What is the Back-end of Joomla!

The Back-end of a Joomla! site is used to manage the content, appearance and functionality of the site. It is not seen by visitors to the 'Front-end' and you can only login to it if you have appropriate permissions. It is here too that the basis of a new site is created.

Administrator back-end permissions

There are three levels of users who have access to the Back-end. They are important because they have site-wide permissions to alter content and other things.

  • Super Administrators: They can do anything and in particular they can alter configurations and install new extensions.
  • Administrators: They can do most things, apart from installing extensions, altering site-wide configurations. They cannot alter the Super administrator user accounts.
  • Managers: They can login to these pages but are limited to the main menu and managing the content.

Login to the back-end

  • Enter the address of the site that you are going to use. The localhost site with sample data is a good place to start - and if you have a localhost installation on your own computer, then use it: http://localhost/joomla/administrator
  • If you are using an established site - the address is the one for the Site itself (the Front-end) with the addition of /administrator. (eg http://yourdomainname.com/administrator)
  • This opens the Login page: 

Joomla! login page
Joomla! login page
 

  • Enter the Username and password that you have for the site. 
  • Click Login.

The control panel

  • You are logged in to the Control Panel which is the entry point to the Back-end.
  • This shows the Control Panel of an established site. Here there are one visitors logged in to the site and note that the Super Administrator, logged in to the Administator page, has a username which does not include 'admin'. On many site the administrators have usernames that do not indicate that they are administrators - for security reasons.

Joomla! Control Panel
Joomla! Control Panel

Read more about: Get to know the Administrator Back-end of Joomla!