phpMyAdmin does not apply any special security methods to the MySQL database server. It is still the system administrator’s job to grant permissions on the MySQL databases properly. phpMyAdmin’s Users page can be used for this.
Warning
Mac users should note that if you are on a version before Mac OS X, StuffIt unstuffs with Mac formats. So you’ll have to resave as in BBEdit to Unix style ALL phpMyAdmin scripts before uploading them to your server, as PHP seems not to like Mac-style end of lines character (“\r”).
phpMyAdmin is included in most Linux distributions. It is recommended to use distribution packages when possible - they usually provide integration to your distribution and you will automatically get security updates from your distribution.
Debian’s package repositories include a phpMyAdmin package, but be aware that the configuration file is maintained in /etc/phpmyadmin and may differ in some ways from the official phpMyAdmin documentation.
OpenSUSE already comes with phpMyAdmin package, just install packages from the openSUSE Build Service.
Ubuntu ships phpMyAdmin package, however if you want to use recent version, you can use packages from PPA for Michal Čihař.
Gentoo ships the phpMyAdmin package, both in a near stock configuration as well as in a webapp-config configuration. Use emerge dev-db/phpmyadmin to install.
Mandriva ships the phpMyAdmin package in their contrib branch and can be installed via the usual Control Center.
Fedora ships the phpMyAdmin package, but be aware that the configuration file is maintained in /etc/phpMyAdmin/ and may differ in some ways from the official phpMyAdmin documentation.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux itself and thus derivatives like CentOS don’t ship phpMyAdmin, but the Fedora-driven repository Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) is doing so, if it’s enabled. But be aware that the configuration file is maintained in /etc/phpMyAdmin/ and may differ in some ways from the official phpMyAdmin documentation.
The easiest way to get phpMyAdmin on Windows is using third party products which include phpMyAdmin together with a database and web server such as XAMPP.
You can find more of such options at Wikipedia.
To manually create the file, simply use your text editor to create the file config.inc.php (you can copy config.sample.inc.php to get a minimal configuration file) in the main (top-level) phpMyAdmin directory (the one that contains index.php). phpMyAdmin first loads libraries/config.default.php and then overrides those values with anything found in config.inc.php. If the default value is okay for a particular setting, there is no need to include it in config.inc.php. You’ll probably need only a few directives to get going; a simple configuration may look like this:
<?php
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'ba17c1ec07d65003'; // use here a value of your choice
$i=0;
$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
?>
Or, if you prefer to not be prompted every time you log in:
<?php
$i=0;
$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'cbb74bc'; // use here your password
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
?>
For a full explanation of possible configuration values, see the Configuration of this document.
Instead of manually editing config.inc.php, you can use phpMyAdmin’s setup feature. First you must manually create a folder config in the phpMyAdmin directory. This is a security measure. On a Linux/Unix system you can use the following commands:
cd phpMyAdmin
mkdir config # create directory for saving
chmod o+rw config # give it world writable permissions
And to edit an existing configuration, copy it over first:
cp config.inc.php config/ # copy current configuration for editing
chmod o+w config/config.inc.php # give it world writable permissions
Note
Debian and Ubuntu have simplified this setup and all you need to do is to execute /usr/sbin/pma-configure.
On other platforms, simply create the folder and ensure that your web server has read and write access to it. 1.26 I just installed phpMyAdmin in my document root of IIS but I get the error “No input file specified” when trying to run phpMyAdmin. can help with this.
Next, open your browser and visit the location where you installed phpMyAdmin, with the /setup suffix. If you have an existing configuration, use the Load button to bring its content inside the setup panel. Note that changes are not saved to disk until you explicitly choose ``Save`` from the Configuration area of the screen. Normally the script saves the new config.inc.php to the config/ directory, but if the webserver does not have the proper permissions you may see the error “Cannot load or save configuration.” Ensure that the config/ directory exists and has the proper permissions - or use the Download link to save the config file locally and upload it (via FTP or some similar means) to the proper location.
Once the file has been saved, it must be moved out of the config/ directory and the permissions must be reset, again as a security measure:
mv config/config.inc.php . # move file to current directory
chmod o-rw config.inc.php # remove world read and write permissions
rm -rf config # remove not needed directory
Note
Debian and Ubuntu have simplified this setup and all you need to do is to execute /usr/sbin/pma-secure.
Now the file is ready to be used. You can choose to review or edit the file with your favorite editor, if you prefer to set some advanced options which the setup script does not provide.
For a whole set of additional features (bookmarks, comments, SQL-history, tracking mechanism, PDF-generation, column contents transformation, etc.) you need to create a set of special tables. Those tables can be located in your own database, or in a central database for a multi-user installation (this database would then be accessed by the controluser, so no other user should have rights to it).
In many cases, this database structure can be automatically created and configured. This is called “Zero Configuration” mode and can be particularly useful in shared hosting situations. “Zeroconf” mode is on by default, to disable set $cfg['ZeroConf'] to false.
The following three scenarios are covered by the Zero Configuration mode:
Please look at your ./sql/ directory, where you should find a file called create_tables.sql. (If you are using a Windows server, pay special attention to 1.23 I’m running MySQL on a Win32 machine. Each time I create a new table the table and column names are changed to lowercase!).
If you already had this infrastructure and:
and then create new tables by importing sql/create_tables.sql.
You can use your phpMyAdmin to create the tables for you. Please be aware that you may need special (administrator) privileges to create the database and tables, and that the script may need some tuning, depending on the database name.
After having imported the sql/create_tables.sql file, you should specify the table names in your config.inc.php file. The directives used for that can be found in the Configuration.
You will also need to have a controluser ($cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] and $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] settings) with the proper rights to those tables. For example you can create it using following statement:
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON <pma_db>.* TO 'pma'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'pmapass';
Never extract the new version over an existing installation of phpMyAdmin; we had evidence of problems caused by this.
Simply copy config.inc.php from your previous installation into the newly unpacked one. Configuration files from old versions may require some tweaking as some options have been changed or removed. For compatibility with PHP 5.3 and later, remove a set_magic_quotes_runtime(0); statement that you might find near the end of your configuration file.
You should not copy libraries/config.default.php over config.inc.php because the default configuration file is version- specific.
If you have upgraded your MySQL server from a version previous to 4.1.2 to version 5.x or newer and if you use the phpMyAdmin configuration storage, you should run the SQL script found in sql/upgrade_tables_mysql_4_1_2+.sql.
If you have upgraded your phpMyAdmin to 4.3.0 or newer from 2.5.0 or newer (<= 4.2.x) and if you use the phpMyAdmin configuration storage, you should run the SQL script found in sql/upgrade_column_info_4_3_0+.sql.
HTTP and cookie authentication modes are recommended in a multi-user environment where you want to give users access to their own database and don’t want them to play around with others. Nevertheless be aware that MS Internet Explorer seems to be really buggy about cookies, at least till version 6. Even in a single-user environment, you might prefer to use HTTP or cookie mode so that your user/password pair are not in clear in the configuration file.
HTTP and cookie authentication modes are more secure: the MySQL login information does not need to be set in the phpMyAdmin configuration file (except possibly for the $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser']). However, keep in mind that the password travels in plain text, unless you are using the HTTPS protocol. In cookie mode, the password is stored, encrypted with the AES algorithm, in a temporary cookie.
Then each of the true users should be granted a set of privileges on a set of particular databases. Normally you shouldn’t give global privileges to an ordinary user, unless you understand the impact of those privileges (for example, you are creating a superuser). For example, to grant the user real_user with all privileges on the database user_base:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON user_base.* TO 'real_user'@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'real_password';
What the user may now do is controlled entirely by the MySQL user management system. With HTTP or cookie authentication mode, you don’t need to fill the user/password fields inside the $cfg['Servers'].
The very basic example of saving credentials in a session is available as examples/signon.php:
<?php
/* vim: set expandtab sw=4 ts=4 sts=4: */
/**
* Single signon for phpMyAdmin
*
* This is just example how to use session based single signon with
* phpMyAdmin, it is not intended to be perfect code and look, only
* shows how you can integrate this functionality in your application.
*
* @package PhpMyAdmin
* @subpackage Example
*/
/* Need to have cookie visible from parent directory */
session_set_cookie_params(0, '/', '', false);
/* Create signon session */
$session_name = 'SignonSession';
session_name($session_name);
// Uncomment and change the following line to match your $cfg['SessionSavePath']
//session_save_path('/foobar');
session_start();
/* Was data posted? */
if (isset($_POST['user'])) {
/* Store there credentials */
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_user'] = $_POST['user'];
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_password'] = $_POST['password'];
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_host'] = $_POST['host'];
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_port'] = $_POST['port'];
/* Update another field of server configuration */
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_cfgupdate'] = array('verbose' => 'Signon test');
$id = session_id();
/* Close that session */
session_write_close();
/* Redirect to phpMyAdmin (should use absolute URL here!) */
header('Location: ../index.php');
} else {
/* Show simple form */
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>' . "\n";
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en" dir="ltr">
<head>
<link rel="icon" href="../favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="../favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>phpMyAdmin single signon example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
if (isset($_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_error_message'])) {
echo '<p class="error">';
echo $_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_error_message'];
echo '</p>';
}
?>
<form action="signon.php" method="post">
Username: <input type="text" name="user" /><br />
Password: <input type="password" name="password" /><br />
Host: (will use the one from config.inc.php by default)
<input type="text" name="host" /><br />
Port: (will use the one from config.inc.php by default)
<input type="text" name="port" /><br />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
<?php
}
?>
Alternatively you can also use this way to integrate with OpenID as shown in examples/openid.php:
<?php
/* vim: set expandtab sw=4 ts=4 sts=4: */
/**
* Single signon for phpMyAdmin using OpenID
*
* This is just example how to use single signon with phpMyAdmin, it is
* not intended to be perfect code and look, only shows how you can
* integrate this functionality in your application.
*
* It uses OpenID pear package, see http://pear.php.net/package/OpenID
*
* User first authenticates using OpenID and based on content of $AUTH_MAP
* the login information is passed to phpMyAdmin in session data.
*
* @package PhpMyAdmin
* @subpackage Example
*/
if (false === @include_once 'OpenID/RelyingParty.php') {
exit;
}
/**
* Map of authenticated users to MySQL user/password pairs.
*/
$AUTH_MAP = array(
'http://launchpad.net/~username' => array(
'user' => 'root',
'password' => '',
),
);
/**
* Simple function to show HTML page with given content.
*
* @param string $contents Content to include in page
*
* @return void
*/
function Show_page($contents)
{
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>' . "\n";
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en" dir="ltr">
<head>
<link rel="icon" href="../favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="../favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>phpMyAdmin OpenID signon example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
if (isset($_SESSION) && isset($_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_error_message'])) {
echo '<p class="error">' . $_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_message'] . '</p>';
unset($_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_message']);
}
echo $contents;
?>
</body>
</html>
<?php
}
function Die_error($e)
{
$contents = "<div class='relyingparty_results'>\n";
$contents .= "<pre>" . htmlspecialchars($e->getMessage()) . "</pre>\n";
$contents .= "</div class='relyingparty_results'>";
Show_page($contents);
exit;
}
/* Need to have cookie visible from parent directory */
session_set_cookie_params(0, '/', '', false);
/* Create signon session */
$session_name = 'SignonSession';
session_name($session_name);
session_start();
// Determine realm and return_to
$base = 'http';
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && $_SERVER['HTTPS'] == 'on') {
$base .= 's';
}
$base .= '://' . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . ':' . $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'];
$realm = $base . '/';
$returnTo = $base . dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
if ($returnTo[/*overload*/mb_strlen($returnTo) - 1] != '/') {
$returnTo .= '/';
}
$returnTo .= 'openid.php';
/* Display form */
if (!count($_GET) && !count($_POST) || isset($_GET['phpMyAdmin'])) {
/* Show simple form */
$content = '<form action="openid.php" method="post">
OpenID: <input type="text" name="identifier" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="start" />
</form>
</body>
</html>';
Show_page($content);
exit;
}
/* Grab identifier */
if (isset($_POST['identifier']) && is_string($_POST['identifier'])) {
$identifier = $_POST['identifier'];
} else if (isset($_SESSION['identifier']) && is_string($_SESSION['identifier'])) {
$identifier = $_SESSION['identifier'];
} else {
$identifier = null;
}
/* Create OpenID object */
try {
$o = new OpenID_RelyingParty($returnTo, $realm, $identifier);
} catch (Exception $e) {
Die_error($e);
}
/* Redirect to OpenID provider */
if (isset($_POST['start'])) {
try {
$authRequest = $o->prepare();
} catch (Exception $e) {
Die_error($e);
}
$url = $authRequest->getAuthorizeURL();
header("Location: $url");
exit;
} else {
/* Grab query string */
if (!count($_POST)) {
list(, $queryString) = explode('?', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
} else {
// I hate php sometimes
$queryString = file_get_contents('php://input');
}
/* Check reply */
try {
$message = new OpenID_Message($queryString, OpenID_Message::FORMAT_HTTP);
} catch (Exception $e) {
Die_error($e);
}
$id = $message->get('openid.claimed_id');
if (!empty($id) && isset($AUTH_MAP[$id])) {
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_user'] = $AUTH_MAP[$id]['user'];
$_SESSION['PMA_single_signon_password'] = $AUTH_MAP[$id]['password'];
session_write_close();
/* Redirect to phpMyAdmin (should use absolute URL here!) */
header('Location: ../index.php');
} else {
Show_page('<p>User not allowed!</p>');
exit;
}
}
If you intend to pass the credentials using some other means than, you have to implement wrapper in PHP to get that data and set it to $cfg['Servers'][$i]['SignonScript']. There is very minimal example in examples/signon-script.php:
<?php
/* vim: set expandtab sw=4 ts=4 sts=4: */
/**
* Single signon for phpMyAdmin
*
* This is just example how to use script based single signon with
* phpMyAdmin, it is not intended to be perfect code and look, only
* shows how you can integrate this functionality in your application.
*
* @package PhpMyAdmin
* @subpackage Example
*/
/**
* This function returns username and password.
*
* It can optionally use configured username as parameter.
*
* @param string $user User name
*
* @return array
*/
function get_login_credentials($user)
{
/* Optionally we can use passed username */
if (!empty($user)) {
return array($user, 'password');
}
/* Here we would retrieve the credentials */
$credentials = array('root', '');
return $credentials;
}
?>
The Swekey is a low cost authentication USB key that can be used in web applications. When Swekey authentication is activated, phpMyAdmin requires the users’s Swekey to be plugged before entering the login page (currently supported for cookie authentication mode only). Swekey Authentication is disabled by default. To enable it, add the following line to config.inc.php:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_swekey_config'] = '/etc/swekey.conf';
You then have to create the swekey.conf file that will associate each user with their Swekey Id. It is important to place this file outside of your web server’s document root (in the example, it is located in /etc). Feel free to use it with your own users’ information. If you want to purchase a Swekey please visit https://www.phpmyadmin.net/auth_key/ since this link provides funding for phpMyAdmin.
A self documented sample file is provided in the file examples/swekey.sample.conf:
# This is a typical file used to enable Swekey hardware authentication.
#
# To activate the Swekey authentication add the following line to your config.inc.php file.
# $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_swekey_config'] = '/etc/swekey-pma.conf';
# Then rename this file "swekey-pma.conf" and copy it to the /etc directory.
# Add all the Swekey ids you want to grant access to in the file.
# After each Swekey id put the corresponding user name.
#
# If you don't know the id of a Swekey just visit http://www.swekey.com?sel=support
# while your Swekey is connected.
#
# If you need to purchase a Swekey please visit https://www.phpmyadmin.net/auth_key/
# since this link provides funding to PhpMyAdmin.
#
0000000000000000000000000000763A:root
000000000000000000000000000089E4:steve
0000000000000000000000000000231E:scott
#
# It is recommended to include the following lines to contact the
# authentication servers in SSL mode.
#
SERVER_CHECK=https://auth-check-ssl.musbe.net
SERVER_RNDTOKEN=https://auth-rnd-gen-ssl.musbe.net
SERVER_STATUS=https://auth-status-ssl.musbe.net
#
# The path of the root certificate file used to ensure a secure
# communication with the authentication servers in SSL mode.
# If not specified, will use musbe-ca.crt found in your
# phpMyAdmin/libraries/auth/swekey.
#
#CA_FILE=/var/http-root/phpmyadmin/libraries/auth/swekey/musbe-ca.crt
#
# If your server receives many login requests, you can enable the random
# token caching to accelerate the authentication process.
# Token caching is enabled by default.
#
#ENABLE_TOKEN_CACHE=0
The phpMyAdmin team tries hard to make the application secure, however there are always ways to make your installation more secure: