Alternative CRON script for backup failure check

[Tip]Tip

This feature is only available in Akeeba Backup Professional.

Requires the Enable Legacy Front-end Backup API (remote CRON jobs) option to be enabled in the component's Options, Frontend tab.

[Important]Important

Unlike Akeeba Backup 3.x to 8.x inclusive, the CRON script is no longer a standalone PHP application. Instead, it's implemented as a command for Joomla CLI application.

First of all, you need to make sure that the Console – Akeeba Backup plugin is published and its Access is set to Public. If you do not do that, Joomla does not know about Akeeba Backup's CLI commands.

The joomla.php script you see below is part of Joomla itself, not something we have written or have any control over. This means that any code that runs before you see any output from Akeeba Backup is handled by Joomla itself, not our code. If you get an error before reaching that point you will need to file a bug report with the Joomla project which controls this code, not us (we can't fix Joomla's code).

Further to that, keep in mind that the Joomla CLI Application DOES NOT run at all under the PHP-CGI binary. It will only run under the PHP-CLI binary. Our custom CLI scripts in versions 3.x to 8.x did run under PHP-CGI, with some caveats which could cause the backups to fail with a timeout error. Therefore the Joomla CLI application may fail to run in some cases our scripts used to work. THIS IS NOT A BUG IN OUR SOFTWARE AND WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO CONTROL OVER IT. Please file a bug report with the Joomla project so they can fix it.

This script uses the front-end backup failure check feature outlined above. The alternative CRON script is located in cli/akeeba-altcheck-failed.php, and must be run from the command-line PHP interface (PHP CLI).

In order to schedule a backup failure check, you will have to use the following command line to your host's CRON interface:

/usr/local/bin/php /home/USER/webroot/cli/joomla.php akeeba:backup:alternate_check

where /usr/local/bin/php is the path to your PHP CLI executable and /home/USER/webroot is the absolute path to your web site's root. You can get this information from your host.

The same considerations and scheduling information as the alternative backup CRON script apply.