phpMyAdmin 2.x.x- Documentation

This project is currently an unofficial continuation of Tobias Ratschiller's work. It has not been (at least not yet :-) accepted as an official continuation: we are still waiting for an answer from Tobias.

Official phpMyAdmin project homepage
"Unofficial" phpMyAdmin project homepage

Version history: ChangeLog
Installation instructions: INSTALL
General notes: README

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. 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 2.3.0 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".