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Akeeba Solo and Backup for WordPress User's Guide
Akeeba Solo and Backup for WordPress User's Guide
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Akeeba Solo and Backup for WordPress User's Guide

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Copyright 2014-2025 Akeeba Ltd

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the appendix entitled "The GNU Free Documentation License".

Abstract

This book covers the use of the Akeeba Solo backup application for PHP-powered web sites, Akeeba Backup for WordPress plugin and its associated tools and utilities.

Table of Contents

I. User's Guide to Akeeba Solo
1. Introduction
1. Introducing Akeeba Solo
2. Introducing Akeeba Backup for WordPress
3. Indicative uses
4. A typical backup/restoration workflow
5. Server environment requirements
2. Installation, updates and upgrades
1. Installing Akeeba Solo (Standalone)
2. Installing Akeeba Backup for WordPress
3. WordPress roles and Akeeba Backup privileges
4. Using on sites with BulletProof Security installed
5. Using on CloudWays and other hosts which limit access to .php files
6. Updating to the latest version
7. Requesting support and reporting bugs
8. Understanding PHP versions
3. Quick Start
1. Installing Akeeba Solo / Akeeba Backup
2. Basic concepts
3. Setting up and taking your first backup
4. Restoring a backup
5. Backing up your site to a cloud storage service
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Basic configuration
5.3. Using Amazon S3
5.4. Using Dropbox
5.5. Where to go from here?
4. Akeeba Solo / Akeeba Backup application reference
1. First steps
1.1. The login page
1.2. An overview of the interface
1.3. The main page (control panel)
2. Main operations
2.1. Configuration wizard
2.2. Configuration
2.2.1. The main settings
2.2.1.1. Basic Configuration
2.2.1.2. Advanced configuration
2.2.1.3. Optional filters
2.2.1.4. Quota management
2.2.1.5. Fine tuning
2.2.2. Database dump engines
2.2.2.1. Native MySQL Backup Engine
2.2.3. File and directories scanner engines
2.2.3.1. Smart scanner
2.2.3.2. Large site scanner
2.2.4. Archiver engines
2.2.4.1. ZIP format
2.2.4.2. JPA format
2.2.4.3. Encrypted Archives (JPS format)
2.2.4.4. DirectFTP
2.2.4.5. DirectFTP over cURL
2.2.4.6. DirectSFTP
2.2.4.7. DirectSFTP over cURL
2.2.4.8. ZIP using ZIPArchive class
2.2.5. Post processing engines
2.2.5.1. No post-processing
2.2.5.2. Send by email
2.2.5.3. Upload to Amazon S3
2.2.5.4. Upload to BackBlaze B2
2.2.5.5. Upload to Box.com
2.2.5.6. Upload to CloudMe
2.2.5.7. Upload to DreamObjects
2.2.5.8. Upload to Dropbox (v2 API)
2.2.5.9. Upload to Google Drive
2.2.5.10. Upload to Google Storage (JSON API)
2.2.5.11. Upload to Google Storage (Legacy S3 API)
2.2.5.12. Upload to OneDrive and OneDrive for Business
2.2.5.13. Upload to OneDrive (LEGACY)
2.2.5.14. Upload to OneDrive (App-specific Folder)
2.2.5.15. Upload to Microsoft Windows Azure BLOB Storage service
2.2.5.16. Upload to OVH Object Storage
2.2.5.17. Upload to OpenStack Swift object storage
2.2.5.18. Upload to RackSpace CloudFiles
2.2.5.19. Upload to Remote FTP server
2.2.5.20. Upload to Remote FTP server over cURL
2.2.5.21. Upload to Remote SFTP server
2.2.5.22. Upload to Remote SFTP server over cURL
2.2.5.23. Upload to SugarSync
2.2.5.24. Upload to iDriveSync
2.2.5.25. Upload to WebDAV
2.3. Backup now
2.4. Manage backups
2.4.1. Downloading backup archives
2.4.2. Manage remotely stored files
2.5. View Log
2.6. Troubleshooter - ALICE
2.7. Site Transfer Wizard
2.8. Import archives
2.9. Import archives from S3
2.10. Update (a.k.a. "Live Update")
3. Include data in the backup
3.1. Multiple Databases Definitions
3.2. Off-site Directories Inclusion
4. Exclude data from the backup
4.1. Files and Directories Exclusion
4.2. Database Tables Exclusion
4.3. RegEx Files and Directories Exclusion
4.3.1. Regular Expressions recipes for files and directories
4.4. RegEx Database Tables Exclusion
4.4.1. Regular Expressions recipes for database tables
5. System Management
5.1. WordPress Roles and Capabilities
5.2. User manager
5.2.1. Resetting your password or creating a new user if you can't log in to Akeeba Solo
5.2.2. Two Factor Authentication
5.2.2.1. Two factor authentication with Google Authenticator
5.2.2.2. Two factor authentication with YubiKey
5.3. Profiles management
5.4. Schedule Automatic Backups
5.5. System configuration
6. Automating your backup
6.1. Taking backups automatically
6.1.1. Front-end backup, for use with CRON
6.1.2. Native CRON script
6.1.3. Alternative CRON script
6.2. Scheduling backups with WP-CRON (WordPress only)
6.2.1. Supported CRON Expressions
6.2.2. Caveats of using WP-CRON for backup scheduling
6.3. Checking for failed backups automatically
6.3.1. Front-end backup failure check, for use with CRON
6.3.2. Native CRON script for failed backup checks
6.3.3. Alternative CRON script
6.4. WordPress and the wp-config.php file
7. Remote Storage and OAuth2 Helpers
7.1. Understanding OAuth2
7.2. Custom OAuth2 helpers for more than one sites
7.3. Custom OAuth2 helpers by storage provider
7.3.1. Box.com
7.3.1.1. Creating the custom helper
7.3.1.2. Using the custom helper
7.3.2. Dropbox
7.3.2.1. Creating the custom helper
7.3.2.2. Using the custom helper
7.3.3. Google Drive
7.3.3.1. Creating the custom helper
7.3.3.2. Using the custom helper
7.3.4. OneDrive
7.3.4.1. Creating the custom helper
7.3.4.2. Using the custom helper
8. Miscellaneous features
8.1. Enabling the debug mode
8.2. WordPress admin dashboard widgets
9. WordPress CLI (WP-CLI) integration
5. Restoring backups and transferring sites
1. General guidelines for backing up and restoring sites
1.1. General guidelines for backing up and restoring your site
1.2. Guidelines for storing your backups remotely / "cloud backup"
2. Overview of the backup restoration procedure
3. Extracting your backup archives
3.1. Using the integrated restoration feature (most common)
3.2. Using Akeeba Kickstart
3.3. Using third party software
4. Unorthodox: the emergency restoration procedure
6. Information for removed or canceled features
1. Microsoft OneDrive for Business
2. Formerly supported platforms
II. Security information
7. Introduction
1. Foreword
2. Why you need to care about ownership and permissions?
8. How your web server works
1. Users and groups
1.1. Users
1.2. Groups
1.3. How users and groups are understood by UNIX-derived systems
2. Ownership
2.1. Process ownership
2.2. File ownership
3. Permissions
3.1. The three types of permissions
3.2. What permissions can control
3.3. Permissions notation
3.3.1. The textual notation
3.3.2. The octal notation
9. Securing your Akeeba Solo (Standalone) installation
1. Access rights
2. Protection through .htaccess
3. Securing the output directory
4. Securing file transfers
III. Appendices
A. The JPA archive format, v.1.2
B. The JPS archive format, v.2.0
C. GNU Free Documentation License

List of Figures

4.1. CRON Cheatsheet
Next
PartI.User's Guide to Akeeba Solo