Akeeba Backup User's Guide Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos Akeeba Backup User's Guide by Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos Publication date December 2011 Abstract This book covers the use of the Akeeba Backup site backup component for Joomla!™ -powered web sites. It does not cover any other software of the Akeeba Backup suite, including Kickstart and the desktop applications which have documentation of their own. Both the free Akeeba Backup Core and the subscription-based Akeeba Backup Professional editions are completely covered. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the appendix entitled "The GNU Free Documentation License". Table of Contents I. User's Guide to Akeeba Backup for Joomla!™ ..................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introducing Akeeba Backup .............................................................................................. 4 2. Indicative uses ................................................................................................................ 4 3. A typical backup/restoration workflow ................................................................................ 5 4. Server environment requirements ....................................................................................... 6 2. Installation, updates and upgrades .............................................................................................. 8 1. Installing Akeeba Backup ................................................................................................. 8 1.1. Getting the installation packages ............................................................................. 8 1.2. Installing the backup component and language files .................................................... 8 1.2.1. Manual installation ..................................................................................... 9 1.2.2. The installation / update broke my site! .......................................................... 9 1.3. Installing the administrator panel icon module and plugins ........................................... 9 2. Upgrading from Core to Professional ................................................................................ 10 3. Updating to the latest version .......................................................................................... 10 3. Using the Akeeba Backup component ....................................................................................... 11 1. Pages outside the Control Panel panes .............................................................................. 11 1.1. Common navigation elements ............................................................................... 11 1.2. The Control Panel ............................................................................................... 11 1.2.1. Editing the component's Parameters ............................................................. 14 2. Basic Operations ........................................................................................................... 16 2.1. Profiles Management ........................................................................................... 16 2.2. Configuration Wizard .......................................................................................... 17 2.3. Configuration ..................................................................................................... 18 2.3.1. The main settings ..................................................................................... 19 2.3.1.1. Basic Configuration ........................................................................ 19 2.3.1.2. Advanced configuration .................................................................. 23 2.3.1.3. Optional filters .............................................................................. 23 2.3.1.4. Quota management ......................................................................... 24 2.3.1.5. Fine tuning ................................................................................... 25 2.3.2. Database dump engines ............................................................................. 26 2.3.2.1. Native MySQL Backup Engine ........................................................ 26 2.3.3. File and directories scanner engines ............................................................. 28 2.3.3.1. Smart scanner ............................................................................... 28 2.3.4. Archiver engines ...................................................................................... 29 2.3.4.1. ZIP format .................................................................................... 29 2.3.4.2. JPA format ................................................................................... 30 2.3.4.3. Encrypted Archives (JPS format) ...................................................... 30 2.3.4.4. DirectFTP ..................................................................................... 32 2.3.4.5. DirectSFTP ................................................................................... 33 2.3.4.6. ZIP using ZIPArchive class ............................................................. 34 2.3.5. Data processing engines ............................................................................ 34 2.3.5.1. No post-processing ......................................................................... 34 2.3.5.2. Send by email ............................................................................... 35 2.3.5.3. Upload to Amazon S3 .................................................................... 35 2.3.5.4. Upload to Dropbox ........................................................................ 37 2.3.5.5. Upload to RackSpace CloudFiles ...................................................... 38 2.3.5.6. Upload to Microsoft Windows Azure BLOB Storage service .................. 39 2.3.5.7. Upload to Remote FTP server .......................................................... 41 2.3.5.8. Upload to Box.net .......................................................................... 42 2.4. Backup now ....................................................................................................... 43 iii Akeeba Backup User's Guide 2.5. Administer Backup Files ...................................................................................... 45 2.5.1. Integrated restoration ................................................................................ 48 2.5.2. Manage remotely stored files ...................................................................... 51 2.5.3. Discover and import archives ..................................................................... 52 2.6. View Log .......................................................................................................... 53 2.7. Access Control ................................................................................................... 55 2.7.1. Joomla! 1.5 and other Joomla! 1.5 distributions .............................................. 55 2.7.2. Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, 2.x and other Joomla! 1.6/1.7/2.x distributions ........................ 56 2.8. Site Transfer Wizard ........................................................................................... 56 3. Include data to the backup .............................................................................................. 59 3.1. Multiple Databases Definitions .............................................................................. 59 3.2. Off-site Directories Inclusion ................................................................................ 62 4. Exclude data from the backup ......................................................................................... 63 4.1. Files and Directories Exclusion ............................................................................. 64 4.2. Database Tables Exclusion ................................................................................... 66 4.3. Extension Filters ................................................................................................. 68 4.3.1. Components ............................................................................................ 68 4.3.2. Modules ................................................................................................. 69 4.3.3. Plug-ins .................................................................................................. 70 4.3.4. Languages ............................................................................................... 71 4.3.5. Templates ............................................................................................... 71 4.4. RegEx Files and Directories Exclusion ................................................................... 72 4.4.1. Regular Expressions recipes for files and directories ....................................... 74 4.5. RegEx Database Tables Exclusion ......................................................................... 74 4.5.1. Regular Expressions recipes for database tables .............................................