How do I copy only files that have been modified to my server with BuildMaster?

Question

I am trying to deploy one of my websites with BuildMaster and this particular site has thousands of files. When I need to deploy to my production server, sometimes only 1 or 2 files need to be changed. Is there a way to set up my deployment plan so it only copies files to the server that have changed since the previous release?

Answer 1

You'll want to add a "Transfer Files Action" to your deployment plan, which by default will only transfers files that have been modified.

I should note that if you're creating a build artifact with thousands of files, you may want to first deploy it to the BuildMaster server, then use a "Transfer Files Action" so it only transfers the modified files. If you were to deploy the artifact directly on the remote server, it would transfer the whole artifact then unzip all 1000+ files.

Thanks for posting this, I'll add this to our FAQ.

Answer 2

rsync is probably the better way to achieve this:

rsync -a ./source/directory username@server:/destination/directory

This will only send the files that have been modified