Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Friday, 21 January 2011 11:18 CST

user27936

Support,

I just signed up for your Akeeba Backup Pro. AMAZING! Love this component. I switched from JoomlaPlug and this thing runs GREAT!

I'm having a bit of a problem setting up a native cronjob on Godaddy. I spoke with Godaddy this morning and they tell me that php-cli is not available to shared hosting accounts. The following is the command that I am using:

/web/cgi-bin/php5 /home/content/43/4758543/html/administrator/components/com_akeeba/backup.php -profile=4

It kicks off but does not pick up the -profile=4, probably because I am not using php-cli. I attached the akeeba.cli.log for reference. I was hoping you could provide me with a recommendation of how to set this native cronjob up so I can run each evening.

BTW. I also tried altbackup.php, but that job does not run at all. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Joe

Friday, 21 January 2011 17:20 CST

nicholas

You have to use GoDaddy's PHP-CGI binary, that's why the command line parameters don't work. However, I have a workaround which might work. Just download developer's release 404 or later from our developer releases repository (you need to be logged in first to see the Akeeba Backup Professional release). This should work around the issue and the backup should work properly. I am not 100% positive that it'll work because the native CRON scripts require a PHP interface without a time limit. PHP-CGI does have a time limit, the CRON script will try to lift it but your host may disallow it. If that happens, there is no other workaround except moving to real host which supports such CRON jobs, like Rochen.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 21 January 2011 17:37 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

Thanks for the prompt reply! One other question. Do I still use the same command line in the cronjob as noted above?

Thanks for the prompt and excellent support!
Joe

Friday, 21 January 2011 18:03 CST

nicholas

Yes, the command line is the same. Please try it and tell me if it works. Thank you in advance for your feedback!

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 21 January 2011 22:50 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

Thanks for your efforts! It did not work. I've attached the cli.log that was generated. Any other thoughts on how I can get this to work?

Thanks,
Joe

Friday, 21 January 2011 22:51 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

Reposting with the log file in txt format.

Friday, 21 January 2011 22:55 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

Forgot to mention that the SVN version loads the profile argument but seems to be timing out. When I use altbackup.php from the SVN version, it never runs and produces no output. Any guidance would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Joe

Friday, 21 January 2011 23:13 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

Changed the php5.ini to include a max_execution_time of 120, shows up in the phpinfo.php results, but Akeeba does not see it. Just wanted to provide you with other things I've tried.

Thanks,
Joe

Saturday, 22 January 2011 02:56 CST

nicholas

Unfortunately, GoDaddy seems to be having PHP's Safe Mode turned on, that's why you got a timeout error. It didn't read the php.ini because the php.ini file has to be on the same directory as the script you try to run (that's why you have, or should have, one file on your site's root and one in your administrator directory). Please try copying the php.ini file with the increased timeout limit inside administrator/components/com_akeeba and relaunch the CRON job. It should now work.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Saturday, 22 January 2011 09:11 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

I really appreciate all your help! I put php5.ini into the com_akeeba, but still did not work. The good news is I have Akkeba Backup running on HostGator with the frontend set. Works fine. I setup both environments exactly the same and Godaddy still won't run.

altbackup.php won't even kick off in Godaddy. No matter if I'm running Pro or SVN and with the php.ini file in com_akeeba. I even tried running under php command rather than php5. Godaddy really blows! I'm going to move to Rochen per your suggestion. But can't do it until April. In the meantime, any last suggestions?

I'd be happy to provide you with access and pay for the service, if you're agreeable to that.

Thanks,
Joe

Saturday, 22 January 2011 17:05 CST

nicholas

Unfortunately, GoDaddy's PHP CGI binary doesn't accept any workaround for unsetting the time limit. As you correctly put it, GoDaddy blows. I've always said it. The only workaround is to use a real host, like Rochen. There is nothing we can do about it. There's nothing GoDaddy would ever do about it either. They are not willing to change the default settings for all 3,000-5,000 sites they cram in on a single server. If you insist, they will try to upsell you to a VPS package which is equally crap. So, apart from changing hosts, there is no way to make CRON work.

The only thing you can do is to setup and use Akeeba Remote Control, our desktop application which allows for scheduled backup operations. The downside is that your PC has to be turned on for the backup to run.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Saturday, 22 January 2011 20:48 CST

user27936

Nicholas,

AWESOME! I really appreciate the prompt support and help! You folks have by far been the best vendor I have worked with on Joomla extensions, to date!

I downloaded and used Remote Control. Worked perfectly! My PC stays on all the time so using Remote Control is not an issue. Thanks for all your help and support! I'm going to make a $25 donation through Remote Control for all your help.

Thanks again,
Joe

Sunday, 23 January 2011 03:11 CST

nicholas

You're welcome! We always try to treat our users the same way we'd like to be treated by vendors as their users, i.e. give fast and thorough support responses :) If you run into any problems setting up Remote Control please post back so that we can help.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 07 March 2011 15:21 CST

user7288

Nicholas,
will the Remote Control app work on Server 2008 32-bit?
Will it be possible to use the Remote Control app to trigger an online backup that goes into an Amazon S3 storage?
I am planning to setup a site on godaddy and have it automatically backed up every week into Amazon S3. Thought this would be easy until I read this Topic.
Please provide guidance.
Thank you.

Ralph

Monday, 07 March 2011 15:57 CST

nicholas

There are no problem that I am aware of with Windows Server 2008. If Akeeba Backup can take a backup on that server environment, Remote Control is bound to work. Since Remote Control's weakest point is archive downloads, using transfers tp S3 instead of downloading the files locally makes it much (read: MUCH!!!) more likely that it'll work trouble free.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 07 March 2011 16:13 CST

user7288

Thanks for the quick answer. The architecture I have in mind is hosting the Joomla site on GoDaddy Linux, have Remote Control run on an EC2 server with Win SVR 2008 OS, and then have the backups go to a separate Amazon S3 storage account.
What I hear from you is that this "should" work, right?

Tuesday, 08 March 2011 02:32 CST

nicholas

Normally yes, it should work, as long as you access the Windows virtual machine using Terminal Services (so that when you terminate the connection the graphical interface continues to run). The idea is that Remote Control should be always running in a login session. It can't run as a service.

That said, if you just want to automate the backups of your GoDaddy-hosted site, you can go with a simpler setup. You can actually install a Linux virtual machine on EC2 and use standard CRON jobs which use WGet to launch a front-end (legacy) remote backup. This is a very well tested method and was designed to be used in fire-and-forget setups like the one you are trying to create.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 08 March 2011 13:26 CST

user7288

I wish GoDaddy would make cron jobs work properly in shared environments. This would save a lot of trouble.

Tuesday, 08 March 2011 14:05 CST

nicholas

I feel your pain. It's one of the countless restrictions GoDaddy imposes on its shared accounts :(

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 14 March 2011 14:17 CDT

user7288

I just talked to GD support and they told me that currently they do not have PHP safe mode turned on. Does this mean that akeebabackup cron jobs should now work?

Monday, 14 March 2011 14:38 CDT

nicholas

Most likely, yes. Try it out. Just because they don't have PHP Safe Mode it doesn't mean that they impose no other limitations, e.g. a maximum CPU consumption or time limit for all CRON jobs which is too small for a backup to complete. There is no way to know other than trying.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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