phpMyAdmin 2.2.0 Documentation

• Official phpMyAdmin project homepage    [ http://www.phpwizard.net/projects/phpMyAdmin/ ]
• Sourceforge phpMyAdmin download page    [ http://phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net/ ]
• Local documents:
  • Version history: ChangeLog
  • Installation instructions: INSTALL
  • General notes: README
  • Credits information: CREDITS
• Documentation version: $Id$

Introduction

phpMyAdmin can administer a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you'll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database. It's up to you to look up the appropiate part in the MySQL manual. Currently it can:

• create and drop databases
• create, copy, drop and alter tables
• delete, edit and add fields
• execute any SQL-statement, even batch-queries
• manage keys on fields
• load text files into tables
• create and read dumps of tables
• export data to CSV values
• administer multiple servers and single databases

Installation

Quick Install:

1. Untar or unzip the distribution (be sure to untar the subdirectories) tar xzvf phpMyAdmin_x.x.x.tar.gz
2. Open the file config.inc.php3 in your favourite editor and change the values for host, user and password to fit your environment. Have a look at Documentation.html for an explanation of all values.
3. It is recommended that you protect the directory in which you installed phpMyAdmin (unless it's on a closed intranet), for example with HTTP-AUTH (in a .htaccess-file).
4. Open the file //index.php3 in your browser. phpMyAdmin should now display a welcome screen and your databases, or a login dialog if using advanced authentication.

• Be sure to protect the phpMyAdmin-directory. By default, it is not protected in any way! It shouldn't be readable by anyone and especially not by search-engines. Although I've added a "nofollow" directive on every page, there may be search-engines that don't care about that and still follow the links on the page. Think of AltaVista following a link named "Drop Database" You can get an overview of Apache's authentification methods at http://www.apacheweek.com/features/userauth . Another tutorial is at http://deepthought.texsci.edu/protected_dirs.html
• If you don't use the extension ".php3" for your scripts, you can use the bundled script "extchg.sh" to modify phpMyAdmin (or any other script) to work with a different extension. Beware though, that currently changing the extension from .html to something other won't work (it'd change all "string".htmlspecialchars() constructs).

Upgrading from an older version:

• Please do not copy your older config.inc.php3 over the new one: it may offer new configuration variables, and the new version may depend on these for normal behavior. It is suggested instead to insert your site values in the new one.

Configuration

All configurable data is placed in config.inc.php3.

$cfgServers array
Since version 1.4.2, phpMyAdmin supports the adminstration of multiple MySQL-server. Therefore, a $cfgServers-array has been added which contains the login information for the different servers. $cfgServers[1]['host'] contains the hostname of the first server, $cfgServers[2]['host'] the hostname of the second server, etc. If you have only one server to administer, simply leave free the hostname of the other $cfgServer-entries.

$cfgServers[n]['host'] string
The hostname of your n-th MySQL-server. E.g. localhost.

$cfgServers[n]['port'] string
The port-number of your n-th MySQL-server. Default is 3300 (leave blank).

$cfgServers[n]['adv_auth'] boolean
Whether basic or advanced authentication should be used for this server. Basic authentication ($adv_auth = false) is the plain old way: username and password are stored in config.inc.php3. Advanced authentication $adv_auth = true) as introduced in 1.3.0 allows you to log in as any valid MySQL user via HTTP-Auth.

Please note that this authentication mode is only supported with PHP running as an Apache module, and not with cgi.

All you have to provide in config.inc is a standard user which can connect to MySQL and read the mysql user/db table (see $cfgServers[n]['stduser']).
Using advanced authentication is recommended:

• when phpMyAdmin is running in a multi-user environment where people have shell-access that you don't want to know the username/password for MySQL.
• when you want to give users access to their own database and don't want them to play around with others.

Advanced authentication is secure as the standard user needs just read-only-access to the mysql database. MySQL passwords cannot be decrypted easily, so there's no chance for a normal user to look at other users' plaintext passwords.

$cfgServers[n]['stduser'] string
$cfgServers[n]['stdpass'] string
A user/pasword pair used to verify the real user/password pair when using advanced authentification. This user must be able to connect to MySQL and read the mysql user table. Not needed when using basic authentification.

$cfgServers[n]['user'] string
$cfgServers[n]['password'] string
The user/password-pair which phpMyAdmin will use to connect to this MySQL-server when using basic authentification. Not needed when using advanced authentification.

$cfgServers[n]['only_db'] string
If set to a database name, only this database will be shown to the user.

$cfgServers[n]['verbose'] string
Only useful when using phpMyAdmin with multiple server entries. If set, this string will be displayed instead of the hostname in the pulldown menu on the main page. This can be useful if you want to show only certain databases on your system, for example.

$cfgServers[n]['bookmarkdb'] string
$cfgServers[n]['bookmarktable'] string
Since release 2.2.0 phpMyAdmin allows to bookmark queries. This can be useful for queries you often run. To use this functionality you have to:

• create a table following this scheme:
       CREATE TABLE bookmark (
         id int(11) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL auto_increment,
         dbase varchar(255) NOT NULL,
         label varchar(255) NOT NULL,
         query text NOT NULL,
         PRIMARY KEY (id)
       );
  
• then complete the two variables $cfgServers[n]['bookmarkdb'] and $cfgServers[n]['bookmarktable'] so phpMyAdmin will be able to find the bookmark table.

$cfgServerDefault integer
If you have more than one server configured, you can set $cfgServerDefault to any one of them to autoconnect to that server when phpMyAdmin is started, or set it to 0 to be given a list of servers without logging in. If you have only one server configured, $cfgServerDefault MUST be set to that server.

$cfgManualBase string
If set to an URL which points to the MySQL documentation, appropriate help links are generated.

$cfgConfirm boolean
Whether a warning ("Are your really sure..") should be displayed when you're about to loose data.

$cfgPersistentConnections boolean
Whether persistent connections should be used or not (mysql_connect or mysql_pconnect).

$cfgBorder integer
The size of a table's border.

$cfgThBgcolor string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) used for table headers.

$cfgBgcolorOne string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) #1 for table rows.

$cfgBgcolorTwo string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) #2 for table rows.

$cfgMaxRows integer
Number of rows displayed when browsing a resultset. If the resultset contains more rows, Previous/Next links will be shown.

$cfgMaxInputsize integer
Size of the edit-field when adding a new record to a table.

$cfgOrder string ["DESC"|"ASC"]
Defines whether fields are displayed in ascending ("ASC") order or in descending ("DESC") order when you click on the field-name.

$cfgShowBlob boolean
Defines whether BLOB fields are shown when browsing a table's content or not.

$cfgShowSQL boolean
Defines whether sql-queries generated by phpMyAdmin should be displayed or not.

$cfgModifyDeleteAtLeft boolean
$cfgModifyDeleteAtRight boolean
Defines the place where modify and delete links would be put when tables contents are displayed (you may have them displayed both at the left and at the right).

$cfgDefaultLang string
Defines the default language to use, if not browser-defined or user-defined.
See the select_lang.inc.php3 script to know the valid values for this setting.

$cfgLang string
Force: always use this language (must be defined in the select_lang.inc.php3 script).

$cfgColumnTypes array
All possible types of a MySQL column. In most cases you don't need to edit this.

$cfgFunctions array
A list of functions MySQL supports. In most cases you don't need to edit this.

$cfgAttributeTypes array
Possible attributes for fields. In most cases you don't need to edit this.

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

I can't insert new rows into a table - MySQL brings up a SQL-error.
Examine the SQL error with care. I've found that many programmers specifying a wrong field-type. Common errors include:

• Using VARCHAR without a size argument
• Using TEXT or BLOB with a size argument

Also, look at the syntax chapter in the MySQL manual to confirm that your syntax is correct.

phpMyAdmin can't connect to MySQL. What's wrong?
Either there is an error with your PHP setup or your username/password is wrong. Try to make a small script which uses mysql_connect and see if it works. If it doesn't, it may be you haven't even compiled MySQL support into PHP.

I cannot edit the content of a table, even if the README says this is a feature of phpMyAdmin.
phpMyAdmin allows only editing of a table's content if the table contains a primary or unique key.

phpMyAdmin always gives "Access denied" when using advanced authentification.
This could happen for some reasons:

• $stduser/$stdpassword is wrong. Try to turn off $adv_auth and use this username and password to connect to MySQL.
• The username/password your specify in the login-dialog is wrong. Try the same as above and see if it works.
• You have already setup a security mechanism for the phpMyAdmin-directory, eg. a .htaccess file. This would interfere with phpMyAdmin's authentification, so remove it.

I would like to help out with the development of phpMyAdmin. How should I proceed?
The following method is preferred for new developers:

• fetch the current CVS tree over anonymous CVS:
  cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpmyadmin login
  [Password: simply press the Enter key]
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpmyadmin checkout phpMyAdmin
     or
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpmyadmin checkout phpMyAdmin-devel
  [This will create a new sub-directory named phpMyAdmin or phpMyAdmin-devel]
  
• add your stuff
• put the modified files (tar'ed and gzip'ed) inside the patch tracker of the phpMyAdmin SourceForge account.

Write access to the CVS tree is granted only to experienced developers who have already contributed something useful to phpMyAdmin.
Also, have a look at the file DEVELOPERS.

What's the preferred way of making phpMyAdmin secure against evil access?
This depends on your system. If you're running a server which cannot be accessed by other people, it's sufficient to use the directory protection bundled with your webserver (with Apache you can use .htaccess files, for example). If other people have telnet access to your server, it's not a good idea to store the MySQL password in clear text in your config.inc.php3 file. You should use phpMyAdmin's advanced authentification feature in this case.

How can I insert a null value into my table?
Enter "null", without the quotes, as the field's value. This is especially useful for Timestamp ot AutoIncrement fields.

I'm an ISP. Can I setup one central copy of phpMyAdmin or do I need to install it for each customer?
Since version 2.0.3, you can setup a central copy of phpMyAdmin for all your users. The development of this feature was kindly sponsored by NetCologne GmbH.
This requires a properly setup MySQL user management and phpMyAdmin's advanced authentication. phpMyAdmin performs these steps, when authenticating a user:

1. Select all entries from the mysql.user table where the username/password matches the challenging user. If no rows are returned, the authentication has failed. Otherwise, phpMyAdmin continues with step 2.
2. If the user's global Select_Priv is "N" (ie the user is not allowed to access all databases), phpMyAdmin searches the mysql.db table for entries with Select_Priv = "Y" belonging to the user. If no entries are found, the authentication has failed. Otherwise, phpMyAdmin shows all databases the user is allowed to view.
   If the user's global Select_Priv is "Y", all databases in the system are shown.
   

This means that you need to add a user to the mysql database as following:
INSERT INTO user (Host, User, Password, Select_priv, Insert_priv, Update_priv, Delete_priv, Create_priv, Drop_priv, Reload_priv, Shutdown_priv, Process_priv, File_priv, Grant_priv, References_priv, Index_priv, Alter_priv) VALUES ('localhost', 'foo', PASSWORD('bar'), 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N')
INSERT INTO db (Host, Db, User, Select_priv, Insert_priv, Update_priv, Delete_priv, Create_priv, Drop_priv, Grant_priv, References_priv, Index_priv, Alter_priv) VALUES ('localhost', 'foo_db', 'foo', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', '', '', '', '')
Then only the "foo_db" database will be displayed to user "foo".

Developpers Information

phpMyAdmin is Open Source, so you're invited to contribute to it. Many great features have been written by other people and you too can help to make phpMyAdmin a useful tool.

If you're planning to contribute source, please read the following information:

• All files include header.inc.php3 (layout), lib.inc.php3 (common functions) and config.inc.php3. All configuration data belongs in config.inc.php3. Please keep it free from other code. Commonly used functions should be added to lib.inc.php3.
• Obviously, you're free to use whatever coding style you want. But please try to keep your code as simple as possible: beginners are using phpMyAdmin as an example application.
• Please try to keep up the file-naming conventions. Table-related stuff goes to tbl_*.php3, db-related code to db_*.php3 and so on.
• Please don't use verbose strings in your code, instead add the string (at least) to english.inc.php3 and print() it out.
• If you want to be really helpful, write an entry for the ChangeLog.

IMPORTANT: With 1.4.1, development has switched to CVS. The following method is preferred for new developers:

• fetch the current CVS tree over anonymous CVS:
  cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpmyadmin login
  [Password: simply press the Enter key]
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpmyadmin checkout phpMyAdmin
  or
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpmyadmin checkout phpMyAdmin-devel
  [This will create a new sub-directory named phpMyAdmin or phpMyAdmin-devel]
• add your stuff
• put the modified files (tar'ed and gzip'ed) inside the patch tracker of the phpMyAdmin SourceForge account (http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin/)

Write access to the CVS tree is granted only to developers who have already contributed something useful to phpMyAdmin. If you're interested in that, please contact us using the phpmyadmin-devel mailing list.

Credits

CREDITS, in chronological order
-------------------------------

[tr] - Tobias Ratschiller 
        * creator of the phpmyadmin project
        * maintainer from 1998 to summer 2000

[md] - Marc Delisle 
        * multi-language version
        * various fixes

[om] - Olivier Müller 
        * started sourceforge phpMyAdmin project
        * sync'ed different existing CVS trees with 
          new features and bugfixes
        * current project maintainer, with Marc and Loic

[lc] - Loïc Chapeaux 

[mg] - Mirko Giese 

[rj] - Robin Johnson 
        * Database maintence controls
        * Table type code

[af] - Armel Fauveau 
        * Bookmarks feature
        * Multiple dump feature

[kc] - Korakot Chaovavanich 
[pk] - Pete Kelly 



Original Credits of Version 2.1.0
---------------------------------

    This work is based on Peter Kuppelwieser's MySQL-Webadmin. It was his idea
    to create a web-based interface to MySQL using PHP3. Although I have not
    used any of his source-code, there are some concepts I've borrowed from
    him. phpMyAdmin was created because Peter told me he wasn't going to further
    develop his (great) tool.
    Thanks go to
    - Amalesh Kempf  who contributed the code for  
      the check when dropping a table or database. He also suggested that you 
      should be able to specify the primary key on tbl_create.php3. To version
      1.1.1 he contributed the ldi_*.php3-set (Import text-files) as well as
      a bug-report. Plus many smaller improvements.
    - Jan Legenhausen : He made many of the changes that were
      introduced in 1.3.0 (including quite significant ones like the
      authentification). For 1.4.1 he enhanced the table-dump feature. Plus
      bug-fixes and help.
    - Marc Delisle  made phpMyAdmin language-
      independent by outsourcing the strings to a separate file. He also
      contributed the French translation.
    - Alexandr Bravo  who contributed tbl_select.php3,
      a feature to display only some fields from a table.
    - Chris Jackson  added support for MySQL functions in 
      tbl_change.php3. He also added the "Query by Example" feature in 2.0.
    - Dave Walton  added support for multiple servers and
      is a regular contributor for bug-fixes.
    - Gabriel Ash  contributed the random access features
      for 2.0.6.
    The following people have contributed minor changes, enhancements, bugfixes
    or support for a new language:
    Jim Kraai, Jordi Bruguera, Miquel Obrador, Geert Lund, Thomas Kleemann, Alexander Leidinger,
    Kiko Albiol, Daniel C. Chao, Pavel Piankov, Sascha Kettler, Joe Pruett,
    Renato Lins, Mark Kronsbein, Jannis Hermanns, G. Wieggers.

    And thanks to everyone else who sent me email with suggestions, bug-reports and
    or just some feedback.