Sometimes we need to duplicate a directory with subfolders into a new location on the same server and we have to make sure that these directories are exactly the same.

Normally – but not best – we use the cp -pr command.
The result is that our softlinks aren’t links anymore and the timestamps of some directorys are not the same as they are in the source directory. To partially solve this, you can use tar to create an archive and untar it in the destination – the better way is a combination of find and cpio. You will be save to get all files and directories with links, timestamps and rights in destination like they are in the source location.

example:

change to the directory you want to copy from and invoke the following command
find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmv /destination/

Sometimes a situation can occur in which we need to do a bulk rename of files. Thinking about a situation in which we want to rename all .html files to make them inaccessible for a while or we want to rename all downloaded photos from your camera perhaps?

Being on Unix this can be done easily by using a simple 4 line shell script like the one below:

for a in *.html; do
  t=`echo $a | sed ‘s/.html$/.html.en/’`
  mv $a $t
done

In this example we will rename all .html file to .html.en e.q. index.html.en which comes handy in case you want to add another set of webpages to your server containing and supporting a 2nd languge.

Guess it is not really necessary to tell you that you should make a copy of your files first??

Some of the low cost Hosting Providers do not even offer an interface to backup your webspace.

Personally I do think about it as annoying to download all the previous uploaded files again and again through a slow and less reliable FTP Client interface when an easy script executed on the server can do so much quicker for you instead.

To give you an idea what about I’m talking, I’ve written together an easy example you may feel free about to use it in your own environment in future.

It is able to do both, creating a local backup in a separate folder on your server, as also to transfer this backup to your local machine or even to another FTP Server on the net:

#!/bin/bash
# FTP Backup by Michael Lohmar
# Script: ftpbackup.sh
# Author: Michael Lohmar
# Contact? info@mikelo.com

if [ $# != 3 ];then
echo ""
echo "Shell script for backing up one given domain."
echo "Usage: $(basename $0) domain_to_backup [FTP/NOFTP] [DEL/NODEL]"
echo ""
exit
fi

version=1.0

##### INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS: STEP 1 #####
##### START ENTER YOUR INFO HERE #####

serverip=yourserver.com
# Your remote servers IP address
# EG: serverip=192.168.1.1

serveruser=youruser
# The FTP login for the remote server
# EG: serveruser=bob

serverpass=yourpassword
# The FTP password for the remote server
# EG: serverpass=mypassword

localdir=/home/your/local/folder
# WHERE LOCAL FILES ARE TO BACKUP
# NO TRAILING SLASH
# EG: localdir=/backup/folder/daily

sourcedir=/home/your/source/folder
# WHERE LOCAL FILES ARE TO BACKUP
# NO TRAILING SLASH
# EG: localdir=/domain/source/folder

remotedir=your/remote/folder
# FTP directory where you want to save files to
# This directory must exist on the FTP server!
# NO TRAILING SLASH
# EG: remotedir=/serverdirectory

##### END YOUR INFO HERE #####

##### INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS: STEP 2 #####
# CHMOD the script to 755: # chmod 755 ftpbackup.sh

# Add the script to a scheduled cron job to run as often as you like (if wished!)

# In SSH do crontab -e, then paste in the following
# 0 6 * * 0,1,3,5 /home/admin/ftpbackup.sh
# This does a FTP backup every second day of the week, lookup cronjobs for more info on setting dates and times.
# Don’t forget to substitue the path info to the script with your details
##### INSTALL COMPLETE #####
# DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING BELOW #

host=`hostname`
cd $sourcedir

echo "Starting FTP Backup on " $host

# Creating a local tar.gz Archive
tar cfvz $localdir/$1_`date +%y_%m_%d`.tar.gz $1

# Transfer the tar.gz Archive to remote server
if [ $2 == FTP ];then
cd $localdir
echo "user $serveruser $serverpass
cd $remotedir
bin
verbose
put $1_`date +%y_%m_%d`.tar.gz
" | ftp -i -n $serverip
fi

# Delete local tar.gz Archive again
if [ $3 == DEL ];then
rm $localdir/$1_`date +%y_%m_%d`.tar.gz
fi

echo "Ftp backup complete on " $host
exit 0