About WAIL

What is WAIL?

WAIL (Web Archiving Integration Layer) is a stand-alone GUI-based application that provides one-click configuration and utilization of both Heritrix and OpenWayback on a user's personal computer.

What Problems Does WAIL Solve?

Both Heritrix and OpenWayback require specific configurations depending on which operating system they are being run. Each operating system has its own set of required dependencies to effectively use these archiving tools. Installing and configuring the tools and dependencies requires users to have a somewhat technical background and administrator permissions. Further, configuring Heritrix crawls is not always straightforward, thus adding another technical requirement for potential users of the tools.

WAIL takes care of this by packaging everything required to utilize these tools and configures them according to the operating system on which these tools are being run. The sole requirement of these tools if used via WAIL is the ability to download and run WAIL. Configuration of the crawls is as simple as entering URL(s) into the WAIL interface and pressing the "archive now" button.