More recent version of wget

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Hello All,

I'm troubleshooting a custom application that uses wget and openssl for some behind the scenes file transfers.

The most recent version of wget available via RH sources is 1.14. The current version of wget in the rest of the Linux world is 1.19. Some other Linux variants running newer version of wget than 1.14 aren't having the same problems I am having.

I don't know for sure that wget is the issue, but would like to try a newer version to either confirm or rule it out. I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding a newer non-RHEL version of wget in rpm format, that doesn't need to be compiled from source code.

By any chance does anyone know where to find one?

PG

Responses

Hi Paul,

Here you can find new versions of wget built as RPM packages -> https://pkgs.org/download/wget

Cheers :)
Christian

yeah, I tried there, as well as rpmfind, and the epel repositories. For RHEL/Centos etc, nobody has anything newer than the official 1.14 :-(

Yes Paul,

The main problem are the dependencies and if you really want to install a newer version of wget, you can download all necessary dependencies and install them together with the wget package, but would this be worth the effort ? :)

Regards,
Christian

That's the concern. Also, I'm concerned that updating some existing packages to get the new dependencies could break something else. It's always embarrassing when that happens. :-(

Well Paul,

Of course it is recommended to use the packages from the Red Hat repositories - I only wanted to show the way ... :)

Regards,
Christian

If you wanted to try the latest upstream, you'd need to get the source and compile it: https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/

It didn't seem to have any strange build dependencies.

Just make sure you don't make install as that will overwrite the system's wget.

$ ./configure
$ make
$ cd src
$ ./wget --version | head -1
GNU Wget 1.19.1 built on linux-gnu.

Jamie - I installed gcc (no compilers installed originally), but got this error when running "./configure" -

configure: error: Package requirements (gnutls) were not met:

No package 'gnutls' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables GNUTLS_CFLAGS and GNUTLS_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for more details.

[ note it says gnutls is missing, but when I go to install gnutls, it says its already installed]

[root@hostname wget-1.19.1]# yum install gnutls Loaded plugins: product-id, rhnplugin, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager This system is not registered with RHN Classic or Red Hat Satellite. You can use rhn_register to register. Red Hat Satellite or RHN Classic support will be disabled. rhel-7-server-eus-thirdparty-oracle-java-rpms | 2.3 kB 00:00:00 rhel-7-server-optional-rpms | 2.0 kB 00:00:00 rhel-7-server-rpms | 2.0 kB 00:00:00 rhel-7-server-satellite-tools-6.2-rpms | 2.1 kB 00:00:00 rhel-7-server-thirdparty-oracle-java-rpms | 2.0 kB 00:00:00 Package gnutls-3.3.26-9.el7.x86_64 already installed and latest version Nothing to do

(fixing the bad formatting of previous response - painful on the eyes)

[root@hostname wget-1.19.1]# yum install gnutls

Loaded plugins: product-id, rhnplugin, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager

This system is not registered with RHN Classic or Red Hat Satellite.

You can use rhn_register to register.

Red Hat Satellite or RHN Classic support will be disabled.

rhel-7-server-eus-thirdparty-oracle-java-rpms | 2.3 kB 00:00:00

rhel-7-server-optional-rpms | 2.0 kB 00:00:00 rhel-7-server-rpms | 2.0 kB 00:00:00

rhel-7-server-satellite-tools-6.2-rpms | 2.1 kB 00:00:00

rhel-7-server-thirdparty-oracle-java-rpms | 2.0 kB 00:00:00

Package gnutls-3.3.26-9.el7.x86_64 already installed and latest version

Nothing to do

Try installing gnutls-devel. That resolved the dependency issue for me.

Thanks Akemi - that did resolve the dependency and I was able to get wget compiled. That allowed me to do the troubleshooting steps I wanted to do, and it confirmed that our core issue isn't wget. Paul

I think the cleaner way to compile from upstream is to grab the source rpm from Red Hat, and replace the tarball with the upstream version.

This approach generally only requires a couple of minor modifications to the spec file and you will get a clean rpm to install which is then tracked in the rpmdb and easy to remove/downgrade if you feel the need.

Good idea - makes sense. :)

I actually set this up as an exercise for a new admin after reading this thread.. it's a good learning exercise for anyone new to using Red Hat / RPM as it involves:

  • fetching tarball from upstream projects
  • locating source RPM files in RHN
  • configuring RPM build environment
  • configuring/updating RPM spec file
  • fetching build requirements (including one from 'optional' channel)
  • troubleshooting compiler issues

Although I don't suggest doing this on production systems as it's taking you away from a supported state :)

Paul,

Red Hat does backport fixes into their source trees without necessarily modifying the upstream version string. To see changes that went into a Red Hat package, you can do the following:

  rpm -q --changelog wget

If there is something that doesn't work for you, and you have a Standard or better subscription, feel free to open a case at Red Hat to report your problem. If you report that the problem was fixed by the upstream version, that can speed the process of getting it fixed.

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