[support] moving site and retaining permission

[adept techlists - kazar]

HI all --

I am singlehandedly building my first full-blown drupal site (using 7), 
rolling it out (for an art project that's already live), and testing 
additional modules and blocks etc.

On the web server I have created a protected "sandbox" subdomain as my 
"test server". I am trying to find the easiest way to move the test 
files to the "production server" (i.e., out of the subdomain and into 
the TLD), and to move files back when I want to do more testing & 
development but using all the latest settings etc from the live site as 
my starting point.

I have tried simple download/upload via ftp -- permissions all get 
screwed on the sites/defaults/files/xxx path

I have tried gzip, download, upload tar -- the "sites" directory ends up 
empty

it's a major drag to have to go into an ssh session to do chowns & 
chmods every time i move stuff back and forth.

There must be an easier way.

If the easier way involves straight CLI please be gentle, CLI still 
freaks me out

thanks!

kazar