credentials curl
Check website response time
curl -s -w \
'\nLookup time:\t%{time_namelookup}\nConnect time:\t%{time_connect}\nAppCon time:\t%{time_appconnect}\nRedirect time:\t%{time_redirect}\nPreXfer time:\t%{time_pretransfer }\nStartXfer time:\t%{time_starttransfer}\n\nTotal time:\t%{time_total}\n' \
     -o /dev/null https://www.google.com
Use Curl to check if a remote resource is available
curl -o /dev/null --silent -Iw "%{http_code}" https://example.com/my.remote.tarball.gz
Downloading file
curl https://example.com | \
grep --only-matching 'src="[^"]*.[png]"' | \
cut -d \" -f2 | \
while read i; do curl https://example.com/"${i}" \
-o "${i##*/}"; done

Download all PNG files from the site (using GNU grep)

Download the file, save the file without changing its name
curl --remote-name "https://example.com/linux-distro.iso"

Rename file

curl --remote-name "http://example.com/index.html" --output foo.html
continue partial download
curl --remote-name --continue-at -"https://example.com/linux-distro.iso"
Download files from multiple domains
curl "https://www.{example,w3,iana}.org/index.html" --output "file_#1.html"
Download a series of files
curl "https://{foo,bar}.com/file_[1-4].webp" --output "#1_#2.webp"

Download a series of files (output foo_file1.webp, foo_file2.webp...bar_file1_webp, etc.)

Redirect output to file
$ curl http://url/file > file
Basic Authentication
$ curl --user username:password http://example.com/
$ curl -u username:password http://example.com/
Write to file instead of stdout
$ curl -o file http://url/file
$ curl --output file http://url/file
Download header information
$ curl -I url
# display header information
Write output to a file named remote_file
$ curl -o file http://url/file
$ curl --output file http://url/file
Execute remote script
$ curl -s http://url/myscript.sh
Configuration file
curl -K file
# read configuration from file
curl --config file
$HOME/.curlrc # default configuration file on UNIX-like systems