First, I apologize that I am getting back on topic. Im not a coffee person. The hydrocodone I take is more than enough to get me going.
I have more questions now that I have my super duper secret ping update code done. What file retrieval method is most available with all the webhosts out there? I used curl alot in my code. Im really concerned about the file update process. Should I use curl and build in a failsafe system that uses fopen etc if curl fails?
Also here is my update process (not real filenames

). Pass? Fail?

Master pings slave (update.php) via secret challenge and a mysql table update sets the system to mustupdate mode.
a cron script (cron.php) is set to run every 5 minutes.
the cron.php checks the db to see if the system is in must update mode.
if in mustupdate mode the cron invokes update.php to get a file manifest from the array of servers to use. (use only 1 but will have backup just in case)
files are downloaded and replaced
(update.php) verifies the integrity of the update and sets the system back to mustnotupdate.