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What is the WebsiteBaker FileMonitor?

FileMonitor is a small snippet that will check periodically all files in your WebsiteBaker website to detect any hacking attempts. It doesn't matter if files are changed from within the WebsiteBaker admin area, or by FTP or any other way. All changes in files will be detected.

How does this work?

The best way to detect filechanges would be by runing a script on certain interval by using a cron job in your webspace. As soon as a change has been detected an email should be sent listing the changes found.
Unforunately most hosters will not allow you to run your own cron-jobs, so this script uses another method.

Website visitors!

The snippet can be called using a functioncall in your website template or just on a single (hidden) page, checking a part of your website files every x minutes. Every time a visitor opens a page on your website the snippet will check the time of the last scan and after the defined timeout it will check the next number of files.

Downsides!

The method described above has its downsides too.
A standard WebsiteBaker installation has 2200+ files, and all of them will be checked.
Scanning this many files on a (shared) webserver takes time. How much time is something you cannot predict, but a full scan of all files in your website can take up to several minutes.
However, doing a scan on regular basis will make the webserver to cache your files, making websites with not that many visitors actually faster.

Anyway, remember adding this snippet to your template (called on every page load) will slow down the response of your website every now and then.

Solution?

There are many (free) services out there that will allow you to check your website to detect if your site up and running.
When you setup an account that checks your site every x minutes on a special (hidden) page you could include the snippet on that page only.
You could also use local testing software running from your home or company location. The effect will be the same. A regular call to a special page on your website simulating a cron-job on your server.

This way normal visitors will not run the snippet, so they will see no delays.

Examples.

On the next page I will show some examples of how the snippet can be used.