Foxtrot tango, papa?

[undyingking]

Does anyone know of / can recommend a good free / cheap FTP client that'll do reasonably clever and option-laden synching of directory content? Something like WinSCP, only for FTP?

Edit: Being more specific, features I'd like to see include:

* with a small number of clicks, it compares a remote directory (and recurses down into subdirectories) with the previously-specified local equivalent, presents me a list of which files are newer at which end, and will then (again with a small number of clicks) upload or download as appropriate to sych the ones I want to be synched;

* options to include hidden files in the comparison, exclude certain types of files by extension, ...

* remember directory presentation options;

* refresh local directory automatically when changes made in other apps (this seems a simple feature, but I've yet to find it);

* can keep conections to more than one server open at once;

* can configure keep-alive options;

* can synch (as above) remote servers with each other (via invisible local temp copy, presumably);

* easy to chmod, chown, chgrp;

* keps informative log of operations;

* make coffee.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what you mean by "clever and option-laden", but I've found FileZilla pretty good for general FTP-age and it supports "overwrite if newer", which I assume is what you mean by synching ?

[chrisvenus]

What I would understand by syncing is something like Dreamweaver has built in. You configure an ftp directory on a remote server and tell it where its local equivalent should be. You then download everything and the direcotries remain storngly linked. ie you make a change in subdirectory A and it will know that it uploads to subdir A on the server without you needing to do the usual thing of changing to the local directory with the new file, changing to the remote directory you want it to go into and then clicking and dragging. It does much more clever things. I'm not sure if I've explained it will but it makes it vastly easier not to make a mistake when you are dealing with keeping a local copy of a website synced with the server copy.

I've yet to find a client outside a big product that does this though which is why I occasionally have macromedia stuff installed on my computer.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK.

I'd just do this by dragging the root directory across and letting the timestamps sort it all out, but I guess that doesn't work well in more complex cases.

[chrisvenus]

One of the nice things dreamweaver does is when you hit sync gives you a list of what files its going to move so you can check they look about right. I don't personally trust timestamps alone to do this kind of thing. I'm fortunately in the position where the only site I maintain only has six subdirectories so copying things manually isn't that hard. And I can queue files to be batched all at once for if I have files that are dependant on each other. :)

Smart FTP is what I use currently for the record. About twice a year. :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Timestamps can be a right pain if your remote server is in a different timezone. My main backup server is several hours distant and it took me ages to work out how to prevent competing server timestamps insisting that uploaded files went out of synch with their local equivalents as soon as they appeared on it.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I am actually using Dreamweaver at the moment for this task, but it seems a bit overkill (and also has other annoyances which I won't bore you with here!) I'm not so fussed about having it automatically upload any changed files without me having to tell it to, as I don't use that very often, but it's the other thing you mention below of giving a helpful list of which files are newer at each end which I find valuable. See above for a bit of a clarification of needs..

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I meant a bit more than that -- see above for clarification.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

We used to use ws_ftp at work.

I say "we", as I didn't. I ended up with ncftp, being a more powerful command line client.

Dunno whether it'll do what you want :(

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I use 'easy FTP' but no idea whether it does what you want.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

See above for clarification of reqts.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Ha ha - I still don't know whether it does what you want! Apart from the coffee bit of course. I'll check tonight, if you haven't already had a reply saying "yes to everything, including coffee".

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm currently using ws_ftp LE, don't know what extra features are in the paid-for edition? (See above for clarification.)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Paid for? Oh, no! We were using LE as well. And we're now using WinSCP. :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I use WinSCP for SCP/SFTPing, but it's a pain it doesn't also do just vanilla FTP. That would provide most of what I need.

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

SSH Comms file transfer is the tool I have at work, but I also do not know much about it (or whether it's cheap or not).

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

I think FileZilla will do most of what you want, off the top of my head (with the possible exception of the chmod etc. stuff). I believe it only comes with tea-making rather than coffee as standard, though.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm not aware that it will do the directory comparison thing which is my main reqt?

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Mmm, it sort of does as bateleur has noted, but possibly not to the level you need -- but I've not seen anything which does that sort of synching in a vanilla FTP client, only in an FTP client bolted on to some kind of content manager.

FileZilla does have the ability to work with stuff in other timezones and not to get _too_ confused -- I've used it with servers in the US before now -- but it does depend on both your server and the remote server having a reasonable idea of what the time is and communicating correctly about timezones. If your remote server doesn't correctly announce its timezone within the timestamp, or if your or its clock has drifted significantly, then you're a bit buggered really.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

not seen anything which does that sort of synching in a vanilla FTP client

Mm, I was hopeful mainly because WinSCP does do the complex synching thing I want, and it's very much a vanilla SCP client, so I wondered if anyoen had included the same thing in an FTP client. I've found various shareware ones that look as though they might (3D-FTP, EquiFile FTP, TurboFTP) but was hoping for a recommendation. Ah well, not to worry, it's easy enough to download them and give them a test run.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

rsync and Linux

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It's a right pain from the command line though -- do you know of a Windows rsync GUI?

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

The syntax is drummed into my fingertips. I don't know of a GUI or Windows port later than NT for it.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I have a command-line version for Windows XP, whch I've used occasionally.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

Now sure if it deals with FTP (UNC rather than URL), but I absolutely love SyncToy (an MS PowerToy) for syncing Windows directory structures.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That does look good, thanks for tip!