website backup

[rotciv]

having paid a substantial sum to a company for the designing and hosting of a website,i was stupid enough not to request a backup copy of this website.Now the company has folded and i had to host it with another company. my repeated requests for a backup are being evaded. Can i make a backup with all the codes or whatever it is that makes it work myself? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[Colour Republic]

If you have FTP access then yes you can easily do this yourself

[chat_to_rich]

You could also try a website downloader like this http://www.httrack.com/ You may need to experiment a bit to ensure you get all the pages. If you have a sitemap.xml file http://www.sitemaps.org/ you could start by pointing the tool at that.

[tooltraderdirect]

They should allow FTP access unless they have proprietary software they want to protect, such as a content management system.

If they give you FTP access, this is the best route for a simple site. You can then download all the files of the site using an FTP programme such as the freeware and open source Filezilla.

If they won't give you access, you will have to make a copy. This is not perfect as you can only scrape the information sent to the browser, not the underlying data. This makes it basically useless for database driven sites, such as ecommerce and content managed sites. I would always recommend using a well established CMS such as Wordpress or Joomla, as you would normally also be able to back up your database. This method also struggles with Flash intros/movies.

[rotciv]

Thank you all for your prompt replies but pls bear with me a little longer as i am rather a dummy in these things. On the site i can access a content manager where i can upload new content, delete things etc. does this mean that i have Ftp access? Iknow this stands for file transfer protocol but practically i don't know how it works or it's uses. Apart from the web pages the site has a section with statistics where i i can see the number of hits daily,monthly and yearly and from which country they originated.i can also access emails from any computer using webmail. As i'm not happy with the services of my present hosting company, if i engage a person familiar with IT will he be able to make me a backup copy without the host;s consent? As it seems to me that they are evading this issue to keep me dependent on their services.

[jmcp]

Hi,

apologies in advance if you already know the basics of what I am describing below.

The reason for using FTP would be to log into the server that has your website installed and actually copy the files and data that make up the website to your own computer.

There are a couple of ways to use FTP and they are to go to a command line session (dos window) and manually FTP to the remote server by using a server name or an ip address, you would then navigate to the various directories that store your code and data and copy the files to your computer using commands like "get" or "mget" or you could download an FTP program hat automates a lot of this process by letting you point and click which files you want and were you want to put them but, the thing is, no matter what FTP process you use, you will need the server name details and an FTP id and password to be able to log into it, however, all this information should be available from your provider.

Cheers, John

[tooltraderdirect]

Thank you all for your prompt replies but pls bear with me a little longer as i am rather a dummy in these things. On the site i can access a content manager where i can upload new content, delete things etc. does this mean that i have Ftp access?
..
, if i engage a person familiar with IT will he be able to make me a backup copy without the host;s consent? As it seems to me that they are evading this issue to keep me dependent on their services.

If you have a content manager, then you have a content management system (CMS). This means you almost certainly won't be given direct access to the files on the server by FTP.
The CMS may be a well known one eg Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc, or it may be one the web hosting company has built. If its the latter, you have no right to the files and the database behind the system. It may even be true the the hosting company is not allowed to give you a copy as the system may be licensed from a 3rd party. However, unless you signed your rights away, you do have copyright of images, and text (and other media) that you provided. In the Content Manager, is there an option to back up or export your database and/or site? Most of the well known CMSs such as Wordpress will offer this option.

So, you can legally copy all your content from the site, if it is content you created or provided, as "creation" is what makes copyright. Unless you signed those rights away...

My advice to anyone having a CMS website built is to use a well known and supported CMS, so you can get backups if you ever need to move. Also, if you can, draft an agreement that gives you copyright over the design, as a website designer, by default, has copyright, even if you supply the images.

P.S - you need to distinguish between content and "the system". You provide content, they provide the system the content sits on.

[Harryhaggler]

Use FTP Filezilla to rip a copy

[rotciv]

thank you all for your help. Managed to obtain a backup after some not so gentle persuasion. Excuse the delay, but had a rather nasty accident and couldn't handle the mouse and type.