The ZIP format is the most well known archive format and is integrated in many operating systems and desktop environments, including Windows™, Mac OS X™, KDE and GNOME.
![[Warning]](/images/warning.png) | Warning |
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The ZIP format requires the calculation of CRC32 checksums for each file added in the archive. This is a resource intensive operation which will slow down your backup and may lead to timeouts when archiving big files on slow hosts. If this happens, your only choice is not to use the ZIP format; use JPA instead. Unfortunately, we can't do anything about it: it is a combined limitation of the ZIP specification, how PHP works and how your server is set up. |
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- Dereference symlinks
This setting is only valid on Linux and compatible *NIX hosts. Normally, when Akeeba Backup encounters symbolic links ("symlinks"), it follows them and treats them as regular files and directories, backing up their contents. Some site configurations may have symbolic links set up in such a way as to create an infinite loop, causing the backup to fail. When this option is set to
No, Akeeba Backup will not follow symbolic links, but store their name and their target in the archive. Of course, if your symbolic links use absolute paths, restoring to a different server than the one you backed up from will result in broken symlinks.![[Note]](/images/note.png)
Note Even though Windows 7 supports symbolic links, it does so in a way that it's not possible for PHP to make use of this feature. As a result, this setting will only work on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and other compatible *NIX hosts.
- Part size for split archives
Akeeba Backup supports the creation of Split Archives. In a nutshell, your backup archive is spanned among one or several files, so that each of these files ("part") is not bigger than the value you specify here. This is a useful feature for hosts which impose a maximum file size quota. If you use a value of 0Mb, no archive splitting will take place and Akeeba Backup will produce a single backup archive (default).
Warning If you want to post-process your archive files it is suggested that you use small, non-zero values here. The time it takes the post-processing engine to transfer an archive from your server to the remote server equals part size divided by available bandwidth. Since the available execution time is finite and the available bandwidth is constant, the only way to avoid a timeout is creating small parts.
- Chunk size for large files processing
Each file is read in small increments, we call chunks, while being copied in the archive. Larger chunks will result in faster backup, at the price of taking longer to process each one of them and risking a timeout. Smaller chunks lead to slower but safer backups. On very slow hosts, this parameter should be set to a low value, for example 256Kb, or even lower - especially true if you constantly get timeout errors when backing up large files. On fast hosts you may want to increase this value in order to speed up your backup operation.
- Big file threshold
Files over this size will be stored in the archive file uncompressed. Do note that in order for a file to be compressed, Akeeba Backup has to load it in its entirety to memory, compress it and then write it to disk. As a rule of thumb, you need to have free memory equal to 1.8 times the size of the file to compress, e.g. 18Mb for a 10Mb file. Joomla! with a lot of plug-ins might consume as much as 16Mb and Akeeba Backup's engine might consume another 5Mb, so plan this value carefully, or you will run into memory exhaustion errors. Compression is also resource intensive and will increase the time to produce a backup. If this value is too high, you might run into timeout errors.
- Chunk size for Central Directory processing
At the end of the ZIP archive creation we have to attach a lookup table containing the names of all included files to the end of the archive file. This table is called the Central Directory. We have to do this in small chunks so as to avoid timeout or memory exhaustion errors. It is recommended that you leave the default value (1Mb) unless you know what you're doing.
The JPA format was conceived as an alternative to ZIP, designed to be extremely suitable for PHP scripts. The trick is that the JPA format doesn't store a checksum for each file - therefore it reduces the processing overhead during archiving - and it doesn't use a "lookup table" (central directory) as ZIP does. Both of these design decisions lead to extremely fast, low resource usage archiving processes.
![[Tip]](/images/tip.png) | Tip |
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It is recommended that you use the JPA format for all of your backups. You can extract JPA files either on your server using Kickstart, or on your desktop using Akeeba eXtract Wizard. |
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The settings for this engine are identical to those used in the ZIP engine.
![[Important]](/images/important.png) | Important |
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This feature is not meant for everyday users. It is designed for web professionals. If you don't understand the rest of this section, please do not use it. Akeeba Backup is equally useful as a site migration tool without using DirectFTP. |
The DirectFTP engine allows power users to directly export a website from one server to another, without the need to download the backup file to their PC, upload it and extract it on the other server. In order to do so, instead of backing up to an archive, it directly writes the backed up files to the remote server using FTP, hence the name.
Do note that when using the DirectFTP engine, the post-processing engine will not run, as there is no archive produced.
In a nutshell, when this option is activated, Akeeba Backup operates as usual, backing up your database and files. Instead of putting the site files, installer files and database dump inside a backup archive, it transfers them to a remote server using FTP. You can then visit the installation URL on the remote server to complete the site transfer progress.
| Warning |
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This is considered an advanced feature. Since there are many things which might go wrong in the process and due to the fact that the success of the operation depends on the server configuration of both the originating and target servers, you are advised not to use it unless you know what you're doing. Moreover, bear in mind that the target server must not contain any files! If it does, it may not be possible to overwrite them, leading to an incomplete site transfer. |
Your originating server must support PHP's FTP extensions and not have its FTP functions blocked. Your originating server must not block FTP communication to the remote (target) server. Some hosts apply a firewall policy which requires you to specify to which hosts your server can connect. In such a case you might need to allow communication to your remote host.
Normally, remote FTP connections consume a lot of time, therefore DirectFTP is very prone to time-outs. Theoretically, Akeeba Backup can automatically estimate the time required for transferring each file and avoid timing out. However, this is not always technically possible. In such a case you might want to lower the maximum execution time allowance and bias in the Configuration. Do note that large files have to be transferred in a single step, as most PHP and FTP configuration combinations disallow resuming uploads (chunked uploads). This means that a very large file, or a very large database dump may cause the process to fail with a timeout error.
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The available configuration options are:
Host name. The hostname of your remote (target) server, e.g.
ftp.example.com.Port. The TCP/IP port of your remote host's FTP server. It's usually 21.
User name. The username you have to use to connect to the remote FTP server.
Password. The password you have to use to connect to the remote FTP server.
Initial directory. The absolute FTP directory to your remote site's location where your site will be cloned to. This is provided by your hosting company. Do not ask us to tell you what you should put in here because we can't possibly know. There is an easy way to find it, though. Connect to your target FTP server with FileZilla. Navigate to the web server's root (usually it's a subdirectory named httpdocs, htdocs, public_html, http_docs or www). Above the right-hand folder pane you will see a text box with a path. Copy this path and paste it to Akeeba Backup's setting.
Use FTP over SSL. If your remote server supports secure FTP connections over SSL (they have to be implicit SSL; explicit SSL - a.k.a. FTPES - is not supported), you can enable this feature. In such a case you will most probably have to change the port. Please ask your hosting company to provide you with more information on whether they support this feature and what port you should use. You must note that this feature must also be supported by your originating server as well.
Use passive mode. Normally you should enable it, as it is the most common and firewall-safe transfer mode supported by FTP servers. Sometimes, you remote server might require active FTP transfers. In such a case please disable this, but bear in mind that your originating server might not support active FTP transfers, which usually requires tweaking the firewall!
