| The Akeeba Backup component is a highly regarded archiving compoment from Akeeba Backup. Akeeba Backup is intended to provide a method of either restoring your entire site in the event of an unrecoverable intrusion, or to move your site to a new hosting server. It backs up all of the files in your Joomla installation directory and the mySQL database of the site into a single archive file.
There is a specific process detailed on the Akeeba Web site for restoring your site. It involves using a database administration utility such as phpMyAdmin (available via Azurelink's hosting cpanel) and uploading a language file along with the kickstart.php file available from Akeeba. If you ever need to restore the site on your own, please visit the Akeeba site for more details. There are other more technical methods of doing specific backups when installing or administering to Joomla sites, which are beyond the scope of this brief tutorial.
- Login to the Joomla Administrator area.
- Select Components/Akeeba Backup
- Configure Akeeba Backup to exclude any previous backup files by reading the two sections below titled, "Managing Your Akeeba Backups" and "Excluding Akeeba Backup Files From Your Backups".
- Click on either the Backup Now menu link in Akeeba's submenu, or the right arrow Backup Now icon in Akeeba's dashboard.
- In the Start a new backup window type any needed comments in the Backup comment field, i.e., "Weekly backup", or "Taken prior to upgrading _______ component."
- Click on the Backup Now! button. A new screen will open detailing the progress of the backup. Follow the instructions, not leaving the screen until the backup process is complete.
- When finished, the screen will change and display two buttons one of them reading "Administer to Backup Files". If you click on it you can see what backup files are currently avaiable. Monitor the file sizes of your backup files. Large backup files will count towards your hosting account's maximum storage space allotment. At most, two backup files at any given time maximum should be on the server, preferrably. You can either download the oldest to your local computer via FTP (not through Joomla), or delete it using Akeeba's delete button in the upper right corner.
Managing Your Akeeba Backups
Download Backup Files — The key thing is to make sure that you download your backup files to a local hard drive, so that you are not using up your server storage unnecessarily. The Akeeba Backup files are located here:
/administrator/components/com_akeeba/backups
The backup file ends with the file extension, ".jpa". There will probably be a date in the filename.
Download this file to your hard drive and then delete it from the server.
Excluding Akeeba Backup Files from Your Backups
If you have a good reason to leave the backup files on the server, then make sure that you modify your Akeeba Backup configuration so that Akeeba is not making backups of your backup files. This also applies to any directories or files which you do not want Akeeba Backup to include when it creates backups for you.
- To do so, login into your site's Joomla Administrator area and select Components/Akeeba Backup.
- In the Akeeba Backup Control Panel, in the section titled "Exclude Data from the Backup" click on the "Files and Directories Exclusion" icon.
- Click on the "administrator" sub-directory. Then click on the "components" sub-directory. Click on the "com_akeeba" sub-directory. Lastly, click on the "backup" -subdirectory.
- In the "Files" section, click on the closed circle icon for each of the backup files (.jpa) so that they will be excluded.
IMPORTANT: Delete any backups which might contain duplicate backup files (after downloading them, if needed). Check your settings before you do any Akeeba Backups to make sure that previous backup files are excluded.
Related: How to Download your Akeeba Backup Archive File via FTP
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