Backup of Actinic site from the web? Possible or not?

[Benfrain]

Right, a site I have built is up and live on the web at the minute.

However, the computer I configured it on has given up the ghost and I now need to re-install the site on a new machine. (I don't have an up to date CD backup of the site - DOH!)

Is there ANY way to download the existing actinic site from the server and get it back onto a PC?

Otherwise it will mean starting from scratch - Grrrr!

[cdicken]

Ben

I'm afraid there is is no way to restore a site from the web. The web-site is what Actinic produces - but the raw materials (the database and the templates) are only on the local PC.

You can download all the product images from the site, and copy and paste all your product descriptions from your web pages, but that is about it.

Sorry - I know this is not what you wanted to hear.

[Benfrain]

DOH!

Oh well, perhaps a feature to introduce in future versions?

Thanks for the response.

Ben

[NormanRouxel]

Sorry you've lost everything. I presume lots of other stuff went with the dead system too.

I know that this is too late to help but:-

Ages ago I posted a simple batch file that you used to start Actinic that Zipped all the relevant (or the entire) Site1 stuff to a file (like sitebackup.zip), with, optionally, a password. All you had to do was to include that file in the list of additional files to upload and, voila, instant backups.

Trouble is that that zipfile could be pretty big so you might need a fast connection and a roomy server.


Norman

[Benfrain]

Can you let me have that batch file? Will be useful for the future!

I use ADSL so it won't be a problem.

Thanks - Ben

[NormanRouxel]

I can't give you a total solution as it depends on what Zipping program you have.

This example uses good old PKZIP that's been around since the days of DOS 3 and still works even on XP.
If you don't have it see www.pkware.com. Put pkzip.exe into your Site1 folder.

Just stick the following lines into a file called startcatalog.bat in yout Site1 folder
and make a shortcut to that file on the desktop.
This example will zip the ActinicCatalog.mdb file only.
For some security it password protects it (mysecretpassword).
I'd also recommend obfuscation make the output file (sitemdb.zip)something very unusual so
no-one could guess it.

Now all you need is to add the file sitemdb.zip in Actinic's Advanced / Additional files.

Note that it is PKZIP is so old that it won't save the long filename so you'd
have to rename the recovered file back to ActinicCatalog.mdb if you ever had to restore.

I believe that WinZip was going to add command line controls in recent releases (I only have V7)
so perhaps ther's a better way using Winzip.

Here's the basic pkzip way:-


pkzip -smysecretpassword sitemdb.zip a*.mdb
call "C:\Program Files\Actinic Ecommerce v6\Catalog.exe"
exit



Simple eh!

Norman

[Benfrain]

Cheers for that Norman,

By some mirracle - we actually managed to salvage the laptop disk (it had been through x-ray scanners at the airport so was actually a little worse for wear!) and get the site files from it.

So at least I don't have to start from scratch - I will make sure I upload a backup zip file of the site in future!

Thanks all