le-ftp

Watch local directory (and its sub-directories) for changes and uploads changed files via ftp - node.js

This is not fully tested and should not be used in any critical applications.

Usage

1. Make sure you have node.js installed
2. In the directory where le-ftp is installed, create file testftp.js
3. Copy and paste into the new file the following:

LEftp = require('le-ftp');
 
var x = new LEftp({
    "host"		: "",		// ftp host address, eg. my.server.com
    "port"		: 21,
    "user"		: '',		// Your ftp username
    "password"	: '',		// Your ftp password
    
    "watchList":	[
                {
                    "localRootDir"	: "C:/local/folder1",
                    "remoteRootDir"	: 'public_html/remote/dir1'
                },
                {
                    "localRootDir"	: "C:/my/local/folder2",
                    "remoteRootDir"	: 'public_html/remote/dir2'
                }
            ],
    // The following two parameters are depricated. Use watchList array instead
    // "localRootDir" : "C:/my/local/folder",	// Depricated, use watchList array instead
    // "remoteRootDir": 'public_html/remote/dir',	// Depricated, use watchList array instead
 
    "frequency"	: 1,		// Number of seconds between each scan
    "ext"		: ['.css','.js','.html','txt','jpg'],
    "onStartUploadAll"  : true  // On start, upload all files (that match the "watch criteria").
});

1. Edit the settings you just pasted (see Configuration Parameters below)
2. From command line in the directory where le-ftp resides, run node le-ftp
3. Current files (that match your criteria) will be uploaded and program will keep running
4. To stop watching
5. from command line, use [Ctrl]+[c]
6. from script, call .stop() method on the le-ftp object. So, in the above example it would be x.stop()
7. If you want to modify the testftp.js so that watching is stopped after, say, 100seconds, add the following code to testftp.js:

// Schedule to stop watching in 100 seconds (100,000 milliseconds)
setTimeout(
    function() {x.stop();} ,
    100 * 1000                    // Schedule stop after 100 seconds (100,000 milliseconds)
);

Configuration Parameters

• host: 'myftpserver.domain.com' - address of the ftp server

• port: 21 - ftp server port

• remoteRootDir: '' - Remote root directory: Local files will be copied to this directory

• localRootDir: '' - Local root directory: Local directory to watch

• user: '' - Ftp username

• password: '' - Ftp password

• watchList: [ - Array of folders to watch and corresponding upload target directories

  • { - Beging first object describing the pair of folder to watch and its upload target directory
  • localRootDir: 'C:/my/local/folder1', - first local folder to watch
  • remoteRootDir: 'public_html/remote/dir1' - first remote upload target directory
  • }, - End first object
  • { - Beging second object describing the pair of folder to watch and its upload target directory
  • localRootDir: 'C:/my/local/folder2', - second local folder to watch
  • remoteRootDir: 'public_html/remote/dir2' - second remote upload target directory
  • }, - End Second object

• ], - End of array of folders to watch

• localRootDir : "C:/dir" - Depricated. Full path to local folder to be copied to the FTP server. Use Unix backslash "/"

• remoteRootDir : 'public_html/dev.clubfinance.uk/angular', - Depricated Remote folder, starting from your FTP root

• frequency: 1 - number of seconds between each scan. Decimals (e.g. 0.1) are acceptable

• ext: ['css','js','html','txt'] - if you want to only include files with certain extensions, list the extensions here as an array of strings: ['css','js','html']. No need to prefix extensions with '.', so .css and css will both work.

Important if you receive ECONNREFUSED error

• On some networks the node.js ftp module cannot connect and returns ECONNREFUSED error
• This is not an issue with le-ftp itself, but node.js ftp module, on which le-ftp depends
• This issue could be resolved by setting keep alive option to false inside node.js ftp module
  • editing file node_modules/ftp/lib/connections.js
  • Open the file and go to line 106, which says
  • socket.setKeepAlive(true);
  • Change true to false, so that it now says
  • socket.setKeepAlive(false);