How do I provide a username and password to wget?

Wget interprets <pass>@serveraddress as port. To specify a username and password, use the --user and --password switches:

wget --user user --password pass http://example.com/

From man wget:

--user=user

--password=password

Specify the username user and password password for both FTP and HTTP file retrieval. These parameters can be overridden using the --ftp-user and --ftp-password options for FTP connections and the --http-user and --http-password options for HTTP connections.

You have 3 options here. They are in no specific order other than gut feeling:

1. Password is visible to anyone (using the command history)

wget --user=remote_user --password=SECRET ftp://ftp.example.com/file.ext

The password will also be visible in ps, top, htop and similar.

2. Password is visible to anyone looking behind your shoulders

 wget --user=remote_user --password=SECRET ftp://ftp.example.com/file.ext

Notice the white space before the command, it prevents saving it to your history.

The password will also be visible in ps, top, htop and similar.

3. Password is not visible to anyone including you

wget --user=remote_user --ask-password ftp://ftp.example.com/file.ext
Password for user `remote_user': [SECRET (not visible)]

You can also store the username and password in the file ~/.wgetrc and change the permissions of that file so that only your user can read it:

File ~/.wgetrc:

user=john
password=SEcrEt

... and then

chmod 600 ~/.wgetrc

Note, however, that user root can still peek into that file and read the password.

From the manpage:

To prevent the passwords from being seen, use the --use-askpass or store them in .wgetrc or .netrc, and make sure to protect those files from other users with "chmod". If the passwords are really important, do not leave them lying in those files either --- edit the files and delete them after Wget has started the download.