Making an offline file system copy of a Plone site using WebDAV

You might want to create an offline copy of a Plone site because

  • You are traveling and you want to have all files on the site (PDFs for reading)
  • You are taking a site down and making the final back-up
  • You just want to feel how cool Plone is

Plone supports WebDAV.

Creating a file system viewable offline copy of a Plone site is a task of

  • Enabling WebDAV
  • Login to site via WebDAV. On OSX use Cyberduck, Finder (the file browser of OSX itself) may have issues, though works. You might need Zope admin priviledges for certain operations.
  • Drag and drop Plone site to your hard disk

WebDAV copy process works smoothly

  • Folder and page structure is intact
  • Files are copied as is (think PDFs, Docs)
  • Images are copied as is
  • Pages (HTML) are converted to special files, which are still readable in plain-text editor
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Note that some special folders (acl_users, reference_catalog, etc.) might be exposed through WebDAV, but they are not really copyable. Just ignore these during the copy process.

You can also use WebDAV to mass upload files and images for your image bank instead of manually uploading them through web interface.

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About Mikko Ohtamaa

Web and mobile consultant with background in Plone, Python and Django
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