Wicked Cool Shell Scripts

#81 Synchronizing Directories with FTP

One of my most common uses for ftp is to ensure that a local copy of a directory is synchronized with a remote copy on a web server. The fancy name for this is content mirroring. The basic idea is simple: Move into a specific local directory, specify a remote server and remote directory, and then ensure that anything that's changed in one directory is copied to the other, as needed.

This book offers two scripts for FTP syncing: ftpsyncup and ftpsyncdown. The first uploads all files in the current directory to the remote directory, while the latter does the opposite and is presented next, as Script #82. Unless you're starting afresh on a new client system and thus need to acquire the latest versions ...