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Akeeba Solo

#23479 Doesn't Work

Posted in ‘Akeeba Solo (standalone)’
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Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Solo version
n/a

Latest post by on Sunday, 15 November 2015 17:20 CST

topwebs
Just wanted to try out Solo Core. Doesn't seem to work at all. Tried to back up a WP account on the same server, but it says it can't read the root url. I may be blind, but can't see anywhere to input FTP info. How can this possibly work without ftp info?

Also, please send link for comparison between Solo Core and Pro. I hope pro has place to store backup credentials for many sites, because I don't want to keep having to enter them. I always am leary about buying Pro if Core doesn't work.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Hello Dan,

Akeeba Solo needs to access the root of the site being backed up directly through the filesystem. Going through FTP is very slow and we've found that in most cases the directory listing is sent by FTP servers in a format that is very hard for PHP to process without timing out and crashing the backup process.

Upon installing Akeeba Solo you need to run the Configuration Wizard. If you canceled the popup asking you to do that just click on Configuration and then look for the blue Configuration Wizard button in the toolbar at the top. The wizard lets you choose the folder of the site to be backed up. Subsequently click on the big, green Auto-detect button to have Solo figure out the db connection details.

All information (path to the site's root and db connection information) is stored in the backup profile. You can create as many profiles as you want from the Profiles manager towards the top of the main page of Akeeba Solo. Just remember to run the Configuration Wizard on every brand new profile. Alternatively, if you want to create different backup jobs of the same site, select a profile and click on Copy. This copies over all configuration settings, including site root path and db connection information.

Please let me know if I can help you any better. If you are still stuck please let me know which steps you've followed upon installing Akeeba Solo Core so I have a better picture of what's going on.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

topwebs
I was hoping that Solo would be an alternative to installing Akeeba backup on every client's website. We have server backups in place and only use Akeeba in cloning and troubleshooting.

We are using a WiredTree hybrid server, which is a sort of VPS. Apparently, installing Solo on one account, does not allow it to see the other accounts. When I put in the path to another account and click on the Browse icon, I get the warning: Note: This directory is outside your site's root. Its contents may be unreadable. Clicking on Auto-Detect doesn't do anything. I don't want to install Solo on every site. I don't know where to install Solo so it can see the other sites. I do have complete root access.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
The answer to this depends on your server setup. Can you ask your host if there is a way for just one account –the one hosting Solo– to read files from all other accounts? I suppose that changing the user group under which the files in this one account run and adequate permissions (0755 for directories, 0644 for files) on other accounts would do the trick under most server setups I have in mind. But since it is dependent on the server configuration to which we have no control I kindly ask you to raise this question with your host.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

topwebs
I talked to WiredTree and they referred me back to you. We have a standard WHM/Cpanel setup with suphp, as we have multiple client accounts on the server. How can the program work under suphp, which is designed to prevent accounts from seeing one another?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Well, since you're using suPHP (BTW suPHP is not recommended since early 2013 – using PHP FastCGI with sane ownership is the recommended way) each .php script runs under its owner. What you can do is have the server administrator create a common user group, e.g. forbackup, and assign it as the primary user group of all users under your WHM installation. I'm not sure how this can be done as I'm not a host. I know how to do it from the Linux command line on my Ubuntu Server box. That's the part they have to help you with.

From that point onwards it comes does to permissions of all accounts' folders and files. The permissions should be 0755 for folders and 0644 for files. Caveat: every site can see each other site's files. If a site is compromised it can read (not write) data from every other site. This may be a security risk that you want to assess.

Furthermore the open_basedir setup of the account hosting Solo should allow it to access the directories of all other sites. This seems to already be the case based on what you said.

If assigning a common default user group is impossible or undesirable then under your current setup you cannot use Akeeba Solo the way you want to. It's not a software limitation, it's how your operating system is designed to work. You can install Solo on each site's account and have N installations. Alternatively you could run Solo as root but this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and not recommended: nothing should EVER –EVER!!!!!– run as root unless it's a daemon startup about to shed its root privileges and fall back to an unprivileged uid/gid. Again, let me stress that this is how the operating system is designed to work, for security reasons.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

System Task
system
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