phpMyAdmin 2.3.0-rc2 Documentation



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Requirements



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Introduction

phpMyAdmin can manage 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 appropriate part in the MySQL manual. Currently phpMyAdmin can:

(*)  phpMyAdmin can compress (Zip, GZip -RFC 1952- or Bzip2 formats) dumps and CSV exports if you use PHP4 >= 4.0.4 with Zlib support (--with-zlib) and/or Bzip2 support (--with-bz2).


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Installation

NOTE: phpMyAdmin does not apply any special security methods to the MySQL database server. It is still the sysadmin's job to grant permissions on the MySQL databases properly.

Warning for Mac users: php seems not to like Mac end of lines character ("\r") and Stuffit unstuffs with Mac formats, of course.
So you'll have to resave as in Bbedit to unix style ALL phpMyAdmin scripts before uploading them to your server.

Documentation warning: when you see in this document a .php3 file extension, please transpose to .php if you are using a kit with files having this extension.

Quick Install:

  1. Use a distribution kit with the files having the extension (.php3 or .php) depending on the way your web/PHP server interprets those extensions.
  2. Untar or unzip the distribution (be sure to unzip the subdirectories): tar xzvf phpMyAdmin_x.x.x.tar.gz in your webserver's document root.
  3. Open the file config.inc.php3 in your favourite editor and change the values for host, user, password and authentication mode to fit your environment. Also insert the correct value for $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri']. Have a look at Configuration section for an explanation of all values.
  4. It is recommended that you protect the directory in which you installed phpMyAdmin (unless it's on a closed intranet, or you wish to use http or cookie authentication), for example with HTTP-AUTH (in a .htaccess file). See the FAQ section for additional information.
  5. Open the file <www.your-host.com>/<your-install-dir>/index.php3 in your browser. phpMyAdmin should now display a welcome screen and your databases, or a login dialog if using http or cookie authentication mode.

Upgrading from an older version:

Using authentication modes:

'http' authentication mode:

'cookie' authentication mode:

'config' authentication mode:



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Configuration

Warning for Mac users: php seems not to like Mac end of lines character ("\r"). So ensure you choose the option that allows to use the *nix end of line character ("\n") in your text editor before registering a script you have modified.

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

$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] string
Sets here the complete url (with full path) to your phpMyAdmin version. E.g. http://www.your_web.net/path_to_your_phpMyAdmin_directory/.
Don't forget the slash at the end of your url. The url must contain characters that are valid for a url, and on some servers, the path is case-sensitive.

This setting can be dynamically completed. For example, you can try to use such a kind of code:
$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = (!empty($_SERVER['HTTPS']) ? 'https' : 'http') . '://'
                       . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']
                       . (!empty($_SERVER['SERVER_PORT']) ? ':' . $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] : '')
                       . substr($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], 0, strrpos($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], '/')+1);

    or

$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = (!empty($_SERVER['HTTPS']) ? 'https' : 'http') . '://'
                       . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']
                       . (!empty($_SERVER['SERVER_PORT']) ? ':' . $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] : '')
                       . substr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'], 0, strrpos($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'], '/')+1);
        
Please note that the $_SERVER array doesn't exist in PHP < 4.1.0. Try to replace $_SERVER by $HTTP_SERVER_VARS or $GLOBALS in this case.
$cfg['Servers'] array
Since version 1.4.2, phpMyAdmin supports the administration of multiple MySQL servers. Therefore, a $cfg['Servers']-array has been added which contains the login information for the different servers. The first $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] contains the hostname of the first server, the second $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] the hostname of the second server, etc. If you have only one server to administer, simply leave free the hostname of the other $cfg['Server']-entries.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] string
The hostname of your $i-th MySQL-server. E.g. localhost.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] string
The port-number of your $i-th MySQL-server. Default is 3306 (leave blank).

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] string
The path to the socket to use. Leave blank for default.
To use the socket feature you must run php 3.0.10 or more.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] string
What type connection to use with the MySQL server. Your options are 'socket' & 'tcp'. It defaults to 'tcp' as that is nearly guarenteed to be available on all MySQL servers, while sockets are not supported on some platforms.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] string
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] string
When using http or cookie authentication modes (or 'config' authentication mode since phpMyAdmin 2.2.1), you need to supply the details of a MySQL account that has SELECT privilege on the mysql.user (all columns except "Password"), mysql.db (all columns) & mysql.tables_priv (all columns except "Grantor" & "Timestamp") tables. This account is used to check what databases the user will see at login.
Please see the install section on "Using http authentication" for more information.

Note that if you try login to phpMyAdmin with this "controluser", you could get some errors, depending the exact privileges you gave to the "controluser". phpMyAdmin does not support a direct login with the "controluser".

In versions before 2.2.5, those were called "stduser/stdpass".

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] string ['http'|'cookie'|'config']
Whether config or cookie or http authentication should be used for this server.
Please see the install section on "Using authentication modes" for more information.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] string
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] string
The user/password-pair which phpMyAdmin will use to connect to this MySQL-server. This user/password pair is not needed when http or cookie authentication is used, and should be empty.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['only_db'] string or array
If set to a(an array of) database name(s), only this(these) database(s) will be shown to the user. Since phpMyAdmin 2.2.1, this/these database(s) name(s) may contain MySQL wilcards characters ("_" and "%"): if you want to use literal instances of these characters, escape them (ie use 'my\_db' and not 'my_db').
This setting is an efficient way to lower the server charge since the latter does not need to send MySQL requests to build the available database list. But it does not replace the privileges rules of the MySQL database server. If set, it just means only these databases will be displayed but not at all other databases can't be used.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['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.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] string
Starting with Version 2.3.0 phpMyAdmin offers a lot of Features to work with Master / Foreign - Tables. To use those as well as the bookmark feature you will need to create a new db.
To use this functionality as superuser create a new database:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] string
Since release 2.2.0 phpMyAdmin allows to bookmark queries. This can be useful for queries you often run.

To allow the usage of this functionality the superuser has to:
Note that controluser must have SELECT, INSERT and DELETE privileges on the bookmark table. Here is a query to set up those privileges (using "pma" as the controluser and phpmyadmin as databasename:
GRANT SELECT,INSERT,DELETE ON <phpmyadmin> to 'pma'@localhost;

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation'] string
Since release 2.2.4 you can describe, in a special 'relation' table, which field is a key in another table (a foreign key). phpMyAdmin currently uses this to
The keys can be numeric or character.

To allow the usage of this functionality the superuser has to:
Please note that in the current (2.3.0) version, master_db must be the same as foreign_db. Those fields have been put in place for a future development of the cross-db relations.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info'] string
Since release 2.3.0 you can describe, in a special 'table_info' table, which field is to be displayed as a tooltip when moving the cursor over the corresponding key.
This configuration variable will hold the name of this special table. To allow the usage of this functionality the superuser has to:
Usage tip: Display field.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] string
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages'] string
Since release 2.3.0 you can have phpMyAdmin create PDF Pages showing the relations between your tables. To do this it needs two tables 'pdf_pages' (storing information about the available pdf Pages) and 'table_coords' (storing coordinates where each table will be placed on a PDF schema output).

PDF output is supported under PHP4, and you must be using also the 'relation' feature and have a table of PDF Pages (see $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages']). Also, we used the fpdf library which currently only supports iso-8859 (Latin1) character sets in PDF.

To allow the usage of this functionality the superuser has to:
Usage tips: PDF output.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_comments'] string
Since release 2.3.0 you can store comments to describe each column for each table. These will then be shown on the printview. To allow the usage of this functionality the superuser has to:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['order'] string
If your rule order is empty, then IP authentication is disabled.

If your rule order is set to 'deny,allow' then the system applies all deny rules followed by allow rules. Access is allowed by default. Any client which does not match a Deny command or does match an Allow command will be allowed access to the server.

If your rule order is set to 'allow,deny' then the system applies all allow rules followed by deny rules. Access is denied by default. Any client which does not match an Allow directive or does match a Deny directive will be denied access to the server.

If your rule order is set to 'explicit', the authentication is performed in a similar fashion to rule order 'deny,allow', with the added restriction that your host/username combination must be listed in the allow rules, and not listed in the deny rules. This is the most secure means of using Allow/Deny rules, and was available in Apache by specifying allow and deny rules without setting any order.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['rules'] array of strings
The general format for the rules is as such:
      <'allow' | 'deny'> <username> [from] <ipmask>

If you wish to match all users, it is possible to use a '%' as a wildcard in the username field.
There are a few shortcuts you can use in the ipmask field as well:
     'all' -> 0.0.0.0/0
     'localhost' -> 127.0.0.1/8


Having an empty rule list is equivalent to either using 'allow % from all' if your rule order is set to 'deny,allow' or 'deny % from all' if your rule order is set to 'allow,deny' or 'explicit'.

For the IP matching system, the following work:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (an exact IP address)
xxx.xxx.xxx.[yyy-zzz] (an IP address range)
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/nn (CIDR, Classless Inter-Domain Routing type IP addresses)
But the following does not work:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xx[yyy-zzz] (partial IP address range)

$cfg['ServerDefault'] integer
If you have more than one server configured, you can set $cfg['ServerDefault'] 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, $cfg['ServerDefault'] MUST be set to that server.

$cfg['OBGzip'] boolean
Defines whether to use gzip output buffering for increased speed in HTTP transfers.

$cfg['PersistentConnections'] boolean
Whether persistent connections should be used or not (mysql_connect or mysql_pconnect).

$cfg['ExecTimeLimit'] integer [number of seconds]
Set the number of seconds a script is allowed to run. If seconds is set to zero, no time limit is imposed.
This setting is used while importing/exporting dump files but has no effect when PHP is running in safe mode.

$cfg['SkipLockedTables'] boolean
Mark used tables and make it possible to show databases with locked tables (since 3.23.30).

$cfg['ShowSQL'] boolean
Defines whether sql-queries generated by phpMyAdmin should be displayed or not.

$cfg['AllowUserDropDatabase'] boolean
Defines whether normal users (non-administrator) are allowed to delete their own database or not. If set as FALSE, the link "Drop Database" will not be shown, and even a "DROP DATABASE mydatabase" will be rejected. Quite practical for ISP's with many customers.

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

$cfg['ShowTooltip'] boolean
Defines whether to display table comment as tooltip in left frame or not.

$cfg['LeftFrameLight'] boolean
Defines whether to use select-based menu and display only the current tables in the left frame (smaller page).

$cfg['ShowMysqlInfo'] boolean
$cfg['ShowMysqlVars'] boolean
$cfg['ShowPhpInfo'] boolean
$cfg['ShowChgPassword'] boolean
Defines whether to display the "MySQL runtime information", "MySQL system variables", "PHP information" and "Change password " links or not for simple users at the starting main (right) frame. This setting does not check MySQL commands entered directly.

Please note that to block the usage of phpinfo() in scripts, you have to put this in your php.ini:
    disable_functions = phpinfo()

Also note that enabling the "Change password " link has no effect with "config" authentication mode: because of the hard coded password value in the configuration file, end users can't be allowed to change their passwords.

$cfg['SuggestDBName'] boolean
Defines whether to suggest a database name on the "Create Database" form or to keep the textfield empty.

$cfg['LoginCookieRecall'] boolean
Define whether the previous login should be recalled or not in cookie authentication mode.

$cfg['UseDbSearch'] boolean
Define whether the "search string inside database" is enabled or not.

$cfg['ShowStats'] boolean
Defines whether to display space usage and statistics about databases and tables or not.
Note that statistics requires at least MySQL 3.23.3 and that, at this date, MySQL doesn't return such information for Berkeley DB tables.

$cfg['ShowBlob'] boolean
Defines whether BLOB fields are shown when browsing a table's content or not.

$cfg['NavigationBarIconic'] boolean
Defines whether navigation bar buttons contain text or symbols only.

$cfg['ShowAll'] boolean
Defines whether an user should be displayed a "show all (records)" button in browse mode or not.

$cfg['MaxRows'] integer
Number of rows displayed when browsing a resultset. If the resultset contains more rows, Previous/Next links will be shown.

$cfg['Order'] string [DESC|ASC|SMART]
Defines whether fields are displayed in ascending (ASC) order, in descending (DESC) order or in a "smart" (SMART) order -ie descending order for fields of type TIME, DATE, DATETIME & TIMESTAMP, ascending order else- by default.

$cfg['ProtectBinary'] boolean or string
Defines whether BLOB or BINARY fields are protected from edition when browsing a table's content or not. Valid values are:
- FALSE to allow edition of all fields;
- blob to allow edition of all fields except BLOBS;
- all to disallow edition of all BINARY or BLOB fields.

$cfg['ShowFunctionFields'] boolean
Defines whether MySQL functions fields should be displayed or not in edit/insert mode.

$cfg['ZipDump'] boolean
$cfg['GZipDump'] boolean
$cfg['BZipDump'] boolean
Defines whether to allow the use of zip/gzip/bzip compression when creating a dump file or not.

$cfg['DefaultTabDatabase'] string
Defines the Tab displayed by default on database view. Possible values: 'db_details_structure.php3', 'db_details.php3', or 'db_search.php3'.

$cfg['DefaultTabTable'] string
Defines the Tab displayed by default on table view. Possible values: 'tbl_properties_structure.php3', 'tbl_properties.php3', 'tbl_select.php3', 'tbl_change.php3'.

$cfg['ManualBaseShort'] string
If set to an URL which points to the MySQL documentation (on short pages), appropriate help links are generated.

$cfg['DefaultLang'] 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.

$cfg['Lang'] string
Force: always use this language (must be defined in the select_lang.inc.php3 script).

$cfg['DefaultCharset'] string
Default charset to use for recoding of MySQL queries. This must be enabled and it's described by $cfg['AllowAnywhereRecoding'] option. You can give here any charset which is in $cfg['AvailableCharsets'] array and this is just default choice, user can select any of them.

$cfg['AllowAnywhereRecoding'] boolean
Allow charset recoding of MySQL queries. You need recode or iconv support (compiled in or module) in php to allow MySQL queries recoding and used language file must have it enabled (by default only these which are in unicode, just to avoid losing some characters).

$cfg['AvailableCharsets'] array
Available charsets for MySQL conversion. You can add your own (any of supported by recode/iconv) or remove these which you don't use. Charsets will be shown in same order as here listed, so if you frequently use some of these move them to the top.

$cfg['LeftWidth'] integer
Left frame width in pixel.

$cfg['LeftBgColor'] string [HTML color]
$cfg['RightBgColor'] string [HTML color]
The background colors (HTML) used for both the frames.

$cfg['RightBgImage'] string
The URI of the background image used for the right frame. It can be absolute as well as relative from your phpMyAdmin directory.
$cfg['LeftPointerColor'] string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) used for the pointer in the left frame (does not work with NS4).

$cfg['Border'] integer
The size of a table's border.

$cfg['ThBgcolor'] string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) used for table headers.

$cfg['BgcolorOne'] string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) #1 for table rows.

$cfg['BgcolorTwo'] string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) #2 for table rows.

$cfg['BrowsePointerColor'] string [HTML color]
$cfg['BrowseMarkerColor'] string [HTML color]
The colors (HTML) uses for the pointer and the marker in browse mode (does not work with NS4).
The former feature highlights the row over which your mouse is passing and the latter lets you visually mark/unmark rows by clicking on them.
You can disable both of these features by emptying the respective directive.

$cfg['TextareaCols'] integer
$cfg['TextareaRows'] integer
Number of columns and rows for the textareas.
This value will be emphasized (*2) for sql query textareas.

$cfg['LimitChars'] integer
Maximal number of Chars showed in a TEXT OR a BLOB field on browse view. Can be turned off by a toggle button on the browse page.

$cfg['ModifyDeleteAtLeft'] boolean
$cfg['ModifyDeleteAtRight'] 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). "Left" and "right" are parsed as "top" and "bottom" with vertical display mode.

$cfg['DefaultDisplay'] string
There are 2 display modes: horizontal and vertical. Define which one is displayed by default.

$cfg['RepeatCells'] integer
Repeat the headers every X cells, or 0 to deactivate.

$cfg['UseSyntaxColoring'] boolean
Introduced in 2.3.0 PhpMyAdmin is now able to show SQL in Syntaxcoloring. To use this feature set this value to TRUE (the default). If not everything you want is colored or to influence where a newline is inserted see the Configurationarrays $cfg['keywords'] and $cfg['additional']. Note: for version 2.3.0-rc1, syntax coloring is non functional.
$cfg['colorFunctions'] string [HTML color]
If you use Syntaxcoloring then this defines the Color of Functionnames. e.g. all that are found in $cfg['Functions'].
$cfg['colorKeywords'] string [HTML color]
If you use Syntaxcoloring then this defines the Color of Keywords. e.g. all that are found in $cfg['keywords'].
$cfg['colorStrings'] string [HTML color]
If you use Syntaxcoloring then this defines the Color of Strings. e.g. all that are between ' or "
$cfg['colorColType'] string [HTML color]
If you use Syntaxcoloring then this defines the Color of ColumnTypes. e.g. all that are found in $cfg['ColumnTypes'].
$cfg['colorAdd'] string [HTML color]
If you use Syntaxcoloring then this defines the Color of additional Keywords that do not get a newline. e.g. all that are found in $cfg['additional'].
$cfg['ColumnTypes'] array
All possible types of a MySQL column. In most cases you don't need to edit this.

$cfg['AttributeTypes'] array
Possible attributes for fields. In most cases you don't need to edit this.
$cfg['Functions'] array
A list of functions MySQL supports. In most cases you don't need to edit this.
$cfg['keywords'] array
A list of Keywords that is used for Syntaxcoloring. All Keywords that are in this list will also get a new line before them. Usually you won't need to change those.
$cfg['additional'] array
A list of additional Keywords that is used for Syntaxcoloring. All Keywords that are in this list will not get a new line before them. Usually you won't need to change those.



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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Server  -  Configuration  -  Limitations  -  Multi-user  -  Browsers  -  Usage tips  -  Project  -  Syntax Coloring

[Server]

I'm running php 4+ and my server is crashing each time a specific action is required or phpMyAdmin sends a blank page or a page full of cryptic characters to my browser, what can I do?
There are some known php bugs with output buffering and compression.
Try to set the $cfg['OBGzip'] directive to FALSE in your config.inc.php or .php3 file and the zlib.output_compression directive to Off in your php configuration file.
Furthermore, we know about such problems connected to the release candidates of php 4.2.0 (tested with php 4.2.0 RC1 to RC4) together with MS Internet Explorer. Please upgrade to the release version php 4.2.0.

My Apache server crashes when using phpMyAdmin.
You should first try the latest versions of Apache (and possibly MySQL).
See also the other FAQ entry about php bugs with output buffering.
If your server keeps crashing, please ask for help in the various Apache support groups.

I'm running phpMyAdmin with "cookie" authentication mode under PHP 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 loaded as an Apache 2+ module but can't enter the script: I'm always displayed the login screen.
This is a kown PHP bug (see this bug report) from the official php bug database. It means there is and won't be any phpMyAdmin fix against it because there is no way to code a fix.

Using phpMyAdmin on IIS, I'm displayed the error message: "The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers...."
You just forgot to read the install.txt file from the php distribution. Have a look at the last message in this bug report from the official php bug database.

Using phpMyAdmin on IIS, I'm facing crashes and/or many error messages with the http or advanced authentication mode.
This is a known problem with the php ISAPI filter: it's not so stable. For some more information and complete testings see the messages posted by André B. aka "djdeluxe76" in this thread from the phpWizard forum.
Please use instead the cookie authentication mode.

I can't use phpMyAdmin on PWS: nothing is displayed!
This seems to be a PWS bug. Filippo Simoncini found a workaroud (at this time there is no better fix): remove or comment the DOCTYPE declarations (3 lines) from the scripts header.inc.php3, index.php3, left.php3 and libraries/common.lib.php3.

How can I GZip or Bzip a dump or a CSV export. It seems to not work?
These features are based on the gzencode() and bzcompress() php functions to be more independent of the platform (Unix/Windows, Safe Mode or not, and so on). So, you must have PHP4 >= 4.0.4 and Zlib/Bzip2 support (--with-zlib and --with-bz2).
We faced php crashes when trying to download a dump with MS Internet Explorer when phpMyAdmin is run with a release candidate of php 4.2.0. In this case you should switch to the release version of php 4.2.0.

I cannot insert a text file in a table, and I get an error about safe mode being in effect.
Your uploaded file is saved by PHP in the "upload dir", as defined in php.ini by the variable upload_tmp_dir (usually the system default is /tmp).
We recommend the following setup for Apache servers running in safe mode, to enable uploads of files while being reasonably secure:

I'm having troubles when uploading files. In general file uploads don't work on my system and uploaded files have a Content-Type: header in the first line.
It's not really phpMyAdmin related but RedHat 7.0. You have a RedHat 7.0 and you updated your php rpm to php-4.0.4pl1-3.i386.rpm, didn't you?
So the problem is that this package has a serious bug that was corrected ages ago in php (2001-01-28: see php's bug tracking system for more details). The problem is that the bugged package is still available though it was corrected (see redhat's bugzilla for more details).
So please download the fixed package (4.0.4pl1-9) and the problem should go away.
And that fixes the \r\n problem with file uploads!

I'm having troubles when uploading files with phpMyAdmin running on a secure server. My browser is Internet Explorer and I'm using the Apache server.
As suggested by "Rob M" in the phpWizard forum, add this line to your httpd.conf:
    SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown
It seems to clear up many problems between IE and SSL.

I get an 'open_basedir restriction' while uploading a file from the query box.
Since version 2.2.4, phpMyAdmin supports servers with open_basedir restrictions. Assuming that the restriction allows you to open files in the current directory ('.'), all you have to do is create a 'tmp' directory under the phpMyAdmin install directory, with permissions 777 and the same owner as the owner of your phpMyAdmin directory. The uploaded files will be moved there, and after execution of your SQL commands, removed.

I have lost my MySQL root password, what can I do?
The MySql manual explains how to reset the permissions.

I get an error 'No SQL query' when trying to execute a bookmark.
If PHP does not have read/write access to its upload_tmp_dir, it cannot access the uploaded query.

I get an error 'No SQL query' when trying to submit a query from the convenient text area.
Check the post_max_size directive from your php configuration file and try to increase it.

I have problems with mysql.user field names.
In older MySQL versions, the User and Password fields were named user and password. Please modify your field names to align with current standards.

I cannot upload big dump files.
The first things to check (or ask your host provider to check) are the values of upload_max_filesize, memory_limit and post_max_size in the php.ini configuration file.
All of these three settings limit the maximum size of data that can be submitted and handled by php.

Does phpMyAdmin support MySQL 4?
MySQL 4 is not yet fully supported by phpMyAdmin.
Because of MySQL 4's backwards compatibility you can use phpMyAdmin for administering MySQL 4 servers, but phpMyAdmin does not yet support its new features. Please notice that in this case it is recommended to use php >= 4.1 since older versions of php are not compatible to MySQL 4.
Furthermore, several users reported problems with phpMyAdmin related to bugs in MySQL 4. MySQL 4 is still an alpha release and should be used for test purposes only!

I'm running MySQL 4.0.1 on a Windows NT machine. Each time I create a table the table name is changed to lowercase.
This seems to be a bug of MySQL 4.0.1 because it also appears when using the MySQL commandline. Currently we only know about its appearance on Windows NT systems, but it is possible that it appears on other systems, too.
If you encounter this bug together with another OS and/or MySQL version or you know how to work around it, please post a message into our bug tracker at SourceForge.

I can't run the "display relations" feature because the script seems not to know the font face I'm using!
The "FPDF" library we're using for this feature requires some special files to use font faces.
Please refers to the FPDF manual to build these files.

[Configuration]

The error message "Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by ..." is displayed, what's the problem?
Edit your config.inc.php or .php3 file and ensure there is nothing (ie no blank lines, no spaces, no characters...) neither before the <?php tag at the beginning, neither after the ?> tag at the end.

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.

The error message "Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (111)...") is displayed. What can I do?

For RedHat users, Harald Legner suggests this on the mailing list:

On my RedHat-Box the socket of mysql is /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock. In your php.ini you will find a line
    mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
change it to
    mysql.default_socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
Then restart apache and it will work.

Here is a fix suggested by Brad Ummer in the phpwizard forum:

Have also a look at the corresponding section of the MySQL documentation.

Nothing is displayed by my browser when I try to run phpMyAdmin, what can I do?
Try to set the $cfg['OBGZip'] directive to FALSE in the phpMyAdmin configuration file. It helps sometime.
Also have a look at your php version number: if it contains "4.0b..." it means you're running a beta version of PHP. That's not a so good idea, please upgrade to a plain revision.

Each time I want to insert or change a record or drop a database or a table, an error 404 (page not found) is displayed or, with http or cookie authentication, I'm asked to login again. What's wrong?
Check the value you set for the $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] directive in the phpMyAdmin configuration file.

[Known limitations]

When using http authentication, an user who logged out can not relog in with the same nick.
This is related to the authentication mechanism (protocol) used by phpMyAdmin. We plan to change it as soon as we may find enough free time to do it, but you can bypass this problem: just close all the opened browser windows and then go back to phpMyAdmin. You should be able to logs in again.

When dumping a large table in compressed mode, I get a memory limit error or a time limit error.
As of version 2.2.4, we build the compressed dump in memory, so large tables dumps may hang. The only alternative we can think about (using system calls to mysqldump then gzip or bzip2) would not be applicable in environments where PHP is in safe mode: access to system programs is is limited by the system administrator, and time limit is enforced.

[ISPs, multi-user installations ]

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 http or cookie authentication. See the install section on "Using http authentication".

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, you should use phpMyAdmin's http authentication feature.

Suggestions:

I get errors about not being able to include a file in /lang or in /libraries.
Check php.ini, or ask your sysadmin to check it. The include_path must contain "." somewhere in it, and open_basedir, if used, must contain "." and "./lang" to allow normal operation of phpMyAdmin.

phpMyAdmin always gives "Access denied" when using http authentication.
This could happen for several reasons:

Is it possible to let users create their own databases?
Starting with 2.2.5, in the user management page, you can enter a wildcard database name for a user, and put the privileges you want. For example, adding SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER would let a user create/manage his/her database(s).

How can I use the Host-based authentication additions?
If you have existing rules from an old .htaccess file, you can take them and add a username between the 'deny'/'allow' and 'from' strings. Using the username wildcard of '%' would be a major benefit here if your installation is suited to using it. Then you can just add those updated lines into the $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['rules'] array.

If you want a pre-made sample, you can try this fragment. It stops the 'root' user from logging in from any networks other than the private network IP blocks.
    //block root from logging in except from the private networks
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['order'] = 'deny,allow';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['rules'] = array(
        'deny root from all',
        'allow root from localhost',
        'allow root from 10.0.0.0/8',
        'allow root from 192.168.0.0/16',
        'allow root from 172.16.0.0/12',
        );

[Browsers or client OS]

I get an out of memory error, and my controls are non-functional, when trying to create a table with more than 14 fields.
We could reproduce this problem only under Win98/98SE. Testing under WinNT4 or Win2K, we could easily create more than 60 fields.
A workaround is to create a smaller number of fields, then come back to your table properties and add the other fields.

With Xitami 2.5b4, phpMyAdmin won't process form fields.
This is not a phpMyAdmin problem but a Xitami known bug: you'll face it with each script/website that use forms.
Upgrade or downgrade your Xitami server.

I have problems dumping tables with Konqueror (phpMyAdmin 2.2.2)
With Konqueror 2.1.1: plain dumps, zip and gzip dumps work ok, except that the proposed file name for the dump is always 'tbl_dump.php'. Bzip2 dumps don't seem to work.
With Konqueror 2.2.1: plain dumps work; zip dumps are placed into the user's temporary directory, so they must be moved before closing Konqueror, or else they disappear. Gzip dumps give an error message.
Testing needs to be done for Konqueror 2.2.2.

I can't use the cookie authentication mode because Internet Explorer never stores the cookies.
MS Internet Explorer seems to be really buggy about cookies, at least till version 6. And thanks to Andrew Zivolup we've traced also a php 4.1.1 bug in this area!
Then, If you're running php 4.1.1, try to upgrade or downgrade... it may work!

In Internet Explorer 5.0, I get Javascript errors when browsing my rows.
Upgrade to at least Internet Explorer 5.5SP2.

In Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5 or 6.0, I get an error when trying to modify a row in a table with many fields, or with a text field.
Your table neither have a primary key nor an unique one, so we must use a long URL to identify this row. There is a limit on the lenght of the URL in those browsers, and this not happen in Netscape, for example. The workaround is to create a primary or unique key, or use another browser.

I refresh (reload) my browser, and come back to the welcome page.
Some browsers support right-clicking into the frame you want to refresh, just do this in the right frame.

With Mozilla 0.9.7 I have problems sending a query modified in the query box.
Looks like a Mozilla bug: 0.9.6 was ok. We will keep an eye on future Mozilla versions.

With Mozilla 0.9.? to 1.0 and Netscape 7.0-PR1 I can't type a whitespace in the SQL-Query edit area: the page scrolls down.
This is a Mozilla bug (see bug #26882 at Bugzilla).

[Using phpMyAdmin]

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:

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

When I create a table, I click the Index checkbox for 2 fields and phpMyAdmin generates only one index with those 2 fields.
In phpMyAdmin 2.2.0 and 2.2.1, this is the way to create a multi-fields index. If you want two indexes, create the first one when creating the table, save, then display the table properties and click the Index link to create the other index.

How can I insert a null value into my table?
Since version 2.2.3, you have a checkbox for each field that can be null. Before 2.2.3, you had to enter "null", without the quotes, as the field's value.

How can I backup my database or table?
Click on a database or table name in the left frame, the properties will be displayed. Then go to the Dump section, you can dump the structure, the data, or both. This will generate standard SQL statements that can be used to recreate your database/table.

You will need to choose "Save as file", so that phpMyAdmin can transmit the resulting dump to your station. Depending on your PHP configuration, you will see options to compress the dump. See also the $cfg['ExecTimeLimit'] configuration variable.

For additional help on this subject, look for the word "dump" in this document.

How can I restore (upload) my database or table using a dump?
Click on a database name in the left frame, the properties will be displayed. Then in the "Run SQL query" section, type in your local dump filename, or use the Browse button. Then click Go.

For additional help on this subject, look for the word "upload" in this document.

How can I use the relation table in Query-by-example?
Here is an example with the tables persons, towns and countries, all located in the database mydb. If you don't have a PMA_relation table, create it as explained in the configuration section. Then create the example tables:

     CREATE TABLE countries (
       country_code char(1) NOT NULL default '',
       description varchar(10) NOT NULL default '',
       PRIMARY KEY (country_code)
     ) TYPE=MyISAM;

     INSERT INTO countries VALUES ('C', 'Canada');

     CREATE TABLE persons (
       id tinyint(4) NOT NULL auto_increment,
       person_name varchar(32) NOT NULL default '',
       town_code varchar(5) default '0',
       country_code char(1) NOT NULL default '',
       PRIMARY KEY (id)
     ) TYPE=MyISAM;

     INSERT INTO persons VALUES (11, 'Marc', 'S', '');
     INSERT INTO persons VALUES (15, 'Paul', 'S', 'C');

     CREATE TABLE towns (
       town_code varchar(5) NOT NULL default '0',
       description varchar(30) NOT NULL default '',
       PRIMARY KEY (town_code)
     ) TYPE=MyISAM;

     INSERT INTO towns VALUES ('S', 'Sherbrooke');
     INSERT INTO towns VALUES ('M', 'Montréal');

     INSERT INTO `PMA_relation` VALUES ('mydb','persons', 'town_code', 'mydb', 'towns', 'town_code');
     INSERT INTO `PMA_relation` VALUES ('mydb', 'persons', 'country_code', 'mydb', 'countries', 'country_code');

Then test like this:


How can I use the "display field" feature?
Starting from the previous example, create the PMA_table_info as explained in the configuration section, then browse your persons table, and move the mouse over a town code or country code.

How can I produce a PDF schema of my database?
First you have to fill the 'relation', 'table_coords' and 'pdf_pages' configuration variables.

Then, think about your schema layout: which tables will go on which pages.

I don't like the way syntaxcoloring displays my query
There is two things about the way how the Syntaxcoloring works that you can easily change yourself:

phpMyAdmin is changing the type of one of my columns!
No, it's MySQL that is doing silent column type changing.

My database has an underscore in it's name, and when I grant privileges to a user for this database, a backslash is added before the underscore.
This is normal and means that the grant is done only for this database. If there was no backslash, this would be a wildcard grant, and the underscore would mean "any character". So, if the database name is "john_db", the user would get rights to john1db, john2db... instead of just john_db.

If you really want to grant using a wildcard, there is a dialog box " Database (wildcards allowed)" for this.

[phpMyAdmin project]

I have found a bug. How do I inform developers?
Our Bug Tracker is located at http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin/ under the Bugs section.

But please first discuss your bug with other users:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin/ (and choose Forums)

I want to translate the messages to a new language or upgrade an existing language, where do I start?
Always use the current cvs version of your language file. For a new language, start from english.inc.php3. If you don't know how to get the cvs version, please ask one of the developers.
You can then put your translations, as a zip file to avoid losing special characters, on the sourceforge.net translation tracker.
It would be a good idea to subscribe to the phpmyadmin-translators mailing list, because this is where we ask for translations of new messages.

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

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 Developers section.



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Developers 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:

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

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.



Top  -  Requirements  -  Introduction  -  Installation  -  Configuration  -  FAQ  -  Developers  -  Credits

Credits


phpMyAdmin - Credits
====================

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

[tr] - Tobias Ratschiller <tobias_at_phpwizard.net>
    * creator of the phpmyadmin project
    * maintainer from 1998 to summer 2000

[md] - Marc Delisle <DelislMa_at_CollegeSherbrooke.qc.ca>
    * multi-language version
    * various fixes and improvements
    * project co-administrator

[om] - Olivier Müller <om_at_omnis.ch>
    * started SourceForge phpMyAdmin project in March 2001
    * sync'ed different existing CVS trees with new features and bugfixes
    * multi-language improvements, dynamic language selection
    * current project maintainer

[lc] - Loïc Chapeaux <lolo_at_phpheaven.net>
    * rewrote and optimized javascript, DHTML and DOM stuff
    * rewrote the scripts so they fit the PEAR coding standards and
      generate XHTML1.0 and CSS2 compliant codes
    * improved the language detection system
    * many bugfixes and improvements

[rj] - Robin Johnson <robbat2_at_users.sourceforge.net>
    * database maintence controls
    * table type code
    * Host authentication IP Allow/Deny
    * DB-based configuration

[af] - Armel Fauveau <armel.fauveau_at_globalis-ms.com>
    * bookmarks feature
    * multiple dump feature
    * gzip dump feature
    * zip dump feature

[gl] - Geert Lund <glund_at_silversoft.dk>
    * various fixes
    * moderator of the phpMyAdmin users forum at phpwizard.net

[kc] - Korakot Chaovavanich <korakot_at_iname.com>
    * "insert as new row" feature

[pk] - Pete Kelly <webmaster_at_trafficg.com>
    * rewrote and fix dump code
    * bugfixes

[sa] - Steve Alberty <alberty_at_neptunlabs.de>
    * rewrote dump code for PHP4
    * mySQL table statistics
    * bugfixes

[bg] - Benjamin Gandon <gandon_at_isia.cma.fr>
    * main author of the version 2.1.0.1
    * bugfixes

[at] - Alexander M. Turek <rabus_at_bugfixes.info>
    * various small features and fixes
    * German language file updates

[mb] - Mike Beck <mike.beck at ibmiller.de>
    * automatic joint in QBE
    * links column in printview
    * Relation view


Thanks to these guys who have sent us some major improvements to merge into the
code since version 2.1.0:
- Michal Cihar <nijel at users.sourceforge.net> who implemented the
  enhanced index creation/display feature, and the mecanism to display
  a character set in MySQL different than the one in HTML. 
- Christophe Gesché from the "MySQL Form Generator for PHPMyAdmin"
  (http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmysqlformgen/) who suggested the patch
  for multiple table printviews.
- Garvin Hicking <hicking at faktor-e.de> who built the patch for
  vertical display of table rows.
- Yukihiro Kawada <kawada at den.fujifilm.co.jp> for the japanese kanji
  encoding conversion feature.
- Piotr Roszatycki <d3xter at users.sourceforge.net> and Dan Wilson, for
  the Cookie authentication mode.
- Axel Sander <n8falke at users.sourceforge.net> for the table
  relation-links feature.
- Maxime Delorme <delorme.maxime at free.fr> for the PDF schema output;
  thanks also to Olivier Plathey for the "FPDF" library
  (see http://www.fpdf.org/).


And also to the following people who have contributed minor changes,
enhancements, bugfixes or support for a new language since version 2.1.0:
Bora Alioglu, Ricardo ?, Sven-Erik Andersen, Alessandro Astarita,
Péter Bakondy, Borges Botelho, Olivier Bussier, Neil Darlow, Laurent Dhima,
Kristof Hamann, Thomas Kläger, Lubos Klokner, Martin Marconcini,
Girish Nair, David Nordenberg, Bernard M. Piller, Laurent Haas,
"Sakamoto", Yuval Sarna, www.securereality.com.au,
Alvar Soome, Siu Sun, Peter Svec, Michael Tacelosky, Rachim Tamsjadi,
Luís V., Martijn W. van der Lee, Algis Vainauskas, Daniel Villanueva, Vinay,
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Chee Wai, Jakub Wilk, Thomas Michael Winningham,
Vilius Zigmantas.


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 <ak-lsml_at_living-source.com> 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 <jan_at_nrw.net>: He made many of the changes that
      were introduced in 1.3.0 (including quite significant ones like the
      authentication). For 1.4.1 he enhanced the table-dump feature. Plus
      bug-fixes and help.
    - Marc Delisle <DelislMa_at_CollegeSherbrooke.qc.ca> made phpMyAdmin
      language-independent by outsourcing the strings to a separate file. He
      also contributed the French translation.
    - Alexandr Bravo <abravo_at_hq.admiral.ru> who contributed
      tbl_select.php3, a feature to display only some fields from a table.
    - Chris Jackson <chrisj_at_ctel.net> added support for MySQL
      functions in tbl_change.php3. He also added the
      "Query by Example" feature in 2.0.
    - Dave Walton <walton_at_nordicdms.com> added support for multiple
      servers and is a regular contributor for bug-fixes.
    - Gabriel Ash <ga244_at_is8.nyu.edu> 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.


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