Akeeba Backup 3.1.b1

Changelog

This is the short list of changes since Akeeba Backup 3.0.1. Items applicable only to the Professional (subscription) version are marked as "PRO".

New features

• PRO RackSpace CloudFiles support
• PRO Microsoft Azure BLOB Storage support
• PRO CLI backup now displays timestamp of last tick and memory usage information
• PRO JPS support: AES-128 encrypted archives loosely based on the JPA format
• PRO Native CRON Script now allows you to override configuration variables, e.g. supply usernames and passwords to cloud storage services.
• PRO JPS Integrated restoration support
• Akeeba Backup Lazy Scheduling plugin so that you never have to deal with CRON again
• ABI: New "Use REPLACE instead of INSERT" option to work around "Duplicate entry" errors on some environments
• ABI: Now allows enforcing UTF-8 collation for tables, no matter what the database's collation is
• Post-processing right after part generation, allowing for cloud backups under tight disk space conditions
• JSON front-end API with support for encrypted communications (encryption only in Pro)
• Back-end backup "Alternate AJAX" mode using hidden IFRAMEs (compatibility mode)
• Caching of obsolete status of backup records leads to faster "Administer Backup Files" page
• Localisable installation interface
• Improved backup engine, allows for simultaneous backups from different origins (e.g. one front-end and one back-end backup running at the same time).
• Incremental file-only backup, based on the last modified time stamp of the files
• The directory in post-processing engines now supports the same variables as the archive name ([DATE],[TIME],[HOST],[RANDOM])
• Added notice on Configuration page about accessing the file, directory, database, etc filters
• The active profile is displayed throughout the component's filter pages
• Backup - and restoration - of date and time stamps in JPA files
• Backup description and comment are automatically stored in installation/README.html for future reference
• Now allows use of "variables" ([DATE],[TIME],[HOST],[RANDOM]) in the backup description and comment
• ACL support for Joomla! 1.6, allows for discrete backup, download, configuration, managment and administrative privileges

Changes

• Live Update is now using HTTPS to encrypt your login credentials
• The "Backup Now" button pulsates to be more evident that you have to actually click on it...
• Improved (more verbose) error reporting on cloud/remote storage failure
• Added a logo to all pages and improved visual consistency
• Removed menu links from the back-end menus. This eliminates backup failures which would have been avoided if the user had visited the Control Panel page to "reset" the backup engine's state.

Bug fixes

• Backup Now would not work if the WYSIWYG editor crashed
• magic_quotes_gpc would cause Javascript errors to be thrown and potentially break the Backup Now button in some languages
• ABI: Verifying the FTP directory didn't work
• ABI: Would erroneously replace akb_ in the data with the table prefix, breaking Community Builder
• ABI: Warnings thrown from installation/includes/utils.php (cosmetic)
• ABI: In theory you could use an automation file named jpi4automation.ini, but it was mispelled in the code and never worked
• ABI: CRITICAL! Changing the SA password would make logging in to the site impossible
• Using SSL for cloud uploads on Windows would cause an error due to outdated CA bundled with cURL on that platform
• Calls to JError in the context of the native CRON script would cause a PHP fatal error
• ABI: The final step of the auto mode was broken
• ABI: Temporary and log directory paths where garbled on Windows hosts with magic_quotes_gpc turned on
• ABI: When a database is created, the default collation wasn't set. Now forced to utf8_general_ci.
• Post-proc FTP: Forcibly adds a leading forward slash to the initial directory to avoid connection problems if you forget to put it there
• Large archive downloads (usu. over 30Mb) through the browser would fail on many hosts, returning Error 500, Error 406 or "File not found" messages. A better workaround is applied. Please report your results.
• DROP statements would not be produced in SQL-only backup types
• Archiving files with non-ASCII names on systems with mb_string function overload would fail
• The active filter icon background was too faint and didn't display very well on laptop screens
• There wasn't enough room for the "Backup Now" translation on many languages; button enlarged
• The buttons in the Database Table Exclusion page were using the wrong mouse cursor
• The layout would break when using JoomlaBamboo's Crisp admin template
• Split ZIP archives could have corrupt Central Directory headers
• Typo in tempfiles.php would throw a warning
• All non-back-end backup modes were broken after SVN183 due to backup tag handling and not laoding the profile configuration properly
• Infinite loop in front-end backup
• The ZIP archiver would throw a warning due to a missing class field
• Trying to save the Configuration on some servers results to redirection to the admin index page
• Some servers throw an "Invalid AJAX data" message upon trying to use pretty much anything in Akeeba Backup's interface, including Backup Now itself
• Live Update was using Joomla!'s downloader, based on fopen() URL wrappers and failed upgrading on hosts where cURL is available but URL wrappers are not
• A stale storage file could cause the temporary and output directories to be reported as unwritable
• MyBlog's cache directory (components/libraries/cmslib/cache) can cause backup errors. It's now automatically excluded.
• CRITICAL Misleading button labels in integrated restoration (Pro release) could lead to a user erasing his entire site.
• Permissions for virtual (installer) files in JPA and JPS archives were set to 0777 when they should have been 0755 for security reasons if and only if someone used the permissions restoration feature of Kickstart 3.1.1 or later