Can Direct FTP do the following synchronization functions?

"Make the files *on my hard drive* look exactly like all the files *on my web site*. Do this by DOWNloading any files from the web site that have a later date and time stamp than the matching files on my hard drive."

and the matching:

"Make the files *on my web site* look exactly like all the files in the version of the site *on my hard drive*. Do this by UPloading any files to the web site that have a later date and time stamp on my hard drive than the matching files on my site."

This would be for all files in all directories -- a site synchronization.


(I saw in Direct FTP's list of features that an entire folder can be uploaded or downloaded on a folder by folder basis, however, my site has 400 folders/directories -- AND I need to synchronize -- not: "Upload/download entire folders at once.")

The above synchronization functions would help a lot when two people at locations remote from each another both make changes to the site -- especially substantial ones.

In my particular situation overwriting changes that the other person has made turns out to be quite unlikely. We work on different areas of the site -- but we would still both like to have an up-to-date version of the site on each of our hard drives without downloading each other's changes one by one.


If your program has these synchronization capabilities, you should put them in the list of features...
- Hal Lane

Hi Hal

I doubt very much whether many FTP programs do this type of thing. Synchronising is more aligned with backup software and you are probably better off with a backup utility that has FTP capability to synchronise folders in this way.

DirectFTP is an FTP client, that is, something to upload and download files with the ability to edit pages and view images built in; as far as I know it is not designed for dedicated synchronising purposes.

You can also run into serious trouble by synchronising files and folders across the Internet due to time-zone differences. Most applications that synchronise do so by time and date stamps on the files; if the local or remote server's system time goes awry for any reason, there could be a real mess with more recent files overwritten by older ones, which not a good look. I think this might be the reason not many FTP clients have a 'synchronise' feature.

Dave.

Hal,

I have seen a program that will do this, but understand that every time you sync you will be downloading the site log files and anything else that the host updates.

One such program is Gbridge, but I don't know if it can be setup for a website.

Filezilla has a sync function, but as Dave mentions, the time stamp on the fiiles is critical. Most of my sites will display my local time, but one will NOT, and syncing that site would always be a problem.

Hello, I am new to all this but I have seen when using WiseFTP,
that there is a......
"Transfer">Synchronization>Mirror>On remote or local, option.
I believe the date is a parameter that can be set.....

Regards
Peter

I know of several products that have such a function but I would be very paranoid about using them on a mission-critical site. Make lots of backups first!

Dave.