I have tried all the backup tools for backing my JOOMLA websites in the past and I thought it was time I worked an easier method to backup my JOOMLA installation. I now a routine where I can develop joomla websites on my desktop and then uplaod the newly created website to any server. This can also be used to backup your exisiting joomla website.

How to backup your Joomla Website

First of all you need to download an SQL backup tool and install it in your JOOMLA website. You will find some on the Joomla website. The best I have used is called joombackup, this sends you an sql backup automatically to an email address every day, so no need to worry about doing it manually. I have tested this bot and it work perfectly.

After you have installed an SQL backup tool create an SQL backup.

Next you download your entire JOOMLA website using FTP. It may take a while if you have a lot of other data in the files.

After you have downloaded your JOOMLA website there are a couple of things to do now

What you are going to do is create your own JOOMLA installation files using your own backed up JOOMLA website along with your backed up sql database! This includes all your favourite components, modules, mambots and templates that you have installed over time.

There are a few things you need to do to your files to create your JOOMLA re-installation application. We are going to cheat by fooling the JOOMLA installation script into thinking your backup is an original installation!

We are going to do some work on your JOOMLA website backup files.

• Delete the configuration.php file in the root folder. Yes actually delete it !
• Rename your .htaccess file back to htaccess.txt if you need to, but it must be named htaccess.txt
• Now you need the original installation files folder from the original JOOMLA 1.0x installation. (If you followed the original installation instructions you may have deleted it from your website). Go back to the original JOOMLA version folder and copy and paste the installation folder back into your downloaded backed up JOOMLA folder. If you cannot find them I have them on my website.
• Fetch your sql backup file that was emailed to you if you used the joombackup bot as recommended, (You will have to unzip it)
• Copy and paste the sql backup file into the /installation/sql/ folder. (It must be an uncompressed sql file).
• In the installation sql folder delete the sql file called sample_data.sql
• Now rename your backup sql file to sample_data.sql

And that's it! You have now created your own fresh JOOMLA installation application along with all your favourite components, modules, bots and templates! and more importantly your setup data and content data from your sql database backup file!

• Now all you have to do is upload your new re-installation JOOMLA website to your new sever as you would normally and run the installation as you would with a brand new JOOMLA installation!
• During installation you must make sure that you load the sample data as this is your all important website configuration setup and data!
• When the installation gets to the admin password just ignore it because your original users database file will be in place and you must login to your website using your original user details.
• Now what you have to do is login using your original admin username and password and go to your admin panel and go through your configuration and save it and your done.
• One last thing, make sure that your joomla table prefix is the same as what you have in your sql backup file.

Notes

The main reason I went to all this trouble to work out a manual joomla backup installation is that when I first tried to simply upload all my joomla files to my server and manually create my SQL database in myphpadmin, I got all kinds of file error problems, something to do with file permissions I think. Creating a proper joomla installation seemed to be the cleanest thing to do.

Images URL's

If you used a text editor that references all your images with an absolute url, (http://www....etc), you may not see your images. To correct this make sure your editor uses relative urls for all your images so the your image location looks something like this - /images/stories/filename.jpg and not http://www.yoursite.com//images/stories/filename.jpg

If you use an editor like JCE it has the facility to covert all your website image urls to either relative or absolute instantly, just make sure that your image urls's are set to relative before you backup!

Test The Joomla Backup Process first

To test this process you can use something like EASYPHP or WAMP5 (WampServer), which are applications to simulate a Linux Apache web server on your home computer, this is what I use to develop server based php websites, not only joomla but many other php based applications.

No Guarantee

Please note that this routine has worked for me many times. However, there is no guarantee that it will work for you. The server you are uploading it to may have compatibility problems as you may get with a normal JOOMLA installation. What I will guarantee is that using this routine will 100% produce a JOOMLA installation application.

I use this routine to develop JOOMLA websites for other people and simply send them their zipped developed website for them to install themselves. I make it available as a download from my main website. It seems to have worked 100% of the time, so far.

Good luck with your own JOOMLA development and backup.

regards

websith