ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression. A ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. The ZIP file format permits a number of compression algorithms, though DEFLATE is the most common.
If you want to do something with files in your server you must do it carefully. Your files in server need to compress for backup or uprade. To compress files in your ubuntu server please follow this command.
Navigate to web server folder with command
cd /var/www/
Do compress with command
sudo zip -r file.zip folderwanttozip/Then you can download it (file.zip) with ftp or upload directly to your cloud.
I hope this help if I or You forget this command.