Is there a program to use on a Windows server system to automatically ftp files every night?

[LordJezo]

I am moving from a Unix platform to a Windows server platform. In Unix it is simple enough to write a tiny shell script to go out to some servers, pull down some files, and email out a confirmaton email, and have it all scheduled in the crontab.

How does one do things like this in Windows? I need to have something go out to a dozen different servers, pull down a bunch of files from each one, and have it scheduled to run each night.

 

[aceO07]

I'm currently looking for the same thing. I've tried autoftp, but takes a while to get used to. It also likes to crash on my computer when I exit. It blames dll conflicts, but doesn't tell me a good solution (possible solution given was to delete/rename a dll that wasn't theirs and no explaination of why). It does have an option to send out emails after scheduled transfers are done, however it doesn't do it until I manually exit the program. well, that's useless to me.. It might be due to Norton Antivirus.. but still..

Let me know if you found a good one. I need one to upload a directory daily to ftp server as a backup. Addition ability to rename directories based on date and create new folders would be nice too.

Edit: Having the option of being a windows service would be perfect for me. AutoFtp is $195 for service version.

 

[CTho9305]

VBscript

 

[edmicman]

windows has a command line ftp program. i think the commands are documented in the help or online. i've set up a batch file that automatically connects to an ftp site and downloads files each night. i don't think it would be hard to set up any sort of automated transaction as long as you have the login info and the directory structure

<edit>
Heres the setup I've got going. This gets a text file that updates something on our server.
First, I have the batch file:
---ftp -s:get_ews.txt -A www.melissadata.com
---copy ews.txt F:\DataDir\AddrData /Y
---copy ews.txt M:\ /Y

the get_ews.txt file has the ftp commands in it:
---get Updates/ews.txt
---quit

hope this helps!
</edit>

 

[aceO07]

thanks edmicman! that should work perfectly!

edit: i was never aware that it could take input from files. learn something new every day. thanks again

 

[GigaCluster]

Also, WS_FTP Pro comes with a graphical scheduler that allows this kind of thing.

 

[dsfunk]

You can use windows task scheduler to run scripts at certain times. You need windows script host installed and then you can run little javascripts and vbscripts as executables. I have a javascript that grabs the date, messes around with it, creates a filename, goes off and gets a file, copies it to two places, then deletes the original file. Task scheduler runs it once a day.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: LordJezo
I am moving from a Unix platform to a Windows server platform. In Unix it is simple enough to write a tiny shell script to go out to some servers, pull down some files, and email out a confirmaton email, and have it all scheduled in the crontab.

How does one do things like this in Windows? I need to have something go out to a dozen different servers, pull down a bunch of files from each one, and have it scheduled to run each night.

But what I would do is to install wget

then make a chat script using telnet to e-mail out the confirmation, if even that is possible using windows CLI.

 

[MysticLlama]

Also check into the command line "at" command. It allows you to set up scheduled tasks with more options than are available through the task scheduler.

What I typically do with my servers is write a command script with the following:

at /delete
clears all the jobs

at /date:time parameters command script 1
at /date:time parameters command script 2
at /date:time parameters command script etc. etc.

Then I can take a quick look at all my scheduled things I have going on. I have this file run each time on startup just to make sure everything is nice and neat (though at does stay through reboots, thus if it's in startup you have to have the at /delete or you'll make a big mess, because you'll have things scheduled multiple times.)

To make a schedule modification I just edit the file and run it again.

Pretty simple, and real easy to migrate tasks to a new server if need be since they are all lined out in a series of files.