UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Precursor: ...it may sound like I'm at least somewhat comfortable with Unix, but I'm far from it. Layman's terms would be greatly appreciated

Okay, so here's the situation. I created a website using iWeb, and I'm not using a .Mac account (you can sync website in one click if you do). Being without .Mac, this is the process I've been following to upload to my site:

This was okay at the beginning, but it started to get really old, really fast when it started taking FOREVER to upload files. iWeb makes things difficult because each time you make a change, you overwrite ALL of the folders, thus I can't upload via FTP filtering by date modified.

So I did a little searching and found that you could use something called rsync. Using SSH, this program would upload just CHANGED files to my web server. For the past couple days, I've scurried around trying to determine if my webhost offered SSH, and long story short, I found somebody who's allowing me to use their web space and domain to see if this whole rsync thing works, etc.

So... I got rsync compiled and running (works locally syncing folder to folder), but whenever I try syncing over SSH, it just hangs until I force kill it using ctrl-c. It looks like it's initially working, as I have to enter my password (and if the wrong one's entered, it denies me access immediately). SSH itself doesn't seem to be the problem, as I can log into the server using SSH without a problem.
Here's the syntax I'm using:

Code:

rsync -avz ./iWeb/website/ [membername]@ssh.netfirms.com:[foldername]

I don't know if I'm missing syntax, have the wrong syntax, simply can't do this as of right now with Leopard, didn't compile rsync correctly, etc.

I'm running Mac OS X Leopard on a MacBook Pro (Intel 2.2 GHz, 2GB RAM) so you know. I'm sure much more info is needed to accurately answer this question, so just let me know what info you need. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

I don't know why it's hanging on you, but I don't think you've got the right combination of commands anyway. Possibly it's just taking forever...???

The z option makes it compress, which you don't want because you need these as raw files. You want the c option, which gives it its speed.

Try this one:

rsync -avc ./iWeb/website/ user@site.com:folder

Make sure you have that last '/' there. That's what I kept forgetting!

I tried everything as you said, and it's still hanging. I have also tried using other options as well while running rsync, and I still got the same result. When I type the command with multiple v's I eventually get a sort of time-out error, thus I'm pretty sure it's not just taking forever.

I contacted my webhost, and they informed me that rsync is not enabled/allowed with their site and is being looked at as a possible update in the future. I thought that was kind of stupid to allow SSH and not rsync... I'm not sure if they gave me the correct info or not, but I've tried all that I can and am getting no results.

Thanks again for the help!

Hi.

Possibly of some interest.

The ISP may have been talking about not running an rsync server, the daemon, rsyncd. An ISP that I once used was in the same condition.

As I recall, I compiled rsync at that ISP, and then used that local copy of rsync in my account on the ISP to communicate with my local workstation copy. Look over the rsync man page, especially at the section "CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM".

I no longer have that account, so regrettably I cannot give you any more details. If you have access to the gcc compiler suite and libraries on the ISP, then you may be able to do what I had done. Of course, you'll need the rsync source as well: rsync .

This may not have been clear due to normal mental fog of elapsed time for me -- perhaps an expert will drop by and offer additional details or alternate solutions.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

Thanks for the input. I most likely will need some clarification regarding some of the things you've said. I'm fairly illiterate when it comes to Unix functions, terms, etc. I'll sort it out when I get a bit more time. Any clarification that could be offered would be appreciated as well.