sftpup 5

sftpup is used for uploading files to ftp servers and keep them consistent to a local directory.

To use sftpup go follow these steps:

1. Create a directory for your work, e.g. www where all files will be stored. For example, if you create your websites via XML and XSLT, make www the target for each generated file.
2. Upload all files to the ftp server. Your server directory and www are now in a consistent state. sftpup saves the state of www by calculating SHA hashes for each file. To initialize, execute:

sftpup --init your-config-file

The hashes are stored in the file given by hashfile in your-configfile.
3. If you change a file or directory (modified, deleted, added etc.) and want to do an update the ftp server, type:

sftpup --update your-config-file

sftpup compares HTML files with stored hashes and lists differences.This list is then used to make send appropriate commands to the ftp server.
4. To test what actions would be done, you can do a socalled dry-run by typing:

sftpup --dry-run your-config-file

sftpup then prints a list of commands and files/directories.