Here is another highly recommended extension for your Joomla!® powered website.
As you develop and administer your website you will most likely find that you need that bit more in order to make your life easier.
Admin Tools does what it says.
Administrative tools inside one package that will help you to administer your website.
Administering your website is probably quite a broad, far reaching statement, so lets narrow down a bit what Admin Tools can do for you.
Maintain - you can optimise your database(s).
Protect - the web application firewall (WAF) can help to protect against the vast majority of common website attacks.
Secure - you can change your database table prefix to a random prefix, randomise your super user id, and fine tune file permissions.
Here you can read an Akeeba Admin Tools Overview.
There are two versions of Akeeba AdminTools available:
- Core version - free of charge;
- Professional - for a fee;
UsingJoomla.com suggests trying the Core version first to give you a feel of what the package is capable of.
The Admin Tools Core version does not contain all of the features that are contained within the Akeeba Admin Tools Professional (Pro) version - you might like to see a comparison table:
The table* below compares the Akeeba Admin Tools Core version versus Akeeba Admin Tools Professional (Pro) features Akeeba Admin Tools version 6.1.3 - the latest version available as at 26th October 2021 for Joomla 3.9.x Please be aware that with the release of Joomla 4 - different releases of Admin Tools are available for Joomla 4
This comparison table will be updated according to feature changes in newer releases of the software.
The table below does not compare all features - if the feature you might be looking for is not listed here - please visit the Akeeba Backup website.
While We endeavour to be accurate - if there is any doubt about the features, the final point of reference should be made directly to the : Akeeba Admin Tools product page
*Credit and thank you to Akeeba Limited for allowing the use of a Feature Comparison Table
| Feature | Core | Pro |
| Emergency Off-line Switch | Yes | Yes |
| Customise permissions | Yes | Yes |
| Administrator Directory Protection with Username / Password | Yes | Yes |
| Change folder and file permissions | Yes | Yes |
| One click temporary files cleaning | Yes | Yes |
| Change database collation | Yes | Yes |
| Repair / Optimise database tables | Yes | Yes |
| Single click purge/optimise sessions table | Yes | Yes |
| On-the-fly link rewrite | Yes | Yes |
| URL Redirection | No | Yes |
| Scheduled cleanup | No | Yes |
| PHP file scanner | No | Yes |
| Disable directory listings | No | Yes |
| Protect against common file injection attacks | No | Yes |
| Disable PHP Easter Eggs | No | Yes |
| Block access to security-sensitive files | No | Yes |
| Block direct access to PHP files | No | Yes |
| Force index.php parsing before index.html | No | Yes |
| Optimise expiration time | No | Yes |
| Compress static resources | No | Yes |
| Redirect index.php to site root | No | Yes |
| Redirect www / non-www | No | Yes |
| Force HTTPS for specific URLs | No | Yes |
| Force HSTS header | No | Yes |
| Full logging of security exceptions | No | Yes |
| Email notifications of security exceptions | No | Yes |
| IP blacklisting | No | Yes |
| Administrator IP white-listing | No | Yes |
| Administrator URL secret parameter | No | Yes |
| Change administrator login URL | No | Yes |
| Email notification of Administrator area logins | No | Yes |
| Forbid front-end super-user login | No | Yes |
| Monitor or forbid front-end super-user creation | No | Yes |
| Monitor or forbid extension or Joomla configuration | No | Yes |
| SQLi shield protection | No | Yes |
| Cross site scripting block | No | Yes |
| Malicious user agent blocking | No | Yes |
| Remote File inclusion block | No | Yes |
| Direct file inclusion block | No | Yes |
| Uploads scanner | No | Yes |
| Anti-spam filtering | No | Yes |
| Hide / customise generator meta tag | No | Yes |
| Block access to Joomla extensions installer | No | Yes |
| Disable editing back-end user properties | No | Yes |
| X-Content-Encoded-By HTTP Header content for GZip compression customisation | No | Yes |
| X-Powered-By HTTP header override | No | Yes |
| Block tmpl=foo system template switch | No | Yes |
| Block template=foo site template switch | No | Yes |
| Project Honeypot HTTP:BL integration | No | Yes |
| Auto ban IPs | No | Yes |
| Customised exceptions | No | Yes |
This article is not so much about how to use Admin Tools but to draw your attention to its existence - UsingJoomla.com recommends that you refer to the very thorough Admin Tools user's guide.
If you find that something needs to be clarified you might want to visit the Akeeba Support Forum to find an answer to your question.
If you have a question before subscribing to the Professional version (pre-sales question) you should send a pre-sales question using the Akeeba Contact Us page.
Tip:
There are a number of security packages available.
The general advice is not to install more than one such package - as with your PC, or laptop, multiple security packages can give rise to conflicts - causing more issues than are solved.
The Administration and Security package promoted here is highly recommended by UsingJoomla.com
Summary:
Akeeba Contact Us page (Pre-sales questions can be asked via the Akeeba Contact Us form).
