Table of Contents
Despite the new integrated backup restoration option which allow restoring on the same location the backup was taken from, in order to migrate your site to a different host / location you'll have to use a similar procedure to the one you use for installing a fresh copy of Joomla!. The first thing you have to do is to get the backup files extracted on the target server. There are several way to accomplish this, some of these outlined in this section. The next step, the actual restoration process, is covered in the following section by installer version.
![[Tip]](/images/stories/docimport58/tip.png) | Tip |
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A full site backup produced by JoomlaPack contains all of your site's files, a copy (dump) of your database and an installer. You do not need to take a database only backup in order to restore or migrate your site . This is a common misconception among novice users. |
![[Warning]](/images/stories/docimport58/warning.png) | Warning |
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Some people install a fresh copy of Joomla! before restoring their site. This is not necessary, in fact it is discouraged ! The point of having an automated backup utility is that it is able to produce a self-restoring backup set. This is exactly what JoomlaPack does. Please, do not waste your time installing Joomla! before restoring the backup. Even if you are migrating to a completely new (as in empty) host, the contents of the backup archive are sufficient. |
![[Important]](/images/stories/docimport58/important.png) | Important |
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If you use anything other than Kickstart to get the backup files
on the server, please rename the |
Many hosting sites use CPanel or a similar domain administration utility to allow you to manage files on your site. This utility may allow you to extract the contents of your compressed backup file directly to your site. When this utility is available, it is usually much faster than transferring the extracted files via FTP.
| Warning |
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Some control panels will refuse to overwrite existing files. If you have an existing installation of Joomla! its files will not be overwritten. Please check with your host about the behaviour of your domain control panel software. |
At first, you should have downloaded the archive that JoomlaPack generated somewhere on your local computer. Unpack that file (Windows users should preferably use the open-source 7-Zip archiver) in some directory. Following, you'll have to transfer all of the extracted files to your web host, for example by means of FTP.
| Tip |
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If you are having error messages from your arhiver that the ZIP archive is corrupt, or that some files have a CRC32 error, or you want to extract a JPA file, please use JoomlaPack eXtract, part of the JoomlaPack Native Tools 2009 and later versions. Please note that the original alpha release of JoomlaPack eXtract and JoomlaPack Native Tools 2008 wouldn't work as intended. |
JoomlaPack authors have created a nifty web-based backup extraction utility called Kickstart. It is able to extract your backup archive directly on your server, using normal PHP file writing functions or FTP mode. For more information, please refer to the Kickstart chapter in this User Guide.