What is Kickstart?
Kickstart is a PHP executable file ( script ) which extracts JPA, JPS and ZIP archives. It can be used over the web (from a web browser) or directly from the command line interface.
In a web environment, and using Joomla, Akeeba Backup is used to create these archives and they contain ALL files and the database for the website in one archive file.
Kickstart is used to extract the backup archives created with Joomla (and Wordpress) Akeeba Backup onto a new server or when the administrative interface of your site is not accessible. The actual restoration does not take place through Kickstart, though. The restoration script is included in the backup archive (JPA file) itself. Kickstart merely extracts the archive and lets you run that restoration script.
At the end of the process, Kickstart lets you clean up with one click which removes itself, the backup archive and the restoration script.
Why use Kickstart?
Even though Akeeba Backup is designed as an effortless way of backing up your site, it is only good up to the point of creating the a backup archive. Restoring to a new server is a different matter.
Without Kickstart you would have to download the file as a ZIP archive for example to your PC, extract it, upload all the files to your site via FTP or SFTP (with <5000+ files per site this is slow), go through the restoration process and remove the installation directory.
Most of this process is the same for every backup restoration. The only place where human intervention is truly required is the restoration process part. Moreover, transferring thousands of files over SFTP or, worse, FTP is orders of magnitude slower than transferring big archive files. These are the problems Kickstart is designed to solve.
“Kickstart extracts the backup JPS, JPS and ZIP archives directly on the target server. The only thing you need to perform a restoration is Kickstart and the archive file(s). You just need to upload kickstart.php and your archive to your server, visit http://www.yourdomain.com/kickstart.php, select the archive, wait, go through the restoration process, click the cleanup button and your site is up and running. All unnecessary files –Kickstart itself, the backup archive and the restoration script– are removed.
In case your files and directories ownership and permissions are mixed up (rare) Kickstart can write files using FTP, SFTP or our Hybrid mode. The Hybrid mode solves a problem known as "permissions hell" where different files and folders are owned by different users, making it impossible to write to all of them either directly or through FTP. In this case Kickstart intelligently decides which method to use (direct
write or FTP) on a file-to-file basis.
Server Requirements for Joomla and Kickstart
The server configuration requirements are:
- PHP 8.2.x or higher
- PHP zlib module installed and enabled. This should be enabled by default.
- Correct directory and file ownerships and permissions, or FTP connection parameters must be entered.
The last requirement must be further explained. PHP with Safe Mode enabled will refuse to create folders inside another folder which is not owned by the same user as the one the web server (Apache) runs under, even if the folder is otherwise writable. Kickstart will fail in this case. Alternatively, if you supply the FTP connection information, Kickstart will try to use FTP to connect to your site and write the extracted files.