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Akeeba Backup User's Guide

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the appendix entitled "The GNU Free Documentation License".

Abstract

This book covers the use of the Akeeba Backup site backup component for Joomla!™ -powered web sites. It does not cover any other software of the Akeeba Backup suite, including Kickstart and the other utilities which have documentation of their own. Both the free Akeeba Backup Core and the subscription-based Akeeba Backup Professional editions are covered.

If you are looking for a quick start to using the component please watch our video tutorials.


Table of Contents

I. User's Guide to Akeeba Backup for Joomla!
1. Introduction
Introducing Akeeba Backup
What can I use Akeeba Backup for?
A typical backup/restoration work flow
Server environment requirements
2. Installation, updates and upgrades
Installing Akeeba Backup
Installing or manually updating the extension
Install from URL
Upload and install.
Manual installation
Troubleshooting the installation
The installation / update broke my site!
Upgrading from Core to Professional
Automatic updates
Troubleshooting the update
Addressing server issues
Check the validity of your Download ID
Check your subscription status
Multiple Professional edition Akeeba extensions with different Download IDs
Entering or changing your Download ID after an update is available
Updates are showing after installing the latest version
Updates not showing despite having an older version
Check the update site
Refresh the update cache
Miscellaneous troubleshooting and information
The update fails to download
Updating with a third party service fails
Manual update
Update installation problems
Entering your Download ID
Uninstalling Akeeba Backup
Requesting support and reporting bugs
3. Using the Akeeba Backup component
Menu items
Control Panel
Backup
Configuration
Manage Backups
Restore Latest Backup
Site Transfer Wizard
What to do if you don't have any menu items to Akeeba Backup
Pages outside the Control Panel panes
Common navigation elements
The Control Panel
Warning and error messages in the Control Panel
Editing the component's Options
Basic Operations
Profiles Management
Configuration Wizard
Configuration
The main settings
Basic Configuration
Advanced configuration
Site overrides
Optional filters
Quota management
Fine tuning
Database dump engines
Native MySQL Backup Engine
File and directories scanner engines
Smart scanner
Large site scanner
Archiver engines
ZIP format
JPA format
Encrypted Archives (JPS format)
DirectFTP
DirectFTP over cURL
DirectSFTP
DirectSFTP over cURL
ZIP using ZIPArchive class
Data processing engines
No post-processing
Send by email
Upload to Amazon S3
Upload to BackBlaze B2
Upload to Box.com
Upload to CloudMe
Upload to DreamObjects
Upload to Dropbox (v2 API)
Upload to Google Drive
Upload to Google Storage (JSON API)
Upload to Google Storage (Legacy S3 API)
Upload to OneDrive (LEGACY)
Upload to OneDrive and OneDrive for Business
Upload to Microsoft Windows Azure BLOB Storage service
Upload to OVH Object Storage
Upload to OpenStack Swift object storage
Upload to RackSpace CloudFiles
Upload to Remote FTP server
Upload to Remote FTP server over cURL
Upload to Remote SFTP server
Upload to Remote SFTP server over cURL
Upload to SugarSync
Upload to iDriveSync
Upload to WebDAV
Backup now
Troubleshooting backup issues
Backup fails after switching to another browser tab, browser window or application
Where are my backup files?
How can I download my backup files?
Why do I get warnings about unreadable files or folders?
I got an "AJAX loading error" when backing up. What should I do?
My backup files are not being uploaded to Amazon S3
How do I know that my backup archive works?
What happens if I have a backup or restoration problem?
Manage Backups
Downloading backup archives
Integrated restoration
Manage remotely stored files
Discover and import archives
Import archives from S3
View Log
Include data to the backup
Multiple Databases Definitions
Off-site Directories Inclusion
Exclude data from the backup
Files and Directories Exclusion
Database Tables Exclusion
RegEx Files and Directories Exclusion
Regular Expressions recipes for files and directories
RegEx Database Tables Exclusion
Regular Expressions recipes for database tables
Automating your backup
Taking backups automatically
Front-end backup, for use with CRON
Remote JSON API
Native CRON script
Alternative CRON script
Checking for failed backups automatically
Front-end backup failure check, for use with CRON
CRON script for backup failure check
Alternative CRON script for backup failure check
Site Transfer Wizard
4. Miscellaneous Extensions (Modules, Plugins)
Action Log
Installer
Quick Icon
Backup on Update
5. Restoring backups and general guidelines
General guidelines for backing up and restoring your site
Guidelines for storing your backups remotely / "cloud backup"
Overview of the backup restoration procedure
Extracting your backup archives
Using the integrated restoration feature (most common)
Using Akeeba Kickstart
Using third party software
ANGIE: Akeeba Backup's restoration scripts
Common instructions for all ANGIE installers
The session fix page
The password page
The main page
The database restoration page
Off-site directories restoration page
The “Finished” page
ANGIE for Joomla!
First page
Site setup page
ANGIE for Miscellaneous PHP Applications
First page
Site setup page
Restoration (ANGIE) troubleshooting
ANGIE reports that the session write path and the installation directory is unreadable
PHP errors , warnings, notices or a blank page upon accessing ANGIE / restoration
Some required or optional settings are red in ANGIE's first page
I can't restore my database, or receive AJAX Error, timeout or other errors while restoring my database with ANGIE
Error message mentioning utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci when restoring on MariaDB
I restored my database but can't proceed to the next page of ANGIE
My configuration.php wasn't written to disk after ANGIE ran
Any other ANGIE error
Troubleshooting restored sites
Common issues on restored sites and how to solve them
Common issues on restored sites due to PHP incompatibilities between the source and target server
When updating the restored site, the original site changes as well (Entangled web sites)
Clicking on a link on the restored site takes me to the original site (link migration issues)
Issues arising from your computer configuration, browser, ISP, antivirus and firewall incompatibilities
Unorthodox: the emergency restoration procedure
6. Information for removed or canceled features
Microsoft OneDrive for Business [THIS ARTICLE IS NO LONGER VALID]
II. Security information
7. Introduction
Foreword
Why you need to care about ownership and permissions?
8. How your web server works
Users and groups
Users
Groups
How users and groups are understood by UNIX-derived systems
Ownership
Process ownership
File ownership
Permissions
The three types of permissions
What permissions can control
Permissions notation
The textual notation
The octal notation
9. Securing your Akeeba Backup installation
Access rights
Securing the output directory
Securing file transfers
III. Appendices
A. The JPA archive format, v.1.2
B. The JPS archive format, v.2.0
C. GNU Free Documentation License