A backup of your web site
is only useful if you can restore it
perhaps you need to change your web host
or even move the site
from a development server
to a live server.
To begin with
take a brand new backup of your web site.
Once the backup is complete
go to Manage Backups
and download the backup file to your computer.
Now we've downloaded the backup file
we need an additional program
called Kickstart
which you can find at the akeebabackup.com web site.
Go to download.
You will find the akeeba kickstart here in the backup section.
Kickstart is a standalone program.
Click download to download the file to your computer.
Here we can see
that the Kickstart program is a zip file
and we need to extract that.
We can see we now have a new folder
with all the kickstart files in.
The only one that you actually need is the kickstart.php file
all the rest are language translations.
We now need to transfer the kickstart.php
and our backup
to our brand new web host
To do that we will use a FTP program.
I am going to use filezilla
but you can use any ftp program that you like.
To begin with connect to your new server.
Once connected make sure
you are in the public html or the web root of your server.
Now you need to transfer the backup file
from our local computer to our live server.
I am just going to pick that up and drag it across.
We now need to take that kickstart.php file
and do exactly the same thing.
Select it and drag it across.
That's it with the filezilla for now
so let's go back to our web browser
and go to our brand new web site.
As you can see I have a holding page in place
to show that the web site is coming soon.
So just go to the special url
for kickstart.php
The kickstart program is now running.
Kickstart is NOT an installation program
it is a special archive extraction tool.
Click here to remove this message
and we can see that it has detected the archive file.
We have several methods of extracting the files
On most good web hosts we can use the hybrid method.
Finally click START to begin the extract process.
kickstart has now extracted the backup file
and provides a link to the installer
that was built in to the backup.
The installer is a very simple process
we begin with the required settings
as you can see they are all set to yes
If any are set to No
you wont be able to proceed
and you need to speak to your web hosts
to rectify the errors.
We can now click Next
I now need to enter
the database connection details
that I have got from my web host.
Enter the server hostname
which is usually localhost
but that may depend on your hosting
and your DATABASE username and password.
And finally the database name
that you want to install your web site on.
This is something that your host will have provided to you
or you will have set up yourself
within your hosts control panel.
And click next.
The restoration process of the database
has now completed and we can click to continue.
We have now have the opportunity if we wish
to change the site name and the email address
in most cases when you are restoring a site you won't need to do this.
There is also the opportunity to change the password
and email address of the Super Administrator.
Finally click Next again.
The sites configuration has all been setup
Close this window to return
to the Kickstart program and click on cleanup.
This will remove the kickstart.php file
and that big backup archive from your web space.
Now that we're done we can visit our web site
and here we can see that the web site
has now been transferred
from our old hosting account to our new one.