The SP Staging Manager is the place in the back-end where you can add and manage all of the stages you want to control. From the stages view you can do the follow tasks:
- Add/Edit/Remove stages,
- Ping a stage to check connection healthiness,
- Synchronize the manager with the stages,
- Backup and Akeeba Backup,
- Install any zip package file to the selected stages.
- Execute any SQL query file, or PHP script, on the stages
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Stage Configuration
There are only four necessary attributes to define when creating a stage:
- Title - This is the name you will see the stage in the lists,
- Category - It's category, which can be useful when you have many stages. It can be used for filtering in the list views, and user access.
- URL - That is the stage site front end url. For example http://www.stage_domain.com/ (remember to add the last slash /)
- Password - This have to be the same as in the stage options. If not, it cannot connect.
Ping
After you setup for the first time each stage, then with ping, you can confirm the healthiness of the connection between manager and each stage. Also the ping operation 'push' your download id, from the manager's options to each stage options.
Synchronization
The synchronization operation updates the local database with the extensions found in the stages. If any extension is having a new update, with this operation it will be discovered.
Backups
There are two kind of backups supported by SP Staging.
- standard - utilize unix commands mysqldump and gzip,
- Akeeba - it is necessary for Akeeba Backup to be installed on the stage site.
Standard Backup
This type of backups is full site backup, including files and database. The backups are stored in stage site under folder /administrator/components/com_spstgsrv/backups
It is required to run this type of backup for your php to have enabled access to run mysqldump and gzip unix commands.
Akeeba Backup
To use this type of backup, you must first have Akeeba Backup installed on the stage site. You must also enable by Akeeba options the front end backup, and assign a secret word.
While editing a stage in manager, you have the ability to insert the secret word and the id of the Akeeba profile to use.
Installation extensions, and execute scripts
Same as with Joomla! core extensions manager, you can upload and install any extension on the stages. You can also have the extension archive file in your manager's server, or even to a remote server. The same way you can also execute on your stages any SQL query, or PHP script. They will be run under Joomla! environment, so you can take advantage the Joomla! framework.