How to Install phpMyAdmin apache2 on Ubuntu

https://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/install-phpmyadmin-on-ubuntu/

How to Install phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu

HOW-TO

By: Jacob NicholsonUpdated: January 28, 2019Our experts take readers step-by-step through a variety of hosting and programming tasks in our popular series of "How-To" guides. Email

The MySQL database system is the most popular, open-source, relational database. Many other projects, including WordPress, are backed by a MySQL database and rely on its extensive feature list and simple setup. For beginners, or those that are lazy, there is the phpMyAdmin tool to help us with the maintenance and interface of MySQL.

Accessed from your web browser, phpMyAdmin is a PHP-based frontend control panel that allows you to easily manage your MySQL databases and users, review SQL activity, import and export database backups, run searches, and more.

In this guide, we’ll cover the recommended method to install phpMyAdmin from the Ubuntu packages, and how to secure phpMyAdmin. We’ll also go over installing phpMyAdmin from source, although this is not recommended in a production environment.

Requirements for Installing phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu

Before installing phpMyAdmin, we need to meet some basic requirements:

A LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) installed
PHP 5.2.0 or newer
The PHP mysql or mysqli extensions
MySQL 5.0.1 or newer

Install phpMyAdmin from Ubuntu Packages

The default Ubuntu repositories stay up-to-date with the latest stable releases of phpMyAdmin, and this is the recommended installation process for a production environment.

Step 1: Update Package Index

First, we need to make sure our local server is pulling the latest updates.

Step 2: Install phpMyAdmin Package

Now we can install the latest version of phpMyAdmin.

Step 3: Configure phpMyAdmin Package

After installing phpMyAdmin, you will be presented with the package configuration screen.

Press the SPACE bar to place an “*” beside “apache2.”

Press TAB to highlight “OK,” then hit ENTER.

Select “apache2” and hit OK.

The installation process will continue until you’re back at another package configuration screen.

Select “Yes” and then hit ENTER at the dbconfig-common screen:

Select “Yes” and hit ENTER.

You will be prompted for your database administrator’s password.

Type it in, hit TAB to highlight “OK,” and then press ENTER.

Enter your DB administrator’s password.

Next, enter a password for the phpMyAdmin application itself.

Enter the password you’d like to use to access the phpMyAdmin interface.

Confirm the phpMyAdmin application password.

Confirm your phpMyAdmin password.

After the installation process completes, it adds the phpMyAdin configuration file here:

/etc/apache2/conf-enabled/phpmyadmin.conf

Enable PHP mcrypt Module

Check if the PHP mcrypt module is already in use:

If you don’t get any results, install the PHP mcrypt module with:

Now when we check, you should see mcrypt enabled:

Restart Apache

Now we should restart the Apache web server for changes to take affect:

Access phpMyAdmin for the First Time

Now you can log in to phpMyAdmin by going to your server followed by /phpmyadmin.

You can just use http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/phpmyadmin if you don’t have domains set up yet.

Now you’ll see the phpMyAdmin dashboard.

You should now see the phpMyAdmin dashboard.

Secure and Lock Down phpMyAdmin Interface

Naturally, because phpMyAdmin is such a common application installed on many web servers, it is a popular target for unauthorized access attempts. We can easily secure our phpMyAdmin installation by using Apache’s built-in .htaccess authentication.

Step 1: Edit phpMyAdmin’s Apache Config

We want to edit the phpMyAdmin Apache config that was created earlier:

Add AllowOverride “ALL” directive below the DirectoryIndex:

Step 2: Restart Apache to Accept Config Changes

Restart Apache so our changes take affect:

Step 3: Create an .htaccess File

Now that we’ve enabled overrides for our phpMyAdmin application from Apache, we need to actually create an override with an .htaccess file.

Add this text:

Step 4: Create an .htpasswd File for Authentication

First we need the htpasswd utility. If you don’t already have this installed, use the following:

Now we can create a secure user for our phpMyAdmin application with the command:

If for some reason you wanted to give others access to the phpMyAdmin login screen but didn’t want them using your .htaccess credentials, you can create additional secure users with:

Now if you try to access the phpMyAdmin login, you’ll get the .htaccess password prompt first.

You should now see the .htaccess password prompt we created

Install phpMyAdmin from Source

While it’s not recommended for production servers, because you have to manually ensure your install of phpMyAdmin is kept up-to-date, you can also install phpMyAdmin from source.