What's the best way of finding out what the path is?

Typically this will be /home/username/backup

You will need to create the backup folder yourself...and it will be in the same folder that public_html is in - NOT IN the public_html folder though. You might want to search around your host's forums, knowledgebase, etc. or ask them yourselves. Ask them what the path to the root directory is, they'll let you know.

Without even doing that, you can go ahead and enter /home/username/backup (replacing username of course) as the path and see if it works. More often than not, it will work... /home/username/ is pretty standard.

Thanks. I'll give that a shot. Would love to see this work!

BTW, running phpinfo gives you the path info as well. I just ran it and it confirmed it was /home/myusername/...

Right, I didn't even think about that...For future reference, anybody not knowing their path can do this as well....Create a .php file with the following contents

Upload it to your server somewhere and run it in your browser. Then search for the DOCUMENT_ROOT entry - which will be the path to your public_html folder. Just remove the public_html part and voila.

Thanks Donna...I may or may not add that to the tutorial

the other way you can find out the path when logged in to your shell account is by typing "pwd" with out the "". This will give you the path to the current folder you are in.

That's "if" you have a shell account.

Hmmm that is an interesting thing. Will a shell script work if you don't have a shell account? This is something i would like to know.

I guess we'll find out when dazzlindonna comes back with her results.

If it doesn't work because of that, or if somebody would like to find their path via shell but does not have shell access, many hosts will grant shell access - you just have to ask for it. It's not uncommon to have SSH access disabled by default, and only enabled by request.

Any updates on your backups yet, donna?

I'll let you know tomorrow, as I set it for midnight tonight.