User blog comment:LOTRMod/Auto-Downloads/@comment-25612015-20150313001823/@comment-25612015-20150314092020

From the last things i read on the Facebook page, i'm beginning to understand that you want a script outside of the server, on your own computer, to periodically download the LOTR.dat file, an re-upload it if necessary.

If so, you would need read/write access to the file with a network protocol such as FTP or HTTP (i doubt you will be able to see the full Minecraft folder file space with this last one) and a protocol client such as curl (curl.haxx.se).

But, because of what i already explained, it would be dangerous : - to conclude that the file you just downloaded is damaged if it's empty - to overwrite the LOTR.dat file with a version uploaded. You would have to previously stop the Minecraft process on the server, and restart it afterward.

In this case, the real problem would be the lack of system level access to your Minecraft server, making it both very hard to properly do this kind of things and manage performance. I would advise you to switch to a new host. Not a Minecraft hoster, but a generic professionnal dedicated server hoster (from the rates i see, it's not necessarily more expensive).

If needed, i could help with finding such a hoster and setting up the server software on it. For hARDA, i use this : Dedibox LT 2015

(The script i provided is meant for running inside the server.)