As well as creating manual backups
Akeeba Backup
offers you the opportunity
to automate the process
to ensure that you will always have
an up to date backup.
Here on the control panel
we can see an option called
schedule automatic backup.
If we scroll down
we can see there is a Frontend Backup feature
that is currently not enabled
so we need to go back to the Control Panel to enable it.
Select the options in the top right hand corner
and the Frontend Backup tab
Here we can enable the Frontend Remote backup
and give it a secret word
this should be
a combination of upper and lower case characters and numbers.
There is another option
to enable the site to send you an email
once this remote backup has completed.
If I do not enter any details below
this email will be sent to all
Super Administrators onthe web site.
Click Save and close
and return to the schedule automatic backups.
I can see that the frontend backup feature is now enabled
and there are five different methods available to me
to peform this frontend backup.
I am going to use a service called WebCron to automate it.
WebCron is a service run by an external website called webcron.org
So let's go to that site.
webcron.org offers several services
including uptime monitoring
and something called an Online Cron.
A cron is just a computer word
for an action that takes place
at a specific time
and that's what we want to do.
Webcron.org is a commercial service
that is exceedingly cheap.
If we check their prices
we can see
that a cron that lasts about 180 seconds
which should be enough to backup most web sites
costs a fraction of a cent.
in fact for just 1 Euro
you can perform 1000 backups
more than enough
to do a backup a day for several years.
So go ahead and signup
it's free to signup
and it includes
some free credits so that you can
test the service out before committing.
Once you have signed up and created your account
go ahead and login.
We are now at the dashboard
where we can create our cron.
Select the new cron
and give this cron a title.
Then select the timeout
and as I suggested 180 seconds
is probably enough
but we will be able to see later on if we need to increase it.
We now need the specific url
that you want to execute.
To find that return to your web site
and here under the webcron.org options
you will see the url.
Simply select it
and copy.
Return to webron.org
and paste.
You do not need to enter the login or password.
You now need to set
the times and dates that this cron,
this backup will take place.
I want it to take place every year,
every month,
every day of the month,
every day of the week,
and then I want it to take place
sometime in the middle of the night
when my web site's not busy.
So I am going to select
one
ten
and then scroll down
and submit.
My cron has now been created
and I can confirm that by clicking on the cron
and here we can see it.
You can now return to your web site.
The web site will now perform backups
on a regular basis
every single day
at in my case 1:10 in the morning.
But remember
the backup
will still be stored on your web site
so it's important
to go the Manage Backups
and select the backup
and download it to your own computer.