backing up site using php?

[Anon]

Hey

Is it possible to make a script that when run would take all of the files and directories in my /public_html/ folder and put them into a compressed file? like a zip file or somthing?

Thanks

[melvyn]

Sure,
question is: how would you run it?

You need a virtual host that is on the same server and has access to the directory you need to back up.

The simplest would to simply use a system call to GNU tar, since that would spare you the time consuming directory traversal.

Then use either the supplied zlib functions or another system call to your favourite compression program.

On windows you might want to look into the command-line support extension for winzip, to accomplish this.

[[deleted]]

Ehm...zlib?

tar zcvf backup.tgz /path/to/directory_that_I_want_to_backup

Stick that in your crontab and you're done.

On windows there's RAR or PKZIP. (commandline extentions to winzip? winzip is the windows interface to PKZIP)
You can make simple oneliners that compress a dir into a file.