Using SyncBackPro > Expert Mode

These options are not available if compression is being used.

It is common to use Content Delivery Networks (CDN's) like Cloudflare, Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, etc. These are used, amongst other things, to cache content so the overall performance of a web site is improved.

If you are downloading files from an FTP/FTPS/SFTP server (from here on we will just state FTP), which also hosts a web server (e.g. Apache), then it is possible to have SyncBack retrieve the files from the web server instead of the FTP server. When there is a web cache server (e.g. a CDN) between the computer running SyncBack and the web server, then download performance can be greatly improved.

When this option is enabled and configured, it works like this:

•SyncBack scans the FTP server as per normal.

•When a file is to be downloaded from the FTP server, it checks if it is a file that can be served by the web server. This is achieved by specifying the base folder of the web site on the server, e.g. /var/www/mywebsite.com/

•If the file to be downloaded is one the web server can access, then SyncBack asks the web server for details on the file, e.g. it's size and last modification date and time.

•If the web server can provide the file, and the size and last modification date and time match what the FTP server says they are, then SyncBack will download the file using HTTP/HTTPS from the web server and not by using FTP

•If there is a cache then it is often considerably faster to download the file using HTTP/HTTPS than using FTP

•If that fails, or the size or date don't match, then SyncBack falls back to downloading the file from the FTP server as per normal

You can configured what the minimum file size should be for it to use HTTP/HTTPS, and also what types of files (based on their filename extension) should be downloaded. For example, you should not download HTML or PHP files from the web server as they will not be the actual file contents.

Settings

•Download files using HTTP: If ticked, then files can be downloaded from the specific web server.

•Web server URL: This setting specifies the URL to download the file from (e.g. https://www.mywebsite.com/). It must match the Web server base path setting. For example, if you only want to download files from the web server that are in a specific sub folder, e.g. /assets/software/, then the URL should include that, e.g. https://www.mywebsite.com/assets/software/

•Web server base path: This is the path on the server that the web server delivers files from. It must be relative to the base/root folder of your FTP account. For example, if your FTP account can access all the folders on the web server (so it's base/root path is /) then you would specify the path of the web site files relative to the root (/), e.g. /var/www/mywebsite.com/. If, for example, your FTP user accounts base/root folder is /var/www/, then your web server base path would be /mywebsite.com/

•Ignore files less than x MB in size: By default, files under 5MB in size will not be downloaded using the web server. Depending on the performance on your FTP server, network connection, cache server, etc. there will be no benefit in downloading small files from the web server.

•HTTP filter: Click this button to specify which files can and cannot be downloaded from the web server. By default .exe, .zip, iso, and .pdf files will be downloaded, but all other file types will be ignored.

The log file and profile history, after the profile is run, will specify how many files were downloaded using HTTP. If none were downloaded then there will be no entry in the log file specifying the number. There is also a variable (%HTTPDOWNLOAD%) that can be used.

HTTP/HTTPS will not be used to download any Ransomware detection files.

FTP, HTTP

FTP, HTTP