Roadmap to JoomlaPack 1.2.1

Just over a week ago the stable 1.2 version was released to the public. As always, the stable release signifies the beggining of a new development cycle. This time, instead of jumping straight to developing version 1.3, we decided to improve the latest release in order to produce a safer, more performing, mature component.

This is the list of features we are currently working on, for version 1.2.1:

• Administrator directory restructuring and change of class names. CUBE is turning to a framework of its own right, built atop the Joomla! Framework. A big step towards full Joomla! 1.5 framework adoption, much of the guts of our component is being recoded to use only J! 1.5 API calls, while providing a backport layer for J! 1.0.x compatibility.
• Reduce and concatenate the steps (domains) needed to produce a backup. It occured to me that only two domains are actually required and should be present: database backup and file backup. In order to achieve this, a number of changes have to take place:
• Avoid extracting the installer files to temporary directory. Use the packaged installer files to "seed" the backup file instead. This also has a security enhancement bonus, as no "live" PHP files are written to the temporary directory, eradicating a direct access attack exploiting such files.
• Use name mangling on temporary files to minimize possibility of direct file access attacks
• Store the temporary file names and use this table when cleaning up. Moreover, clean up each temporary file right after it's been put in the archive. This is much more reliable than the current method which almost always leaves leftovers.
• The file list creation and packing steps are merged. This also means that much less data (in number of SQL queries and in total data size alike) is required to be written to database, solving many errors related to db server overload.
• Drop the "fast" algorithm. It is meaningless on most servers (crashes with timeouts) and the "smart" algorithm is already fast enough.
• Introduce Magic Numbers for smart algorithm. This will let you fine-tune the smart algorithm's performance to accomodate for slow, overloaded servers.
• Re-implement translations. It serves a double purpose: get closer to J! 1.5 compatibility and allow the use of semi-automated translation tools on the translation INI files. Some highlights:
• Introduce upercase INI keys by concatenating header and key, inserting an underscore between them
• Separate front-end and back-end language files
• Make a static method CLangManager::_($key) which translates the string like JText::_($key)
• Error and warning propagation and handling. Right now, if an error occurs in some part of the backup engine, it is not propagated and the process crashes in an unrelated point or completes to a partial backup (or, worse, no backup at all!). The idea is that if an error occurs anywhere in the code, the execution stops immediately, the error message is displayed to the user and also gets logged. In the case of warnings, they will be displayed just below the backup process messages.
• Distributed AJAX handling. The AJAX proxy will be taken apart and AJAX handlers will be grouped by page, hopefully creating less overhead during the actual backup process.
• JoomlaPack Installer 3. We are planning on creating the third iteration of our smart restoration script. This time it will be J!1.5-specific, based on the original J! 1.5 installer application. This is much harder than the traditional approach we took with JPI and JPI2, but it will be more forgiving in the case of errors - as you well know JPI2 is notorious for crashing silent when an error occurs during a J! 1.5 site's restoration. It will also cater for changing the cache and temp directories to their defaults if the pre-configured directories do not exist or are not writable, fulfilling a frequently made feature suggestion.

These are quite a mouthfull for a sub-minor number release! Right now the bulk of heavy refactoring is complete, namely the first two points. The rest of them are quite easy to implement, with the exception of the last two points which are bound to consume lots of our time.

The planned release date for 1.2.1 stable is mid-October 2008. Stay tuned!

Migrating a site to Joomla! 1.5: a success story

One of the tasks I had to perform less than a month ago was to migrate a site from Joomla! 1.0.15 to Joomla! 1.5.x. The site's operation couldn't be suspended for more than a few minutes. This was an exceptional challenge for testing JoomlaPack's tools in a real world task. Let's sum up the mission objectives and get to work:

• The original Joomla! 1.0.15 site must be upgraded to the latest Joomla! 1.5.
• The same or equivalent components will be used without loss of data, especially in regards to translation and mailing list contacts.
• The site must have virtually no downtime; a maximum of 10 minutes is acceptable.
• The resulting site must be fully operational. No broken links, missing images or any other mishap will be tolerated.

Sounds like Mission: Impossible, right? Impossible is nothing, as long as you have the right tools.

Step 1: Back the old site up

One of the things experience teaches up - albeit in a harsh manner - is that things can and will get awry, unless you're prepared for the unthinkable. In this case, the unthinkable is to bring the whole site down by accident, without a way to get it back online to its previous state.

That's why I used JoomlaPack 1.2.b1 (right then it was in a pre-release state) to get a snapshot of the site. Since this was a J! 1.0.x site, I used the -j10 package, which is Joomla! 1.0.x native. In 5 minutes flat the backup copy was sitting happily archived on my hard drive and USB key. I know, but redundancy makes me feel safer.

Step 2: Define the migration strategy

One of the common misconceptions is that when it comes to migration you can only act on a live site. Right? Well, since I did have a site snapshot at hand and a XAMPP for Linux powered machine on my desk, the only safe decision was to try migrating on a locally operated "clone" of the site. The result could be then uploaded and deployed within minutes on the live server.

Furthermore, I decided to have a "safe haven" should the restoration go wrong. For this reason I created a subdomain, with the intent to put the old site in it. It was actually easy; after uploading the site backup archive and kickstart.php I merely clicked my way through the restoration procedure and - presto! - the clone was right there, in the new subdomain.

During this process I also safely checked Kickstart's compatibility with my live server. It turns out that even when I deactivated PHP's Safe Mode, I was still unable to get Kickstart to work. Some head-scratching later, it turns out that the site's root was not writable to the web server user. I just connected to the server with my FTP client and changed this folder's permissions to 0777. That did the trick. This was a useful thing, since I used my newly found knowledge to "fix" the permissions on my main domain's site root folder to avoid any troubles during the restoration of the migrated site (more on that later!).

Next, I repeated the procedure on my local server. Now I had a perfectly working "clone" of the live site on my local server. It's time to have some fun!

Step 3: The actual migration process

It turns out migration isn't as straightforward as you might have thought, or read about. After a couple of frustrating attempts, I came up with the right (as in "worked for me") procedure:

• Install the migrator component on the original Joomla! 1.0.x site
• If you had translated the site using Joom!Fish, you'll have to install the respective plugins. Too bad they're only available in their SVN and you have to guess that they even exist! I don't want to be too harsh; after all at the time of this writing Joom!Fish 2 is still in beta. Installing them is simple. Just download the plugins and tables folders and place in the com_migrator's corresponding folders.
• Run the migrator component, which results in a SQL file. Keep a copy of it, you'll need it.
• Make a new folder for the 1.5.x site and extract the latest Joomla! 1.5 distribution there. Do not run the installer yet!
• Copy the SQL file in the new site's installation/sql/migration folder.
• Make sure the installation folder, subfolders and all contained files have read/write privileges for everyone.
• Run the Joomla! installation, making sure you select the migration content instead of sample content towards the end of the installation. Tip: Use the same prefix as the old site. Hopefully, nothing went wrong in the process. If not, you'll have to copy the SQL file again and then retry the process. During migration the SQL file gets altered. Why does it have to? Beats me.
• You have a semi-usable site now. Copy over any media (like, images) from the old site to the new.
• Install third party components. Remember that you need to activate the Legacy Plugin for components which are not Joomla! 1.5 Native (that's about 80% of the components I guess).
• If the components offer no backup/restore for their data, copy their tables from the old site's database to the new site's database.
• Make sure everything is in working order. Otherwise, keep on tweaking.

Step 4: Getting ready for transfer

After all this process was over, I had a fully working site on my local server, all aspects tested out and everything to the client's liking. The next step is to get it online. JoomlaPack to the rescue!

I installed the 1.2.b1 release, using the Joomla! 1.5 Native -j15 package, so I hadn't have to activate the Legacy plugin. In less than 4 minutes a snapshot of the shiny new site was ready on my hard drive. Hey, that was easy!

Step 5: Showtime!

The big moment is here. Everything has to be done in military precision. The site is not to be left off-line for more than 10 minutes. Hey, don't panic. It is really easy, trust me!

First off, I made sure the site's root folder permissions were 0777 and that PHP Safe Mode was disabled. This will keep headaches away later in the process. Then, I uploaded kickstart.php and the new site's backup archive.

I now needed a way to remove the old site and restore the new one. I chose to use SSH to remove the old folders. I could as well have used FTP, but removing the thousands of Joomla! files with FTP takes forever, especially if your host doesn't allow multiple concurrent FTP connections from the same IP address. A few seconds away everything was gone, except kickstart.php and the archive.

Up next, I used Kickstart to get the archive unpacked, ran the installer to get my site restored and than clicked on the relevant links on Kickstart's page to get rid of kickstart.php and the archive.

Phew! Everything was ready now. A quick test and I was done.

Conclusions

JoomlaPack and its accompanying scripts can play an important role during site migration to Joomla! 1.5.x. The steps you can use its time and frustration reducing services are:

• Backing up the original site (JoomlaPack, J! 1.0.x package)
• Making a local clone of the original site (Kickstart, JoomlaPack Installer 2)
• Creating a snapshot of the new site (JoomlaPack, J! 1.5 Native package)
• Deploying the new site (Kickstart, JoomlaPack Installer 2)

JoomlaPack's multipurpose functions as a site backup and cloning tool can save you time during the migration process, letting you focus on the important part: transferring data to the new Joomla! version. It can provide you with confidence that the end result can be deployed in a matter of minutes, without risking bringing down the live site during the migration process, or to iron out migration-related issues discovered along the way.

But if you don't believe me...

... I can prove my success story. Yes, I know what you're thinking. I am JoomlaPack's author, so it is reasonable - if not selfish - to praise my software. You might even think I made this all up.

The example is very real and the only pitfall in the process was the initial migration (the migration only worked when I copied the darn SQL file instead of HTTP uploading it).

Need more proof? The site I was talking about is that of the Hellenic Association for Adult Education. The new site, facelifted is here, whereas the original site's clone is here. As you can see, the content is there, just the forum format and software changed and the past newsletter issues have been temporarily removed, on client's request.

If you do believe me, after all, ...

... you can use JoomlaPack on your site today. If you have a great success story about how JoomlaPack saved the day for you, send it to us.

Getting closer to 1.2.b1

After having done a lot of work the past few days, we are getting closer to releasing 1.2.b1. The most notable additions are:

• Support for accessing the backend with HTTPS (still needs some intensive testing)
• Single file exclusion filter
• Backing up without using AJAX

The codebase had the HTTP protocol hard-coded in the URL generation part, which made using the component impossible for people accessing their backend through HTTPS. It only got worse if you were actually enforcing the use of HTTPS with an appropriate .htaccess file. The fix I did was rather rudimentary: JoomlaPack chooses its protocol prefix based on whether the server has informed PHP that we were called through the SSL protocol. This feature still needs extensive testingto make sure there are no loopholes in the code and that it supports non-standard HTTPS ports (which means, anything but port 443).

As far as the single file exclusion is concerned, this was an asked for feature for quite a while. Many people want to exclude just that pesky unreadable file their host puts on the website's root. Or, maybe, those two big video files from the downloads directory. You get the picture... The interface is slightly weird, mainly because it just doesn't look like Joomla!. There are two panes, the left one displaying directories and the right one displaying files. You click on the directories to visit them, click on the files' checkboxes to toggle the exclusion status. Pretty easy, but I'd certainly prefer to code a proper tree view on the left side, a la Konqueror, or Windows Explorer :/

The "backup without AJAX" was a last minute addition, after some user had terrible problems with using AJAX during the backup, for no apparent reason. This can happen due to a million reasons, one of them being that the server is overpopulated. Instead of giving up and let frustration get the better of you, you can just switch to the brand new "JavaScript Redirects" backup mode. This is very simple, indeed. After each piece of work performed (a "step" in JoomlaPack jargon), a JavaScript redirect is issued to make the process proceed. It's not the same as the front end backup because it neither uses HTTP 301 headers, nor does it output a blank page during the backup. On the contrary, it outputs the familiar "backup status" messages, albeit in a funny looking way, yet.

All these exciting features were added in SVN 113, just a few minutes ago :)

Introducing Kickstart and JPA

One of the most notable additions in JoomlaPack 1.2 - which is still in Alpha - is that we now offer a renowned archive format, the JoomlaPack Archive (JPA) format. Its major benefit is that it can be more reliably created in the context of PHP script, such as JoomlaPack. On the downside, it is a custom format, without support from external tools. In here I will tell you not only how you can extract the archive, but how you can easily restore a site's backup too! But first, let's see how and why we got there...

Most people upload files to their sites using FTP. Despite of being the most widely used file transfer protocol for uploading files, it comes with some drawbacks. The most prominent is slow uploads when you have lots of small files. A Joomla! installation is a typical example, with over 3000 files occupying a mere 15Mb. No matter how much bandwidth you have, uploading takes at best half an hour.

Wait a minute! Half an hour for 15Mb worth of files?! It reminds me the dark days when I used PSTN to connect to the internet... But, what else can you do? If you upload the backup archive itself, it certainly gets uploaded fast (the more bandwidth you have, the faster it's uploaded), but you can't "run" the ZIP/JPA file. Or can you?

Using this thought, I decided to create a script which can "bootstrap" the installation process. I won't take credit for the original idea; I took it from the way software such as Joomla.Start works. I just enhanced the original idea in order to:

• use AJAX-powered, multiple step unpacking, so that it can operate on huge archives
• support both ZIP and JPA formats
• handle .htaccess renaming automatically
• delete itself, the installation folder and the archive after the installation is complete

It has one fundamental limitation, which is actually a limitation of PHP itself: the Safe Mode has to be turned off, or the folder on which you'll extract the archive has to be owned by the same user as the one the web server runs under. Just setting the permissions won't help it.

So far this software is alpha as well and you can get it through our SVN repository (directory kickstart). In order to use it just upload the backup archive and the kickstart.php to your server, then visit http://www.mysite.com/kickstart.php. Just follow the instructions from that point. In the end you'll have a fully functional site set up in -literally- minutes!

The roadmap to JoomlaPack 1.2

Since mid-March there has been an ongoing development effort towards version 1.2 of the JoomlaPack backup component. There are several new features and enhancements in this version. This post is a brief summary of what we intend to implement. I thought this is the most appropriate very first post on our brand new blog :)

Major features for 1.2

1. Native mode for both Joomla! 1.5.x and Joomla! 1.0.x using the same codebase
2. Database Table Exclusion
3. JoomlaPack Archive Format
4. "Kickstart" script
5. Reworked database only backup
6. Single File Exclusion
7. Front-end database only backup
8. Multiple Database Backup

The first five features have already been implemented in SVN revision 100 (most of them have also been available in Alpha 2 released earlier in May), the next two are scheduled for Alpha 3 and the complete feature set will be available on the Beta releases.

Explaining the features

Native mode. So far JoomlaPack has been a component written for the 1.0.x branch of Joomla! and would only work on J! 1.5.x with the Legacy Plugin enabled. Acknowledging that Legacy mode is a resource hog, we decided to restructure the component in order to work as a native J! 1.5 component too. We did make it and now there are two packages disseminated for each release. The one ending in -j10 is a Joomla! 1.0.x native version, whereas the one ending in -j15 is the brand new Joomla! 1.5.x native version.

Database table exclusion. Some webmasters are obliged to run several J!-powered websites on the same database, or they share J!'s database with other scripts' tables. A long-running wish on their part is the ability to exclude arbitrary tables from the backup set. Your wish is our command!

JoomlaPack Archive Format. You have certainly noticed that CRC calculation gives certain hosts a really hard time: invalid CRC calculations cause decompression to fail, high server load on CRC calculation causes JoomlaPack to crash and stuff like that. This is why I thought of simplifying the archive format to something similar to a trimmed-down ZIP file, which doesn't contain the Central Directory record (saving some space and reducing CzipCreator's potential failure points) and having no CRC stored. There is an option to toggle between ZIP and JPA and there is also going to be a PHP unpacking script for JPA archives. Right now, the compression part is ready, the extraction part is under development.

Kickstart script. Currently, as soon as the user downloads the backup archive he has to extract it, upload it to the new server through FTP, fix permissions, rename .htaccess, run the installation, remove the installation directory, restore .htaccess and access the restored site. This is tedious. How about transferring the ZIP to the target server, running a script locally which extracts the archive, launches the installation and removes the installation script afterwards? This is the concept behind what I call "Kickstart". Think of it as a bootstrapper for the installation process. Kickstart is available in the SVN, requires PHP Safe Mode to be disabled and currently lacks documentation.

Reworked database only backup. Most people intended to use this feature to grab a phpMyAdmin-usable database dump of their site. The standard JoomlaPack functionality was to create a database dump suitable for use with JoomlaPack Installer (JPI & JPI2) or the standard Joomla! installer. This behaviour has changed to what most of the users expected: a database dump usable by third party MySQL utilities.

Single File Exclusion. On rare occasions we face hosts storing account configuration files on the server's root. To make things worse, these are owned by another (system administrator) user account, making them unreadable, occasionally causing JoomlaPack to fail. Some other times there is just one pesky big file we'd like to exclude from, let's say, DocMan's documents folder.

Front-end database only backup. Self explanatory, it is. Right now you are only to backup your entire site using front-end only tools. Now you're going to be able to backup just your database.

Multiple Database Backup. I have a site which hosts Joomla! alongside a home grown script. This script uses a different database but I need it for my J! site to function, as its functionality is embedded with com_wrapper. Currently, there is no way to backup another database. This is not very hard to do and at least one user asked for it, so I thought "let's do it". And it's a feature no other backup component has!