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Site Restoration

#13580 UNiTE will it fit our purpose?

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
CMS Type
Other
CMS Version
n/a
Backup Tool Version
n/a
Kickstart version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Thursday, 27 September 2012 04:12 CDT

Monday, 17 September 2012 22:46 CDT

user34725
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? No
Have I searched the tickets before posting? No
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Joomla! version: 2.5.6
PHP version: 5.3.15
MySQL version: 5.5.23-25
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version which took the backup: svn1675 (2012-08-22)
Kickstart version used to extract the backup: (unknown)

Description of my issue:
I'd like to automate premade joomla websites, can UNiTE do it for me. The sites will be stored in akeeba JPA archive and I'd like them to be automatically restored to a chosen site. Can it create the necessary database, or will that need to be pre-configured? Or is using the atomated kickstart and abiautomation.ini the way to go?

Tuesday, 18 September 2012 03:03 CDT

nicholas
Hello Alan,

Both UNiTE and Akeeba Backup Installer cannot create a database unless you use the root MySQL user. This is a security feature of MySQL; only the root user (and users you've given them adequate privileges) can create new databases. There is one drawback, though. By doing so you will end with your site containing the root username/password in plaintext inside the configuration.php file. Even worse, the site will run SQL commands against your database as the root user. This means that each site can have access to the databases of all other sites and the MySQL server itself, opening a HUGE security hole: if one site is compromised (or is at least vulnerable to an SQL injection attack) your entire server is doomed.

For this reason I lie in the documentation and say that my software can't create new databases. It can, but since this would lead to vastly insecure sites I chose to lie that it can't, protecting the innocent users from themselves.

All and all I'd recommend manually creating the databases before running either script. You only need to create the database (not its structure, just the "CREATE DATABASE something" SQL command) and a database user, then put this information in the XML file to be read by UNiTE or the .ini file to be read by Kickstart and Akeeba Backup Installer.

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, 18 September 2012 04:16 CDT

user34725
Thanks for your prompt reply Nicholas, I can create the database before hand so thats not a problem. I am currently testing the automodeon but have struck problems and get the following error. Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 0. - I have used Filezilla to upload the archive and also verified that it works without using automodeon. The following 2 errors are also logged on the site
[18-Sep-2012 04:06:37] PHP Warning: fseek(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/goldy/public_html/kickstart.php on line 1644
[18-Sep-2012 04:06:37] PHP Warning: fread(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/goldy/public_html/kickstart.php on line 2821


line 1644 = fseek($this->fp, 0);
line 2821 = $signature = fread($this->fp, 3);

Tuesday, 18 September 2012 04:17 CDT

nicholas
This actually means that you are telling it to open the wrong file, it can't find the file and freaks out.

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, 18 September 2012 04:52 CDT

user34725
I must be calling it wrong then? Can you point me to the url that contains this portion of your documenation - There are more sections for the abiautomation.ini file described in Akeeba Backup's documentation, under the "Automating the Akeeba Backup Installer" section.

I start the process myexample.com/kickstart.php should I be adding addtional parameters?

Tuesday, 18 September 2012 06:14 CDT

nicholas
There is no single page with all of the options listed. Hm, it seems that I have removed the documentation regarding ABI's automation options. I will have to rewrite them, but it will take at least two weeks. I am about to leave for Poland to attend the Joomla! Day. I will have to do that when I get back from there, after I reply to all support requests which will have been accumulated by then.

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, 19 September 2012 19:58 CDT

user34725
Does anyone else reading this thread have any documentation or advice on the ABI aurtomation options??

Thursday, 20 September 2012 01:17 CDT

nicholas
It just occurred to me that these instructions do exist in the old version of the documentation under the "Automating the Akeeba Backup Installer" section.

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, 25 September 2012 21:06 CDT

user34725
Thanks Nicolas, we have managed to use the Akeeba restore process to upload premade sites to our customers, which is fabulous. We would very much like to customize the splash screens that pop up during the AUOTMODE kickstart.php process. I appreciate this is out of the scope of your support but appeal to your development adventurous side. Any assistance would be warmly received.
Thanks

Wednesday, 26 September 2012 02:07 CDT

nicholas
Hello Alan,

Which splashscreen are you referring to? Can you take a screenshot?

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, 27 September 2012 02:52 CDT

user34725
Hi Nicolas, see attached. Can the these screen captures be amended? OR, I've now realised they are popups that I needed to 'allow popups' before the process would work and wondered if there was a way to disable them? Ideally, once the kickstart.php process has started the user only sees maybe a “please wait” and then a click here button to view site?
Edited by user34725 on 2012-09-27 03:00 CDT

Thursday, 27 September 2012 02:56 CDT

nicholas
Um, the only popup I see on that screenshot is Firefox asking you to save the password. Neither Kickstart nor ABI use popups.

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, 27 September 2012 03:03 CDT

user34725
wow I was amending my response while you posted this... ok, Im not referring to the firefox password but the Akeeba screens in the 3 pictures attached?

Thursday, 27 September 2012 03:16 CDT

nicholas
I can only see one screenshot in the archive (auto3.PNG). The only thing I see there is the Firefox popup. Can you put all screenshots in one archive and attach it here, please?

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, 27 September 2012 03:34 CDT

user34725
Sorry, my fault

Thursday, 27 September 2012 04:12 CDT

nicholas
Still, none of those pages is a popup. Maybe your browser is confused because when Kickstart finishes the extraction it opens a new page, in a new but normal window, for the Akeeba Backup Installer to run.

In any case, these pages cannot change. If you want to change them you will have to write your own extraction and restoration scripts. Remember that the auto mode is meant to simply step through all the restoration steps without human intervention. It's not meant to show a completely different interface; this is well beyond its scope.

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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