Websites backup solution

ill check, cause currently im at school.. do you have another server?

u tbh, jek another server.. bilfors bil bandwith, sakem mux ijad bdirect link jew ekk jew?

Thanks for the interest.

I have server with the websites on it. It is in the UK and I have remote desktop access, that is, I can install programs on it. I also have an FTP server in the US on which I want to keep a mirror of the files in the server in the UK. I only have FTP access for the server in the US and therefore I cannot install software on it.

The software needs to be installed in the UK server and at a specific time early in the morning, the software needs to upload the files that have been changed/added in the UK server onto the backup in the US server. It also needs to delete any files that have been deleted in the UK server from the US server. All this to be done through FTP commands.

I have so much given up finding a program that does this apparently simple task that I have now started writing my own app in VB.NET. So far I have only arrived to the part where it detects changes made to any file inside a folder I want to monitor (even if it is in a sub folder). My plan is to have this program running on the UK server and have it monitor the root folder of the websites for changes. As soon as there is a change to a file, it adds a command to a list so that the file is uploaded with an FTP command onto the US server. I have not yet explored FTP commands with VB.Net but I am hoping to find how do it just like I found how to monitor a folder for changes.

Still, if you know of a program that can do what I am after, I would be very grateful because it would save me a lot of time.

Can i ask a simple, yet an effective question.

Have you asked the webhosting service if it offers a duplicate mirroring in any other location? as i know some webhosters which do this.

edit: and you could simply ditch the us server, and pay like (or almost) twice the yearly/monthly subscription

Actually no. But I already had a bad experience with their backups in the past, and that is why I handling my own backups. Once they had a server crash and restored a backup from 3 weeks earlier. I had a lot of complaints from clients who had done a lot of Content Management changes to their site during that time and they had to do it again. So now I don't trust them.

So I started making my own backups, but my current backups involve zipping all the sites and then downloading the zip files to my server in Malta. This consumes a lot of bandwidth and puts a strain on the hosting CPU when creating the zip files. Pages start to timeout when the zip files are being created. The problem is not that visible because the zipping is done early in the morning, but it is still a nuissance.

I presume you're using Windows... something like http://www.areca-backup.org/ might help.

Yes, sorry, forgot to mention. Will check it out tomorrow and get back to you.
 

If you are using Windows, why don't you use the Windows task scheduler to automate the running of the application at a certain time?

The Windows Task Scheduler wil only go as far as starting the application, but it will not start the syncing, unless the application can accept command line parameters.
 

if you have time for coding, you could try autoit. I've personally programmed with this and learning it only took about 6 hours of my life xD

http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/