Synchronisation with FTP site

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pete
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Pete

Can anyone please suggest a program that will synchronise a folder (and
its sub-folders) on an XP PC with an FTP site on the internet?

Thanks, Peter
 
Francesco said:
SyncBack
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip - I've just downloaded it and tested it.

Unfortunately, it's so slow as to be useless when determining what needs
to be updated and what doesn't, and it doesn't seem to have any kind of
status display to show what it's doing - until it eventually ended, I
was concerned that it may have crashed!

I can't tell exactly how long it ran for, since I got tired of waiting
after about ten minutes and went upstairs to read the newspaper. And
that was for a simulated run - it wasn't actually copying any files!

Regards, Peter
 
Pete said:
Can anyone please suggest a program that will synchronise a folder (and
its sub-folders) on an XP PC with an FTP site on the internet?
Click to expand...

Drats - I think I've just discovered a problem with this idea.

I've just done some tests, and it seems that neither of the FTP programs
that I use (WS_FTP and FileZilla) keeps the time and date of the source
file when I upload files from my PC to the FTP site. It appears that
the files always get the current time and date from the FTP server when
they're uploaded. Since that makes the times and dates on the two sets
of files different even if the files are the same, synchronisation can't
work.

Strangely (or perhaps not, who knows) both FTP programs have an option
to preserve the time and date of files when they're downloaded from the
FTP site.

So it looks like I have to scratch the idea, at least until I can find
an FTP client that preserves a file's time and date during upload to the
FTP site.

I don't suppose anyone has any leads on such an FTP client?

Regards, Peter
 
Pete said:
So it looks like I have to scratch the idea, at least until I can find
an FTP client that preserves a file's time and date during upload to the
FTP site.
Click to expand...

Alas, the problem seems to be with FTP servers, rather than clients.
I've done some more googling and testing, and it appears that there is a
command that can be sent to an FTP server to change a file's date and
time stamp, but many FTP servers do not handle this command.

If this command is not available, there's no way to preserve the PC's
date and time stamp on the uploaded file.

Interestingly, it appears that some FTP clients "ask" the FTP server
which commands they have available, and these clients will then
automatically use this command if possible. Sadly, my particular FTP
server (which uses "Pure-FTPd[TLS]") seems to say tell the client that
it supports the command, but the command fails when the client tries to
use it.

Regards, Peter
 
Pete said:
Can anyone please suggest a program that will synchronise a folder
(and its sub-folders) on an XP PC with an FTP site on the internet?

Thanks, Peter
Click to expand...

You might want to give the Cobian Backup program a try.
It can be downloaded from the author's site at:
http://www.cobian.se/
 
Al said:
Which is why, with most servers, you can either back up what's
missing, or you can back up everything, but you can't really sync.
Click to expand...

Most of the time, all I really need to do is work out what has changed
at the PC end and upload only those files to the FTP site.

On that basis, I'm now looking for backup utilities that can be
configured to check the "archive" attribute on files at the PC end and
upload just those files to the FTP site.

Unfortunately, there are times when this idea will not work for me, so
I'll have to take care of those times manually.

Regards, Peter
 
Most of the time, all I really need to do is work out what has changed
at the PC end and upload only those files to the FTP site.
Click to expand...

Maintain two folders - one an image of the site, the other a working
folder.

Generate a list of files that have to be backed up from the working
folder to the image folder. That's what you have to back up to the
site. (Karen's Replicator creates a list of files that were backed up
- that may be a start for you to create a data file to feed to an ftp
program.)
 
In message <a%[email protected]> Craig
With Unison, that's right. The user needs the unison proggy on "server"
& client /and/ should be the same version...fwiw.
Click to expand...

Yeah -- I'm a big unison fan, and I use it both in a server-client
environment as well as for synchronizing files on my local PC.

I'd love to find something to do a full sync of files on an FTP site
(even if it didn't "detect" changes, that's okay -- I just want new
files to be added and old files removed)
 
Maintain two folders - one an image of the site, the other a working
folder.
Click to expand...

FWIW - I do something similar to that - new/revised files go into
"upload" directories. AFTER they're uploaded I move them into the
folders that contain a mirror of the PWH web site.

KISS. . . works for me. :)

Susan
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Pete said:
Can anyone please suggest a program that will synchronise a folder (and
its sub-folders) on an XP PC with an FTP site on the internet?

Thanks, Peter
Click to expand...

is there anything on linux that does it? it may be available on cygwin
, and thus for your xp pc.

I never used rsync, I doubt it'll do it but it might.
 
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