Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 10:52 CST

user49856

Hey, just purchased the Akeeba Backup Pro since you moved the site restoration wizard over there. We have started running into random time-outs when using the STW. There is no rhyme or reason as to why it stops restoring files.. Very random.. I have tried numerous tweaks in the config all with the same results.

Attaching log file.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 12:14 CST

nicholas

Hi,

The success of STW depends on various factors, one of them being the remote FTP server. Some FTP servers see the numerous connection/transfer/disconnect cycles performed by Akeeba Backup's STW and halt the site transfer process at random intervals (when the remove FTP server believes it is being flooded).

There is a workaround to transferring your site, without using STW. Create a normal site backup profile and go to the Configuration page. Select the JPA archive engine. Click on the Configure button next to the Archiver Engine and set the Part Size for Split Archives to 10Mb. Select the "Upload to Remote FTP" Data Processing Engine. Click the Configure button next to it and configure a connection to your remote site's FTP server.

Now, when you click on Backup Now, it will take a backup (in 10Mb chunks) and then upload all of them to the remote site.

You may have guessed the next step. Upload kickstart.php to the remote site and access Kickstart! From that point, it's just like any other site restoration.

For what is worth, this method is actually faster and more reliable than the Site Transfer Wizard.

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!

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 19:00 CST

user49856

Thanks.. Since we own our servers, we control all the settings and the FTP connection limit makes senes.

As far as the kickstart method, the reason we purchased the Pro was for the site transfer wizard. We were using the kickstart with the free version so, we're familiar with that approach.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 19:08 CST

user49856

Figured it out! If you have CSF installed on cPanel and you enable LF_NETBLOCK for DDOS protection, it can give a false positive when you have a lot of FTP connections coming in so, it shuts the IP down until it thinks the attack has subsided.

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 02:06 CST

nicholas

First, please let me explain a huge difference between Akeeba Backup Core and Pro as far as Kickstart is concerned. With Core you have to take a backup, download it to your PC, upload it to your new site (even if it's on the same server as the old one!), upload Kickstart and start the restoration. With the solution I presented, which is only possible with Akeeba Backup Pro, you do not have to download and upload files. This is the most time consuming part of the process.

Regarding the FTP issue, that's a ver good find! I was suspecting an FTP server extension which detected the DoS (a.k.a. "flooding"). I hadn't seen that firewall option in cPanel. I think that even is CSF is enabled you may be able to use the Site Transfer Wizard. After going through the wizard and before clicking on the Start Transfer button, go back to Akeeba Backup's Control Panel page, select the Site Transfer Wizard profile from the profile drop-down at the top of the page and click on Configure. Set the maximum execution time to 120 seconds, the bias to 80% and check the "Set an infinite time limit". Then go back to STW and select the option to reuse the existing profile. Normally, you should have much larger backup steps, with less connect/deconnect cycles to the FTP server, working around the firewall protection.

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!

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 07:27 CST

user49856

Hey Nicholas,

What we did is raise the threshold on that setting from the default which was low to start with. Love cPanel!

The great thing about CSF is it's a free cPanel addon for GUI management of IPTables and LFD: http://configserver.com/cp/csf.html

:) Keep up the great work on akeeba backup!!

All good information here for Google to pickup as well so that people searching in the future will have another avenue for self diagnosing.

P.S. The LF_NETBLOCK isn't enabled by default in CSF which is why we never had the issue. One day our server had a major DDOS attack against it and I managed to barely get in and enable this setting and within a few minutes, the attack had subsided so, this is a GREAT setting to have enabled. We just upped the threshold a bit to compensate for AKBP and things are well.

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 07:57 CST

nicholas

I agree, this page is a very good resource for everyone interested. I'm going to bookmark it for future reference :)

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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