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Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#11115 Add feature ? Symlinks not recreated as folders but as proper symlinks?

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Backup version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Thursday, 16 February 2012 06:03 CST

Thursday, 16 February 2012 04:08 CST

user53903
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? YES
Have I searched the tickets before posting? YES
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? YES
Joomla! version: (1.5.22)
PHP version: (5.3.2)
MySQL version: (5.0.45)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version: (3.1.13)

Description of my issue:

Hello !
I'm backuping very well everything. Symlinks (used for storing files for users that have only access to some directories) are reproduced as simple folders.
So the links are destroyed to files or images...
Is there a way backup also symlinks as...symlinks !

Thanks !
Nicolas

Thursday, 16 February 2012 04:10 CST

nicholas
There is an option I've added about three and a half years ago, it's called "Dereference symlinks". The default setting is No which stores symlinks as symlinks. If you've set it to Yes, you actually ask Akeeba Backup to follow the symlinks and save them as regular files/folders. Please read the fine manual :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 16 February 2012 04:11 CST

nicholas
Oh, one more thing... If you try to extract a backup archive on Windows, then symlinks are not restored properly. This is a limitation of Windows. Moreover, some third party unarchivers do not properly parse symlinks as symlinks, even on Linux. If you want to keep symlinks make sure you're using Kickstart or Akeeba eXtract Wizard on Linux or Mac OS X.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 16 February 2012 06:00 CST

user53903
Lol, I read the f... manuals ! :)
Actually, I think I've tested with ticked and unticked options...
I'm going to test again, then use Kickstart or eXtract Wizard as adviced if not working...
And we are using Linux !
Thanks !

Thursday, 16 February 2012 06:03 CST

nicholas
If you were using Linux' unzip to extract the archive, it will certainly not work properly (Akeeba Backup only produces PKZIP headers, Linux' unzip expects InfoZIP headers for symlinks). Kickstart should work. At least it does when I test it over here :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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