File Permissions and Website Backups

[ntsmedia]

Greetings

I'm looking for an easy and effective way to backup website directories (or a whole site) and retain the various file permissions while creating a one-file archive. The server is a remotely hosted Xserve and I can work on it via SSH/Terminal and/or using Timbuktu when needed. Stuffit works nice from the command line BUT does not handle file permissions.

Would making a disk image (via dropDMG) retain file permissions? Any caveats to watch out for by having dropDMG on the server?

Thanks
John

[Michael Tsai]

Would making a disk image (via dropDMG) retain file permissions?

Yes.

Any caveats to watch out for by having dropDMG on the server?

You can control DropDMG via ssh, but there would need to be a user logged in at the machine. It can’t just be sitting at the login screen, because DropDMG runs as a regular application and needs to talk to the window server.

[ntsmedia]

I'll give a test run ... the server is running with me logged in as the admin so I'm not sure I understand if there would be a problem using SSH remotely but I can always drag/drop with TB2.

Thanks
John

[Michael Tsai]

If it’s running with you logged in (i.e. you’d see your desktop if a display were plugged in) then it should work.

[ntsmedia]

Oh yes definitely ... my desktop would be showing (is when using Timbuktu of course but using Terminal while screen sharing seems like a Mothra meets Godzilla session).

Maybe a dumb question ... can I Stuff a DMG without the problem of Stuffit changing the file permissions? Should have asked that earlier.

Thanks
John

[Michael Tsai]

can I Stuff a DMG without the problem of Stuffit changing the file permissions?

Sure, but why would you want to? That will just add an extra step to access the .dmg. I don’t think that StuffIt will be able to squeeze much space out of a bzip2-compressed .dmg.

[ntsmedia]

Understood ... I hadn't worked with the various options yet. Seems to be a good solution for what I'm trying to do and I'll delve into the documentation and try some real tests. Thanks for your fast replies!

John