Why not unlink?

Why not File::Find?

Why no -w?

Why don't you check to see if the dir is already mounted before mounting?

Why don't you use Archive::Tar/Compress::Zlib/etc.. for compressing.

And, personally, when I have something on a cron and use any type of config file, I like to make sure that noone is editing it when the script starts to run. I usually use a shell script which is called by cron that is something like:

#!/bin/sh

r=`ps -eaf | grep <name of script> | grep -v grep | grep -v vi`
if [ $? -eq 1 ]
    then
        /run/the/script
    else
        sleep 10
        /re/run/this/script
fi
[download]

This way, if the script is running, it is being edited, or if the conf file is being used (assumming foo.pl has foo.conf, and you have <name of script> as 'foo') it will wait. YMMV.

But, much better than your original. It is always exciting to see yourself (and others) progress. Good show!

Cheers,
KM