The next thing that I'd like to do is install Akeeba Backup for my Web site.
I'm still here on the Joomla!
Extensions Directory, I am still looking at the Akeeba Backup listing, and it's
important to note that you can click on the link from here to go and download a
copy of Akeeba Backup.
Make sure that when you're looking at that extension, that you are looking at an
extension that supports Joomla! 3.
Right now, there are not a lot of extensions that support Joomla! 3.
This is one of those that does.
You will know that it supports Joomla! 3
right here through the icon here on The Joomla!
Extensions Directory.
Alternatively, you can go directly to the developer's Web site. This is the
developer's Web site, which is at akeebabackup.com, and from here, we can go ahead
and download a copy of Akeeba Backup.
So to do this, we are going to go to Download, and I am going to choose Akeeba
Backup, and here under Akeeba Backup, I am going to scroll down to the most
recent version, which is 3.6.8, and I am going to read the description, and make
sure that it talks about the compatibility with Joomla! 3.0.
This version happens to be compatible with Joomla! 2.5, and Joomla! 3.0,
So now I am going to go ahead and Take me to the downloads for this version,
click on that, and then here we go. Here is Akeeba Backup Core; that's what I
want to download, and I am going to click on Download now.
Incidentally, while we're here, I'll mention that Nicholas's documentation for
Akeeba Backup is both thorough, and extensive, and if you ever have any questions
on Akeeba Backup, please read his documentation down here; Documentation in PDF
format. It will tell you absolutely everything you ever wanted to know about
Akeeba Backup, and then some. Great documentation.
So I am going to go ahead and click Download now here for the Akeeba Core, and
this is going to ask to save a zipped file.
Any time you are working with an extension in Joomla,
you are going to see some kind of ZIP. Sometimes it's a .zip like this,
sometimes it will be a .tar, or .gz, which is also another kind of zipped file, so
it just depends on what the developer has done. All that matters is that it's a
zipped file, and that's going to work.
So you are going to go ahead and save this; do not open the zipped file. Go
ahead and save this down to your computer, and say OK, and there we go.
Now this is saved down for me.
Now what I am going to do is install this in my back-end of Joomla,
ao I am going to go to the back-end of Joomla
here, and I am going to go to Extensions > Extension Manager, and the
Extension Manager is where we can upload and install any kind of extension inside of Joomla.
So we'll upload components, modules, and plug-ins here, as well as templates will
be installed in this way.
So I am going to go ahead and hit my Browse button here. I am going to go to my
Downloads folder, and I am going to find Akeeba Backup, and I am going to say
Upload & Install, and I am going to get a message here about any issues or
problems that I had installing Akeeba Backup, but the message up here in the
corner says installing the component was successful.
So this is a component. Where does that mean we are going to go on the menu
structure to find it? Well, it will be under Components, and there it is: Akeeba Backup.
If I go ahead and click this, the first thing it's going to want to do is take a
look at the Web site, and adjust some of the settings, and it does this for me
automatically, which is really terrific.
I am going to go ahead and say Apply these preferences, and this is going to run
a quick little configuration wizard that will test my server, and optimize my
Akeeba Backup settings.
So I am going to let this go ahead and run.
Okay, so the configuration wizard has run, and we are all set with Akeeba Backup.
So I am going to go ahead and show you the configuration screen here, just so
you can see what this looks like, actually, starting over here with the control panel.
So this will tell you that this is Akeeba Backup. This is what you will go to
when you go to Components > Akeeba Backup; you will see a screen like this after
the configuration has run. That will only run the first time, right after you
install it. After that, you will see this screen when you go to Akeeba Backup.
You might see an error here on your page, depending on what version of PHP you
are running with this.
Right now, Akeeba Backup wants to have PHP 5.4 or higher installed, and Joomla! 3.0
will run with PHP 5.3.1 or higher.
So if you see some kind of error here, it probably indicates that you're
running an older version of PHP. Don't panic; Akeeba Backup will still wor --
at least at this point in time -- it will still work with the older version of
PHP. He's just warning you that you're going to need to upgrade your version
of PHP on your Web server.
So what I want to do is I want to just back up, and it's the simplest thing in the
world. All I have to do is click this Backup Now button.
I am going to go to a screen where I can give this a description, so I can just
leave the short description as written here, or I could put in a note, so I'll
just put in a note: Backup after ACL. So that was the last thing that I did
here, I put ACL into the site, and now I am going to make a backup.
Then I go ahead and just hit the Backup Now button, and this is going to go
ahead and run through this process backing up the Web site.
So we'll let that go ahead and run, and there we go.
So we have made a backup of the Web site.
This backup contains all of Joomla's
files, and there are over 4000 of them, and it also contains a copy of the Joomla
database. It's all put together in a single file.
So, let me show you what that looks like. So here under Administer Backup Files,
you will see here that there is one backup, because that's all I have made.
It's right here; Backup after ACL. It tells me how long it took to make the backup,
and it tells me the Type of backup, and the Size of the backup, and it also tells
me where it's located.
Note that the file name is something here .jpa; JPA stands for Joomla! Pack,
which was the old name for Akeeba Backup, way, way back when, and the JPA
format is a unique format to Akeeba Backup, and as I said, it contains all of
the files in Joomla,
as well as a copy of the database.
So this is something that you can now download to the computer that's in front
of you, which sounds a little strange, because you are running this on the
computer that's in front of you, but certainly from your Web server, you could
download a copy of this backup, and you now have your Web site backed up.
As always, you should save your backups in a separate location from where your
actual Web site is located.
So just running Akeeba Backup isn't necessarily enough. Now you have a backup,
but in order to be safe, what you want to do is put this somewhere else. So if
you are working on the computer in front of you, save your backup off to a thumb
drive, or some kind of external hard drive.
If your Web site is on a server, just downloading it to your local computer is sufficient.
What you're trying to do is save that backup, just in case something happens to
the machine that you're working on with the Web site.
If you're wondering how you can now take this backup, and unpack it, and
restore your Web site,
that is through another product that Nicholas offers here, also free; it's called
Akeeba Kickstart, you can read about it here under Akeeba Kickstart.
Once again, there is extensive documentation for how Akeeba Kickstart works, and
it will explain how you can restore your site from backup in great detail.
So if you need to use your backups, I hope you never need your backups, but
if you ever do, take a look at Akeeba Kickstart here, and it will walk you
through that process.