PHP method to transfer whole directory using FTP?

Question

I've been trying to come up with a way to build an automatic update system for a cms that I'm building that will potentially be installed on numerous servers (likely with different configurations). What I've come up with is to keep a current version uploaded to my server in a predetermined directory. Then have the distributed systems check that directory (on a remote server) once every so often to see if a new version has been uploaded. If the version number of the uploaded version is greater than the one that particular system has, it will prompt the admin to update. Then the files will be copied via FTP into a tmp directory, then will be copied from tmp to replace the older versions of each file. then the tmp directory is deleted, and the systems version number is increased.

THe problem with this, is that I haven't found a way to transfer whole directories via PHP FTP. I know I can zip it and transfer it that way, but I haven't found a reliable way to unzip files in various server environments.

I know I can write my own method that will just go through each directory and transfer over each file one at a time, which is fine. I just wanted to know if someone else had already written something to this effect, or if someone knew of an alternate solution to this problem before I dive into it.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Instead of sending a directory, why not zip the folder to save bandwidth and time? Then unzip on the destination servers. deleted since it was not an option for the OP

You could use PHAR archives for your app deployment (if you want to be bleeding-edge modern)

Or you could write an update script for Phing that gets the files from your server. You could even do checkouts from SVN then, instead of placing the build in a directory.

Answer 2

Try using exec() to run lftp from the command line:

/usr/bin/lftp -e 'o ftp://ftp.example.com/path/to/remote/directory && mirror --verbose && quit'