Credits: Video Training produced by Brian Teeman
Transcript of this course
Akeeba Backup is a program to help you to easily backup restore and transfer your web sites.
Go to the download menu and scroll down to Akeeba Solo and click to download it to your computer.
If you have subscribed for the pro version make sure that you are logged in first to enable the download.
The Akeeba Solo program comes as a zip file and we need to extract that.
We can see we now have a new folder with all the files in.
We now need to transfer these files to our webserver and to do that we will use an FTP program.
I am going to use FileZilla but you can use any FTP prgogram you like. To begin with connect to your server.
Once connected make sure you are in the public_html or the web root of your site.
Now create a new folder in which to install Akeeba Solo.
I am going to use solo3272 to slightly randomise the name when that has been done we now need to upload the files from our computer.
Once all the files have been uploaded we can go to our website/foldername which in my case is akeebademo.com/solo3272 We are now at the Akeeba Solo installer The installer is a very simple process.
This first begins with the required server settings.
As you can see they are all set to yes.
If any are set to no you wont be able to proceed and you probably need to speak to your web hosts to rectify the errors.
Now click Next to continue Here we setup the database for Akeeba Solo Enter the database server host name this is usually localhost followed by the username and password for your database Finally the database name We will need to have created the database before you run this installer.
The installer cannot create the database.
You can select a database table name prefix or leave it alone the default of solo_ and click Submit.
We are now ready to configure the application Here we can set our timezone the URL to solo itself the session timeout and which Filesystem driver to use.
Finally Akeeba Solo is protected by a login so we need to create a username and password and enter an email address.
Finally enter my fullname that will be displayed on the screen and click Submit Akeeba Solo has now been setup we now need to tell Akeeba Solo which web site it is that we want to actually backup.
Akeeba Solo has detected that there is a web site in existance at the root of this installation If that is the site you wish to backup leave it as it is It has also detected the ste root If I now click on Auto-detect Akeeba Solo will attempt to work out what type of script it is and make the settings below accordingly.
And we can see that it has mysql driver, the server hostname, username password and database name and prefix all from the Drupal web site at this address.
If it has detected any of these incorrectly you can always edit them.
Finally it is asking what type of script it is and it has determined this is Drupal 7.
If it wasn't we could change it to one of these options Finally which type of Embedded restoration script or ANGIE that will be included in the backup.
Again it has detected the one for Drupal 7 but it could have detected any of these or even no installer at all.
Click Submit.
Akeeba Solo is now testing your server calculating the best settings for your backup It is important that you remain on the screen until the wizard has completed Once the wizard has completed you're ready to complete your first backup.
Let us go ahead and do that right now.
You can see a warning message here that we are using the default directory for backups.
This is perfectly normal and unless you change the directory in the configuration this message will appear.
As we can see Akeeba Solo will store some information each time we make a backup.
By default it creates a description of the backup stating the time and date that it was taken.
You can also add a password and we strongly recommend that you do that.
And finally you can optionally include an additional comment perhaps stating that you are doing this backup before updating your website.
We can now click on backup now.
The backup process has started.
It is important that you do not browse to any other page until the backup has completed.
Once the backup has completed you should click here on Manage Backups Here we can see the the backup has taken place.
With its description a status of OK the size of the backup and a link to the actual backup file itself.
Depending on your configuration this may be multiple parts.
A backup kept on your web site is as useful as a set of spare keys stored inside your house.
So it is important you download the backup from your website to your own computer.
You can do this simply by clicking the link and confirming.
Once you have downloaded the backup You can if you want delete the backup file from your website perhaps you are short of space on your hosting account.
You can do this by selecting the backup here and then clicking delete files.
You will see there is another option called delete.
This will delete the complete record that a backup took place I prefer to keep that record and just delete the files.
We can see now that the record is still here but the backup file itself has gone.
You can now return to the home page of Akeeba Solo.
If you are using the free version you are all done.
If you are using Akeeba Solo Professional there is one more step to go.
Right at the top we have a message about entering our download ID.
this is required for updates to the program so lets go ahead and fix that.
Return to the akeebabackup.com web site make sure you are logged in and select My Subscriptions from the menu.
If you now scroll down you will see your download id simply select and copy it.
Return to your web site and paste it in. Click on Apply Download ID.
We can see that the message has now disappeared and we have successfully installed Akeeba Solo Professional.