Put your backups on autopilot. Use Joomla's built-in Scheduled Tasks to run backup profiles and content snapshots on any schedule — or, when system cron isn't available on shared hosting, trigger a token-protected web-cron URL from any external cron service.
Joomla Scheduled Tasks
MokonyxBackup integrates with Joomla's built-in Scheduled Tasks (System > Manage > Scheduled Tasks). This is the recommended way to automate backups on a Joomla 6 site.
Task type: Run Backup Profile
- Go to System > Manage > Scheduled Tasks > New
- Select MokonyxBackup: Run Backup Profile as the task type
- Choose which published backup profile to run from the dropdown
- Set your Execution Rule (e.g. daily at 2:00 AM, weekly on Sundays)
- Save and enable the task
Each task instance has its own profile and schedule, so you can, for example, run a nightly full backup and an hourly database-only backup. Runs execute through BackupRunner with origin scheduled; a failure returns a KNOCKOUT status so the task is flagged accordingly.
Task type: Run Content Snapshot
A second task type, MokonyxBackup: Run Content Snapshot, captures content-only snapshots on a schedule. Pick the content types (articles, categories, modules) and a description template that supports [date] and [datetime] placeholders.
Joomla Cron Setup
Joomla's Scheduled Tasks require the scheduler to actually run — via the built-in Lazy Scheduler, a real cron entry, or a web-cron hit. A system crontab entry looks like:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /path/to/joomla/cli/joomla.php scheduler:run --allWeb Cron (Shared Hosting)
If you don't have access to system cron (common on shared hosting), the System plugin exposes a token-protected web-cron URL that any external cron service can trigger.
Setup
- Go to Components > MokonyxBackup > Options > Web Cron
- Enable Web Cron
- Set a Web Cron Secret — a long random string that acts as a password
- Optionally restrict by IP with the IP Whitelist field
Web Cron URL Format
https://yoursite.com/index.php?mokonyxbackup_cron=YOUR_SECRET&profile_id=1| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
mokonyxbackup_cron | Your web cron secret (required) |
profile_id | Which backup profile to run (optional, falls back to the default profile) |
External Cron Services
Use any external cron service (cron-job.org, EasyCron, UptimeRobot, etc.) to hit the web cron URL on your schedule. The trigger runs on onAfterInitialise before routing and without any admin login, and returns a JSON response with the backup result (HTTP 200 on success, 500 on failure, 403 when rejected). Backups run this way are recorded with origin webcron.
Automated Backups Keep Running (Not Gated by the Tuning Wizard)
After an install or update, MokonyxBackup flags its execution-tuning wizard as pending, which temporarily blocks interactive backups started from the dashboard until you run the wizard from Components > MokonyxBackup > Options. Scheduled Tasks and web cron are automated origins and are not gated by this — they keep running on the current or conservative tuning values even while manual backups are blocked. Your unattended backup schedule is never silently paused by a pending wizard.
Security
- The web cron secret is compared using a timing-safe
hash_equals()to prevent timing attacks - IP whitelist support restricts which addresses can trigger backups
- PHP execution limits are automatically overridden (
set_time_limit(0),memory_limit=512M)