Binkget: A wget Clone

Binkget is a command-line utility for downloading files over HTTPS, written in Rust. It is designed to be a minimal, efficient alternative to wget, leveraging the tokio asynchronous runtime and the reqwest HTTPS library for fast and concurrent downloads.

Features

• Asynchronous, non-blocking downloads using tokio
• Progress bar visualization using indicatif
• Automatic filename specification
• Supports large file downloads with streaming
• Minimal dependencies for performance and reliability

Installation

Using Cargo

If you have Rust and Cargo installed, you can install Binkget directly from source:

cargo install binkget

Building from Source

To build the binary manually, clone the repository and compile it using Cargo:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/binkget.git
cd binkget
cargo build --release

The compiled binary will be available at target/release/binkget.

Usage

Binkget allows you to download files from the command line by specifying a URL and a target filename.

Basic Usage

binkget <URL> <FILENAME>

Example:

binkget https://ash-speed.hetzner.com/1GB.bin test.bin

Command-line Options

• -h : Display help information.
• -V : Show the version number.

Example Output

~/$ binkget https://ash-speed.hetzner.com/1GB.bin test.bin

URL: https://ash-speed.hetzner.com/1GB.bin
FILENAME: test.bin
HTTP request sent.. 200 OK
Length: 1073741824 (1.00 GiB)
Type: application/octet-stream
Saving to: test.bin
test.bin   [00:01:35] [========] 1.00 GiB/1.00 GiB eta: 0s
Download complete!

How It Works

Main Function

The main function sets up the CLI using clap, extracts command-line arguments, and initializes an asynchronous runtime to execute the download function.

Download Process

1. Parses the URL.
2. Sends an HTTPS GET request using reqwest.
3. Reads the HTTP headers to determine the content length and type.
4. Displays the progress bar using indicatif.
5. Streams the response body asynchronously in chunks.
6. Writes the data incrementally to the output file.
7. Completes and finalizes the download.

Dependencies

Binkget relies on the following Rust crates:

• tokio: Asynchronous runtime for handling non-blocking IO.
• reqwest: HTTP client for sending GET requests.
• indicatif: Progress bar visualization.
• url: URL parsing and validation.
• console: Terminal styling for improved readability.
• futures-util: Stream utilities for handling async data.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you find a bug or have a feature request, please open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

Binkget is released under the MIT License.

Contact

Author: Nathaniel Chappelle
Email: nathaniel.chappelle@proton.me