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This page is the single place you can review all your Akeeba Backup backup history, as well as administer the backup files. The bulk of the page consists of a standard Joomla!™ list table. Each row represents a backup attempt and displays a whole lot of information:
- The check box column
Clicking the check box on the leftmost cell of a row selects this backup for an operation to be applied to it. Operations are activated by clicking on tool bar buttons. In case of an operation allowing a single row to be selected, the topmost selected row is considered as the sole selection.
- Description
Displays the description you have set when you started the backup. In case of frontend backups, this contains the default description which was assigned. If your backup has a comment attached to it, an info icon will also appear. Hovering your mouse over the info icon will show you a preview of that comment.
- Start
The date when the backup started. The date is expressed in the user's preferred time zone, as it is set in the User Managment page of Joomla!™ itself.
![[Note]](/images/note.png)
Note Backups taken without a logged in user, i.e. remote, front-end and native CRON backups, express the time in the UTC time zone. We can't "fix" that; without a user, Joomla!™ can't reliably report the time zone.
- Duration
The duration of the backup in hours : minutes : seconds format. This information is not available for failed backups!
- Status
Indicates the status of the backup and can be one of:
- OK
A complete backup whose backup archive is available for download.
- Obsolete
A complete backup whose backup archive is either deleted, or was overwritten by another backup attempt.
Note If you move your backup output directory's location, all your previous backups will appear as "Obsolete", even though you might have moved these backup files as well. This is not a bug. Akeeba Backup internally stores the absolute path to the backup files. When you move the output directory its absolute path changes, so Akeeba Backup is unable to locate the old backup files.
![[Important]](/images/important.png)
Important If your host uses MySQL 4.0 the status will always appear as Obsolete and you will be unable to download the backup archive through your browser, as the result of limitations of this ancient, obsolete and unsupported MySQL version. You can still use your favorite FTP client to download the backup archives, though.
- Pending
A backup attempt which is still running. You should not see any such record, unless a backup attempt started while you were loading this page. In this case, you should not navigate to the Control Panel page! Doing so would invalidate the backup and wreck havoc. You have been warned! Another reason to see such an entry is a backup attempt which failed with a PHP fatal error, or which was abruptly interrupted (by the user or a PHP error). In this case, you can safely delete the entry and get rid of the backup file as well.
- Failed
A backup attempt which failed with a catchable error condition.
- Origin
Indicates the origin of the backup and can be either frontend for backups originating from the front-end - or remote interface - or backend for backups originating from the back-end (regular backups).
- Type
Indicates the backup type and can be Full for full site backups (database and files), DB Only for database only backups, Files only for files only backup or Multi DB for multiple databases backup (an archive containing SQL dumps of the main site's database and the defined multiple databases).
- Profile
Displays the numeric identifier of the backup profile used during the backup. It is possible that since then the profile may have been modified or even deleted!
- Archive
Displays the name of the backup file, if it is available. Clicking on the backup file name will let you download it, directly from your browser. If it is a split archive the file name is not clickable but you will be given as much download links as the parts of your backup are. For example, you might see links labelled "Part 01", "Part 02" through "Part 10" in a split archive consisting of ten files.
On the top of the page you can find a tool bar with operations buttons. The Delete button will remove the selected backup attempt entries along with their backup archives (if applicable), whereas the button will only remove the files (if found on your server). The button will run the integrated restoration feature for the selected archive file.
| Important |
|---|---|
Integrated restoration is only supported for Full Site and Files Only backup archives. Trying to use it with any other type of backup files will ultimately result in an error. |
The Download button will download the archive file of the currently selected backup row. It is possible that your server and/or browser don't work well with the download feature of Akeeba Backup. In this case you should download your file through FTP, making sure that your FTP client is set up to use the BINARY transfer mode. In fact, we urge you to test restoring your backups. If your backup fails to extract, you can be sure that your browser is not compatible with Akeeba Backup's download feature and you'll have to resort to the FTP download method anyway.
| Important |
|---|---|
The only supported and guaranteed method of downloading your backup archives error-free is using FTP/SFTP in BINARY transfer mode. Anything else has the potential to CORRUPT your backup archives. |
![[Tip]](/images/tip.png) | Tip |
|---|---|
The Download button will only download the last part of a split archive. Please use the links in the Archive column in otder to download all of the parts of a split archive. Forgetting to download even a single part will result in inability to extract the archive! |
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The View / Edit Comment button will open a page showing the description and comment of the currently selected backup row. You can freely edit both the description and the comment on that page and save your changes using the Save button. The same page will open if you click on a backup record's description (appearing as a link).
![[Warning]](/images/warning.png) | Warning |
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THE INTEGRATED RESTORATION FEATURE MAY DESTROY YOUR SITE IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL. Remember that you are OVERWRITING your site with the one contained in the backup archive. Do not do that on a live site unless it is absolutely necessary, i.e. you have already destroyed something vital in your site and want to revert to a "last known good" state. As with any backup restoration method, practise on a local testing server first. Don't push your luck by trying a potentially dangerous procedure you are unfamiliar with on a live server. Many sites have been destroyed by human error, augmented by the "bliss of ignorance" effect. Never, ever, under any circumstances, attempt a restoration on a live site unless you are familiar with the procedure and confident of all the steps you take. That said, we trust our own software and use it on our sites. Do note that we are extremely familiar with the procedure and extremely careful when doing restorations. This message tries to excessively - if that's ever possible - stress the point that you must be careful and that the best method to achieve that is practising on a local testing server first. |
| Tip |
|---|---|
The Integrated Restoration is not the only way to restore a site. Akeeba Backup's archives are designed to be standalone containers of your site's snapshot in time. This means that you do not need Joomla! to be installed in order to restore your site. As a result, there is no way to "import" backup archives to the Administer Backup Files page so that they can be used by the Integrated Restoration. Instead, you can simply upload the archive and Kickstart to your site's root, or extract the files locally using Akeeba eXtract Wizard and upload all the extracted files on your site's root. We had many feature requests regarding "importing" backups. Let's make it crystal clear: this is never going to happen. There is no point of doing so. |
The integrated restoration feature allows you to easily restore a previous backup directly on your server, as long as your backup archive still exists on your server of course. The whole idea behind this feature is that it is not necessary to manually download Kickstart, place it in your site's root and move the backup archive from the output directory to the site's root in order to perform the restoration. Instead, the integrated restoration feature takes care of extracting your backup archive directly from the backup output folder into your site's root and then allow you to run the embedded installer (Akeeba Backup Installer) to complete the restoration procedure.
The communication between your browser and the archive extraction script is encrypted with the AES128 (Rijndael) encryption method, using a random key produced as soon as you initiate the restoration of a backup archive. This ensures that a malicious user can't exploit the restoration script to mischievously extract your backup archive in your site's root with the intent to steal your database password. The encryption/decryption algorithm is implemented with standard PHP and Javascript code, eliminating the need for third party cryptography libraries and ensuring that under no circumstances unencrypted data will be exchanged between the browser and the server.
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When you first start the integrated restoration feature, you are presented with a few settings. The first setting, appearing above the button, determines how the file extraction will be performed. The two available options are:
- Write directly to files
All files will be extracted directly to their final location using direct PHP file writes. If your permissions settings do not allow some files or directories to be created/overwritten the process will fail and your site will be left in a half-restored state.
- Use FTP uploads
Using this method, each file is first extracted to the temporary directory specified by the current profile and then moved to its final location using FTP. This is a "best effort" approach and can work with most servers. Do note that only unencrypted FTP (plain FTP) is supported. If you choose this option, you'll also have to specify the FTP connection settings.
The default mode is writing directly to files, unless your site's Global Configuration indicates that the FTP layer should be used.
In the event that a partial restoration happens, your site
will be left in a semi-restored state. Trying to access it will
pop up the restoration script (Akeeba Backup Installer, a.k.a.
ABI). If you want to retry the restoration using different
settings, please remove the installation
directory from your site's root manually, for example using FTP,
before trying to access your site's administrator back-end.
If you chose to use the FTP mode, there are some connection settings you have to take care of. Do note that they are filled in with Joomla!'s FTP layer settings by default. Unless you chose not to store your FTP password in Joomla!'s configuration or if you have not configured the FTP layer yet, there is no need to change them. The settings are:
- Host name
The host name of your site's FTP server, without the protocol. For example,
ftp.example.comis valid,ftp://ftp.example.comis invalid.- Port
The TCP/IP port of your site's FTP server. The default and standard value is 21. Please only use a different setting if your host explicitly specifies a non-standard port.
- User name
The username used to connect to the FTP server.
- Password
The password used to connect to the FTP server.
- Initial directory
The FTP directory to your web site's root. This is not the same as the filesystem directory and can't be determined automatically. The easiest way to determine it is to connect to your site using your favourite FTP client, such as FileZilla. Navigate inside your web site's root directory. You'll know you are there when you see the file
configuration.phpand directories such asadministrator,component,language,includes,cacheandxmlrpcin that directory. Copy (in FileZilla it appears on the right hand column, above the directory tree) and paste that path in Akeeba Backup's setting.- Test FTP connection
Clicking on this button will tell you if the FTP connection could be established or not. If the connection is not successful you should not proceed with a restoration in FTP mode as it will fail immediately.
The whole process is fully automated, so there is not much to tell you about it. However, you must not that in order for the restoration procedure to work properly you must take care of the following:
This feature is directly calling the
administrator/components/com_akeeba/restore.phpscript. If you have a server-side protection, i.e. .htaccess rules, or permissions settings which prevent this file from being called directly the process will fail.Security note: The restore.php file is of no use to potential hackers. In order for it to work at all, it requires the
restoration.phpfile (more on that on the next point of this list) to load. Even then, it expects encrypted data with a key which is not predefined and is only known to therestore.phpscript and the integrated restoration page of Akeeba Backup. As a result, it can't be used as a potential attack vector.Before the restoration begins, Akeeba Backup needs to create the
administrator/components/com_akeeba/restoration.phpfile with all the archive extraction setup parameters. It is intelligent enough to use Joomla!'s FTP mode if it is enabled so as to overcome any permission problems, but you are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the permission settings are adequate for Akeeba Backup to create this file.If you have disabled Joomla!'s FTP layer, the permissions of the
administrator/components/com_akeebadirectory should be 0777 for the integrated restoration to work, or 0744 on hosts which use suPHP.If you are using Joomla!'s FTP layer and it was active when you were installing Akeeba Backup, you'll need to give this directory at least 0744 permissions, but you may have to manually remove
restoration.php(but NOTrestore.php!!!) after the site restoration is over.When the extraction of the backup archive finishes, you will be automatically forwarded to the Akeeba Backup Installer page on a new tab or window. DO NOT CLOSE THE INTEGRATED RESTORATION PAGE'S TAB/WINDOW! After you have competed the Akeeba Backup Installer process you are supposed to return to the Integrated Restoration page and click on the button to:
remove the
installationdirectory from your site's root, andremove the
administrator/components/com_akeeba/restoration.phpsetup file to nullify the, already non-existent, potential risk of a malicious user abusing this script.
