That’s FS, not FFS, FFS!
SiteMatch is a website management tool for automating the process of uploading new and changed files in a website. It does this by analysing the local copy and comparing information about the files contained within to the information stored the last time it carried out this process. Files it doesn’t recognise, or whose attributes have changed, can be uploaded to the remote server and the relevant data stored for comparison the next time.
The software was originally written by Dave Edwards, and is now maintained by Richard Porter who has announced the release of version 2.44, a beta version. For those looking for a “stable” release, version 2.43 is also available, which is unchanged from the beta version 2.42f.
With the software’s original purpose being to upload new and changed files, a method is needed for doing so. FTP is a common method for uploading files to websites, so that is the method SiteMatch normally employs, with the help of FTPc (version 1.29 or higher). However, this has always meant that the software could compare and upload files anywhere – not just to websites – provided they were running an FTP server, a common facility on NAS devices, for example, making SiteMatch a handy backup tool.
That possibility has been extended still further in version 2.44, through the addition of a new client called “FS”. This allows files to be “uploaded” via the filing system, or using file sharing, which means the application can copy the contents of your website (or the contents of any directory you like) to another location on the same hard drive, another hard drive in the same machine, a flash drive, an open LanMan98 connection, and so on – anywhere that you can perform a normal file copy, with no need for the destination to be running an FTP server.