
Aug 17

This is quite technical, but I’m putting it here so I don’t forget, and for anyone else who may be helped!
Rsync is a file copying protocol that allows you to copy an entire directory. It’s like an automated version of ftp, but it uses the SSH protocol not ftp. Here’s how to make a backup from SiteGround to your Macintosh Computer using rsync.
- Login to SiteGround and use the SSH Keys Manager to create an SSH key. You can use any ‘name’ for it, but keep a note of the password that you use.
- Under ‘Manage SSH keys’ go to ‘SSH Credentials’ and take note of the following:
Hostname:
Username:
Password:
Port: - Open a Terminal in OS X
- Type the following (you can edit it in a text editor then paste it in):
rsync --recursive --verbose --archive -e 'ssh -p 18765 ' --progress --delete --stats USERNAME@HOSTNAME:path/public_html /Users/wayne/Sites/foldername/
Notes:
- site ground use a non-standard ssh port of 18765 for rsync, that’s why you need the ‘ssh -p 18765’
- Make sure that around the ‘ssh -p 18765’ it uses those straight up and down quotes, not curly ones. To get then you use control-shift-‘ instead fo just shift-‘
- USERNAME is the username from siteground
- PASSWORD is the password from siteground
- path/public_html is the path to the directory you want to backup
- /Users/wayne/Sites/foldername is the path on your OSX that you want to make the backup to.
- You can add –dry-run to the above command to to a practice run. (e.g. off it after –verbose or –archive as another argument.) This is always a good idea. Then remove –dry-run for the real backup.