Download from RapidShare via Command Line

Plain old wget is not able to download files from rapidshare so we need a tool that can cope with the timers and counters put up when trying to download from that site,

For this we can use "Plowshare"

You can download the deb for the current version from the Download page on the link above. At the time of writing the current version was plowshare_0.9.3-1_all.deb

Once you have the deb file install it with dpkg

sudo dpkg -i sudo dpkg -i plowshare_0.9.3-1_all.deb

This will fail due to unmet dependencies but panic not! We can fix this using apt-get;

sudo apt-get install -f

This will download and install all the missing dependencies automatically.

To use Plowshare, the authors have made it a little unintuitive, by naming the executable differently to the package name.

The executable is named "plowdown"

To download a file from Rapidshare you need the url for the file. To do this simply navigate to the Rapidshare page for the file you are after (the one with the "Speed Meters"), and click on "Free User".

This will take you to the page with the "Seconds Countdown". Copy the URL for that page and paste it into your command.

Example:
plowdown http://rs215.rapidshare.com/files/314956608/ubuntu-9.10-dvd-i386.iso.part01.rar

From here plowshare will do all of the negotiating with RapidShare, wait for any countdown timers and make the appropriate "clicks" as required for you.

This means no more waiting for timers.

Enjoy!