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Under any circumstances you can append -m or --machine-readable to the end of the command line to instruct Remote CLI to use a machine-readable output format. If you omit it, a human-readable format will be used instead (default).

Using the option --nocolor will skip the generation of color escape sequences. The default behaviour of Remote CLI is to color-code its output for easier reading. However, some terminal emulators, like Windows' command prompt application, do not support them and display them as verbatim text. This can be confusing, therefore the use of --nocolor is strongly recommended.

Moreover, you can specify the --license parameter to display the text of the GNU General Public License version 3, under which the software is distributed. In this case, the action and all options will be silently ignored. This has the same effect as specifying the license command.

If you have a host with a self-signed certificate, or a certificate signed by a non-public certificate authority, you can use the --certificate=/path/to/certificate.pem option, where /path/to/certificate.pem is the full filesystem path to a PEM-formatted certificate. This certificate will be considered a valid certification authority for the purposes of Akeeba Remote CLI. The practical use case for that is intranets, local servers and testing environments, typically using self-signed certificates.

Each action can be used with one or several options. Some of them are mandatory for the correct operation of Remote CLI. The following sections detail the parameters which can be used with each option. All actions require the following mandatory options:

host

The URL to your site's root, without a trailing slash, e.g. http://www.example.com Please note that if your site is located in a subdirectory, you have to give the full path to the subdirectory, e.g. http://www.example.com/joomla

If you are using Akeeba Backup for WordPress the hostName must also include the path to Akeeba Backup's index.php file tasked with handling the JSON API, e.g. http://www.example.com/wp-content/plugins/akeebabackupwp/app/index.php where http://www.example.com is the URL to your site and akeebabackupwp is the name of the folder where the Akeeba Backup for WordPress plugin is installed.

secret

The secret key, as defined in Akeeba Backup's component parameters. In order to access it in the component, please log in to your site's back-end, go to Components, Akeeba Backup and click on the Component Parameters button. Make sure the Enable front-end and remote backup option is enabled. Right below it, you will find the Secret Key field.

[Important]Important

We strongly advise you to use only lower and upper case Latin letters and numbers (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) in your secret word, as many servers will refuse to work with secret words containing special characters.

[Important]Important

If you are using sh404SEF make sure you have upgraded to the latest release. Older versions conflicted with Akeeba Backup's remote API feature and will cause Remote CLI to report a JSON decoding error. No support will be provided for this error. The only workaround is to upgrade your copy of sh404SEF (which is a good idea anyway, as the older versions also contained potential security vulnerabilities).

[Important]Important

Some SEF and security components will corrupt or block the request to Akeeba Backup's Remote API. In this case you will most likely get a "JSON decoding error". If this happens you may have to instruct your component to ignore com_akeeba or allow full access to the http://www.example.com/index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=json URL. If unsure, please consult with the developer of your SEF or security component.

Below you can find the options required by each command:

test

No extra options are used

backup

profile

The numeric profile ID you want take a backup with. If it is not specified, a backup with the default profile (#1) will be taken. Please see the profiles command for an easy way to list profile names and IDs.

description

An optional description of your backup. Put it in double quotes, i.e. --description="My backup description". If not specified, the default backup description (the one with the date and time of the backup) will be used by Akeeba Backup automatically.

comment

An optional backup comment. Put it in double quotes, i.e. --comment="My backup comment". If not specified, no comment will be stored with your backup.

download

If you specify --download or -d, the produced backup archive will be downloaded to your computer. In this case, please refer to the next section for its required parameters. You can also specify --delete or -D together with --download / -d in order to delete the backup archive after it has been downloaded to your PC.

download

id

The numeric backup ID to download (see listbackups). Note: when you use the --download or -d switch with the backup action you must not use this option. In all other cases, this option is mandatory.

dlmode

Can be one of http, chunk or curl

http

instructs Remote CLI to download the backup archive through HTTP, similar to what you get by clicking the download links in the "Manage Backups" (formerly "Administer Backup Files") page of Akeeba Backup. Even though it is the simplest method, it may cause corrupted downloads of backup archives over 10-20MB on some shared hosts.

Files are transferred unencrypted with this method. You are advised to only use this if your server is using HTTPS or with JPS (encrypted) archives only.

chunk

works similarly to http, but is designed to work with larger backup archives. It tries to download 1Mb at a time, in order to work around server restrictions on HTTP download. However, on a few shared hosts this will cause the download to fail with a timeout error, memory outage error or an Internal Server Error (HTTP 500 error).

curl

is the recommended method and can be used to download the backup archive over FTP, FTPS or SFTP. The only downside is that it needs some configuration (see the dlurl option below).

If you are using plain old FTP (not FTPS or SFTP) the files and login credentials are transferred unencrypted. You are advised to never use this method with plain old FTP (not FTPS or SFTP) for security reasons.

dlpath

Specify the path to save the downloaded file. For example, --dlpath="c:\User\Myuser\Downloads" on Windows, or --dlpath="/home/myuser/Downloads" on Linux, Mac OS X and other UNIX-based operating systems.

dlurl

This option is only required if you are using the curl download method. In this case, it tells Remote CLI how to connect to your site in order to download the backup archives.

If you are using FTP, you have to specify something like --dlurl="ftp://username:password@hostname:port/path/to/output/directory

Username and Password are your FTP username and password. Hostname is the FTP server's host name. Port is the numeric TCP/IP port (normally it's 21, ask your host). The /path/to/output/directory is the FTP path to your output directory. In order to figure out the latter, please use FileZilla to connect to your site and navigate to the backup output directory (by default that is administrator/components/com_akeeba/backup). Copy the path shown above the right-hand folders pane. That's the one you want.

Example:

--dlurl="ftp://myuser: mypassword@ftp.example.com:21/public_html/administrator/components/com_akeeba/backup

[Important]Important

FTP is an unencrypted protocol. It is trivial for a third party to snoop into your connection and find the username and password you are using to connect to your server. We very strongly recommend using SFTP which is a file transfer protocol implemented over the very secure SSH remote server connection protocol. As a second best, you can use FTPS which is an encrypted version of FTP (exactly the same way HTTPS is an encrypted version of HTTP).

delete

id

The backup record's ID that you want deleted. Please see listbackups below.

deletefiles

id

The backup record's ID that you want deleted. Please see listbackups below.

profiles

This command has no options. It will simply return a list of profile IDs and descriptions.

listbackups

from

(Optional) From which record you want to start the listing. If not specified, 0 is assumed, showing the top results (latest backup records).

to

(Optional) Up to which record you want the listing to go to. If not specified, 50 is assumed, therefore showing the latest 50 backup records.

backupinfo

id

The backup record's ID whose info you want displayed. Please see listbackups above.

update

There are no options. Calling this action will check if an update is available and, if there is, will install it automatically on your site.

[Important]Important

This feature IS NOT available on Joomla!. Extension updates are handled by Joomla! itself, not Akeeba Backup. Please refer to Joomla!'s documentation for information on updating extensions.

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