As stated, Akeeba Backup is designed to make your life easier. It does that by streamlining the workflow of backing up and restoring (or migrating) your site. From Akeeba Backup's perspective, restoring to the same host and location, copying your site in a subdirectory / subdomain of the same host or transfering your site to a completely new host is identical. That's right, Akeeba Backup doesn't care if you are restoring, copying, cloning or migrating your site! The process is always the same, so you only have to learn it once. The learning curve is very smooth, too!
The typical workflow involves using two utilities from the Akeeba Backup suite: the Akeeba Backup component itself, and Akeeba Kickstart. Here is the overview:
Install Akeeba Backup and configure it to taste. Hit on the button and let your site back up. When it finishes up, click on the button. Select the only backup entry from the list and click on - or, better yet, use FTP to do that - saving the backup archive somewhere on your local PC.
Extract the kickstart-
VERSION.zip file you downloaded from our File Release System. The only contained files arekickstart.phpand the translation INI files. Upload them to the server on which you want to restore your site to.Upload the backup archive (do not extract it, just upload the whole archive!) to the server on which you want to restore your site to (called hereforth the target server ). Your server's directory should now contain the
kickstart.phpand the backup archive.Fire up your browser and visit the Kickstart URL on your target server, for example
http://www.example.com/kickstart.php.Change any option - if necessary - and hit the button. Sit back while Kickstart extracts the backup archive directly on the server! It's ultra-fast too (when compared to FTP uploading all those 4000+ files!).
A new window pops up, it's the Akeeba Backup Installer (ABI), the site restoration script which was embedded inside your archive. Do not close the Kickstart window yet!
Follow the prompts of the Akeeba Backup Installer, filling in the details of the new server (most importantly, the new database connection and FTP connection information).
When the Akeeba Backup Installer is done, it prompts you to delete the installation directory. Ignore this prompt and simply close the ABI window.
Back to the Kickstart window, click the button titled "Finish". Kickstart removes the installation directory, restores your .htaccess file (if you had one in the first place), removes the backup archive and itself.
Believe it or not, you have a working site! Honestly!
If you are restoring to a different subdirectory on the same server as the original site, or to a whole different host, you might need to edit your .htaccess file for your site to work properly. This is all described in the restoration section of this guide. If you need help backing up your site, take a look in the Backup Now section of this guide.
