Every day we get at least one new customer who doesn’t have some key information about his website that will help us help him. This key information is usually a combination of username and password to his Joomla website. When we ask our new customer how come he doesn’t have this information, his answer is usually one of the following:
- I used to have it but now I lost it.
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I used to have it but the last programmer who worked on the website changed this information (for example, he changed the password) and didn’t send me the new one.
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I never had it in the first place – my programmer/designer used to handle all these things and now he left me and didn’t give me this information. By the way, this is the most common response we get!
Since this is a common issue, we have decided to list the information that every Joomla website owner needs to have in order to maintain control over his website and in order to simplify the work for anyone who’s about to work on it:
- Username and password of a super administrator on his Joomla website: In about 75% of our projects, we need a username and password of a super administrator on the Joomla website. The username and password of any other role are useless to us. The problem is, there are many Joomla website owners who only have a manager’s login to their website (while their programmers, of course, have super administrator logins). Super administrators have many privileges that other roles don’t have, such as 1) changing the configuration settings, 2) installing new extensions, 3) installing new templates, 4) modifying existing templates, and 5) changing the template. It is very important for any Joomla website owner to have a super administrator login to his website.
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FTP credentials to his Joomla website: Any Joomla website owner needs to have FTP credentials to his Joomla website. This will allow developers to quickly fix issues on his website, as well as develop/extend current extensions. Also, keep in mind that FTP information is critical for updating Joomla to the latest version. Finally, there are some extensions that require FTP information, such as Akeeba Backup.
The FTP information consists of the host, the FTP username, and the FTP password.
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Hosting credentials to his Joomla website: Hosting credentials not only encapsulate FTP credentials, but they also give access to all the databases on the system, a simple interface to backup and restore a website, and in-depth knowledge about the server hosting the website.
Quick note here: If someone doesn’t have the username and password of a super admin on his Joomla website, we (at itoctopus) are able to get a super administrator credentials if we have FTP access to his website. If he neither has the super admin credentials, and nor FTP information, but if he has the hosting credentials, we will be able to get him both FTP access and the credentials of a super administrator on his Joomla website.
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Environment information of his Joomla website: Is his website hosted on a Windows or a Linux server? Does his hosting use cPanel’s, Plesk’s, or Godaddy’s interface? Which version of PHP is the web server running? Which version of MySQL is the web server running? A Joomla website owner should know all this information!
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His Joomla website version: One of the common questions that we ask a new customer is the following: “Which version of Joomla are you running?”. That information will help us assess the capabilities and the security of the website, and estimate how long it’ll take us to develop a functionality, and whether a specific extension will work on his website or not.
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Domain registration credentials: This is probably the most critical information that any Joomla website owner should have. Without this information he will not be able to transfer his Joomla website from one server to another (because he won’t be able to change the nameservers). What makes this information even more crucial is that whoever has it will be able to assume control of the domain!
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The physical directory hosting the Joomla website: Sometimes when we’re about to work on a Joomla website, we spend some time trying to find where the website is hosted (e.g. which physical directory contains the website). It usually helps us greatly when we know which directory contains the website.
Remember always that the more information that we have on your Joomla website, the more easy it will become for us (and for anyone else) to help you. If you think that you’re missing some information on your website, then why not contact us? We’ll work with you so that you can have all the credentials to your website. After all, you own that website and it’s your right to have all the information about it! Oh, and by the way, our rates are very, very affordable!