Requirements

Introduction

phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL server (needs a super-user) as well as 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:

A word about users:

Many people have difficulty understanding the concept of user management with regards to phpMyAdmin. When a user logs in to phpMyAdmin, that username and password are passed directly to MySQL. phpMyAdmin does no account management on its own (other than allowing one to manipulate the MySQL user account information); all users must be valid MySQL users.

1) phpMyAdmin can compress (Zip, GZip -RFC 1952- or Bzip2 formats) dumps and CSV exports if you use PHP with Zlib support (--with-zlib) and/or Bzip2 support (--with-bz2). Proper support may also need changes in php.ini.

Installation

  1. Quick Install
  2. Setup script usage
  3. Linked-tables infrastructure
  4. Upgrading from an older version
  5. Using authentication modes

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 "Privileges" page can be used for this.

Warning for Mac users:
if you are on a Mac OS version before 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").

Quick Install

  1. Choose an appropriate distribution kit from the phpmyadmin.net Downloads page. Some kits contain only the English messages, others contain all languages in UTF-8 format (this should be fine in most situations), others contain all languages and all character sets. We'll assume you chose a kit whose name looks like phpMyAdmin-x.x.x-all-languages.tar.gz.
  2. Untar or unzip the distribution (be sure to unzip the subdirectories): tar -xzvf phpMyAdmin_x.x.x-all-languages.tar.gz in your webserver's document root. If you don't have direct access to your document root, put the files in a directory on your local machine, and, after step 4, transfer the directory on your web server using, for example, ftp.
  3. Ensure that all the scripts have the appropriate owner (if PHP is running in safe mode, having some scripts with an owner different from the owner of other scripts will be a problem). See FAQ 4.2 and FAQ 1.26 for suggestions.
  4. Now you must configure your installation. There are two methods that can be used. Traditionally, users have hand-edited a copy of config.inc.php, but now a wizard-style setup script is provided for those who prefer a graphical installation. Creating a config.inc.php is still a quick way to get started and needed for some advanced features.
    • 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 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 need 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 Section of this document.
    • Instead of manually editing config.inc.php, you can use the Setup Script. 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 command: 
      /usr/sbin/pma-configure
      Next, open setup/ in your browser. Note that changes are not saved to disk until 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 (via FTP or some similar means) to the proper location.

      Once the file has been saved, the permissions must be reset, again as a security measure: 
      /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.
  5. If you are using the auth_type "config", it is suggested that you protect the phpMyAdmin installation directory because using config does not require a user to enter a password to access the phpMyAdmin installation. Use of an alternate authentication method is recommended, for example with HTTP–AUTH in a .htaccess file or switch to using auth_type cookie or http. See the multi–user sub–section of this FAQ for additional information, especially FAQ 4.4.
  6. Open the main phpMyAdmin directory in your browser. phpMyAdmin should now display a welcome screen and your databases, or a login dialog if using HTTP or cookie authentication mode.
  7. You should deny access to the ./libraries and ./setup/lib subfolders in your webserver configuration. For Apache you can use supplied .htaccess file in that folder, for other webservers, you should configure this yourself. Such configuration prevents from possible path exposure and cross side scripting vulnerabilities that might happen to be found in that code.
  8. It is generally good idea to protect public phpMyAdmin installation against access by robots as they usually can not do anything good there. You can do this using robots.txt file in root of your webserver or limit access by web server configuration. You can find example .htaccess file which can help you achieve this in contrib directory in phpMyAdmin.

Linked-tables infrastructure

For a whole set of new features (bookmarks, comments, SQL-history, tracking mechanism, PDF-generation, field 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).

Please look at your ./scripts/ directory, where you should find a file called create_tables.sql. (If you are using a Windows server, pay special attention to FAQ 1.23).

If you already had this infrastructure and upgraded to MySQL 4.1.2 or newer, please use ./scripts/upgrade_tables_mysql_4_1_2+.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 ./scripts/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 section. You will also need to have a controluser with the proper rights to those tables (see section Using authentication modes below).

Upgrading from an older version

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; in particular, the definition of $cfg['AttributeTypes'] has changed so you better remove it from your file and just use the default one. For compatibility with PHP 6, 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 4.1.2 or newer and if you use the pmadb/linked table infrastructure, you should run the SQL script found in scripts/upgrade_tables_mysql_4_1_2+.sql.

Using authentication modes

'HTTP' authentication mode

'cookie' authentication mode

'signon' authentication mode

'config' authentication mode

Swekey authentication

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). A self documented sample file is provided in the contrib directory. Feel free to use it with your own users' information.

If you want to purchase a Swekey please visit http://phpmyadmin.net/auth_key since this link provides funding for phpMyAdmin.

Configuration

Warning for Mac users: PHP does not seem 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 saving a script you have modified.

Configuration note: Almost all configurable data is placed in config.inc.php. If this file does not exist, please refer to the Quick install section to create one. This file only needs to contain the parameters you want to change from their corresponding default value in libraries/config.default.php.

The parameters which relate to design (like colors) are placed in themes/themename/layout.inc.php. You might also want to create config.footer.inc.php and config.header.inc.php files to add your site specific code to be included on start and end of each page.

$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] string
Sets here the complete URL (with full path) to your phpMyAdmin installation's directory. E.g. http://www.your_web.net/path_to_your_phpMyAdmin_directory/. Note also that the URL on some web servers are case–sensitive. Don’t forget the trailing slash at the end.

Starting with version 2.3.0, it is advisable to try leaving this blank. In most cases phpMyAdmin automatically detects the proper setting. Users of port forwarding will need to set PmaAbsoluteUri (more info). A good test is to browse a table, edit a row and save it. There should be an error message if phpMyAdmin is having trouble auto–detecting the correct value. If you get an error that this must be set or if the autodetect code fails to detect your path, please post a bug report on our bug tracker so we can improve the code.
$cfg['PmaNoRelation_DisableWarning'] boolean
Starting with version 2.3.0 phpMyAdmin offers a lot of features to work with master / foreign – tables (see $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb']).
If you tried to set this up and it does not work for you, have a look on the "Structure" page of one database where you would like to use it. You will find a link that will analyze why those features have been disabled.
If you do not want to use those features set this variable to TRUE to stop this message from appearing.
$cfg['SuhosinDisableWarning'] boolean
A warning is displayed on the main page if Suhosin is detected. You can set this parameter to TRUE to stop this message from appearing.
$cfg['McryptDisableWarning'] boolean
Disable the default warning that is displayed if mcrypt is missing for cookie authentication. You can set this parameter to TRUE to stop this message from appearing.
$cfg['AllowThirdPartyFraming'] boolean
Setting this to true allows a page located on a different domain to call phpMyAdmin inside a frame, and is a potential security hole allowing cross-frame scripting attacks.
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] string
The "cookie" auth_type uses blowfish algorithm to encrypt the password.
If you are using the "cookie" auth_type, enter here a random passphrase of your choice. It will be used internally by the blowfish algorithm: you won’t be prompted for this passphrase. There is no maximum length for this secret.

Since version 3.1.0 phpMyAdmin can generate this on the fly, but it makes a bit weaker security as this generated secret is stored in session and furthermore it makes impossible to recall user name from cookie.
$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. In ./libraries/config.default.php, there is only one section for server definition, however you can put as many as you need in ./config.inc.php, copy that block or needed parts (you don't have to define all settings, just those you need to change).
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] string
The hostname or IP address 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). If you use "localhost" as the hostname, MySQL ignores this port number and connects with the socket, so if you want to connect to a port different from the default port, use "127.0.0.1" or the real hostname in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'].
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] string
The path to the socket to use. Leave blank for default.
To determine the correct socket, check your MySQL configuration or, using the mysql command–line client, issue the status command. Among the resulting information displayed will be the socket used.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['ssl'] boolean
Whether to enable SSL for connection to MySQL server.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] string
What type connection to use with the MySQL server. Your options are 'socket' and 'tcp'. It defaults to 'tcp' as that is nearly guaranteed to be available on all MySQL servers, while sockets are not supported on some platforms.

To use the socket mode, your MySQL server must be on the same machine as the Web server.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] string
What php MySQL extension to use for the connection. Valid options are:

mysql : The classic MySQL extension. This is the recommended and default method at this time.

mysqli : The improved MySQL extension. This extension became available with php 5.0.0 and is the recommended way to connect to a server running MySQL 4.1.x or newer.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] boolean
Whether to use a compressed protocol for the MySQL server connection or not (experimental).
This feature requires PHP >= 4.3.0.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] string
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] string
This special account is used for 2 distinct purposes: to make possible all relational features (see $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb']) and, for a MySQL server previous to 4.1.2 or running with --skip-show-database, to enable a multi-user installation (HTTP or cookie authentication mode).

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) and mysql.tables_priv (all columns except "Grantor" and "Timestamp") tables. This account is used to check what databases the user will see at login.
Please see the install section on "Using authentication modes" for more information.

In phpMyAdmin versions before 2.2.5, those were called "stduser/stdpass".
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] string ['HTTP'|'http'|'cookie'|'config'|'signon']
Whether config or cookie or HTTP or signon authentication should be used for this server.
  • 'config' authentication ($auth_type = 'config') is the plain old way: username and password are stored in config.inc.php.
  • 'cookie' authentication mode ($auth_type = 'cookie') as introduced in 2.2.3 allows you to log in as any valid MySQL user with the help of cookies. Username and password are stored in cookies during the session and password is deleted when it ends. This can also allow you to log in in arbitrary server if $cfg['AllowArbitraryServer'] enabled.
  • 'HTTP' authentication (was called 'advanced' in previous versions and can be written also as 'http') ($auth_type = 'HTTP') as introduced in 1.3.0 allows you to log in as any valid MySQL user via HTTP-Auth.
  • 'signon' authentication mode ($auth_type = 'signon') as introduced in 2.10.0 allows you to log in from prepared PHP session data. This is useful for implementing single signon from another application. Sample way how to seed session is in signon example: scripts/signon.php. You need to configure session name and signon URL to use this authentication method.
Please see the install section on "Using authentication modes" for more information.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_swekey_config'] string
The name of the file containing Swekey ids and login names for hardware authentication. Leave empty to deactivate this feature.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] string
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] string
When using auth_type = 'config', this is the user/password-pair which phpMyAdmin will use to connect to the MySQL server. This user/password pair is not needed when HTTP or cookie authentication is used and should be empty.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['nopassword'] boolean
Allow attempt to log in without password when a login with password fails. This can be used together with http authentication, when authentication is done some other way and phpMyAdmin gets user name from auth and uses empty password for connecting to MySQL. Password login is still tried first, but as fallback, no password method is tried.
$cfg['Servers'][$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 wildcards characters ("_" and "%"): if you want to use literal instances of these characters, escape them (I.E. use 'my\_db' and not 'my_db').
This setting is an efficient way to lower the server load 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 that all other databases can't be used.

An example of using more that one database: $cfg['Servers'][$i]['only_db'] = array('db1', 'db2');

As of phpMyAdmin 2.5.5 the order inside the array is used for sorting the databases in the left frame, so that you can individually arrange your databases.
If you want to have certain databases at the top, but don't care about the others, you do not need to specify all other databases. Use: $cfg['Servers'][$i]['only_db'] = array('db3', 'db4', '*'); instead to tell phpMyAdmin that it should display db3 and db4 on top, and the rest in alphabetic order.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['hide_db'] string
Regular expression for hiding some databases. This only hides them from listing, but a user is still able to access them (using, for example, the SQL query area). To limit access, use the MySQL privilege system.

For example, to hide all databases starting with the letter "a", use
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['hide_db'] = '^a';
and to hide both "db1" and "db2" use 
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['hide_db'] = '(db1|db2)';
More information on regular expressions can be found in the PCRE pattern syntax portion of the PHP reference manual.
$cfg['Servers'][$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 pull-down menu on the main page. This can be useful if you want to show only certain databases on your system, for example. For HTTP auth, all non-US-ASCII characters will be stripped.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] string
The name of the database containing the linked-tables infrastructure.

See the Linked-tables infrastructure section in this document to see the benefits of this infrastructure, and for a quick way of creating this database and the needed tables.

If you are the only user of this phpMyAdmin installation, you can use your current database to store those special tables; in this case, just put your current database name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb']. For a multi-user installation, set this parameter to the name of your central database containing the linked-tables infrastructure.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] string
Since release 2.2.0 phpMyAdmin allows users to bookmark queries. This can be useful for queries you often run.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • enter the table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable']
$cfg['Servers'][$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
  • make clickable, when you browse the master table, the data values that point to the foreign table;
  • display in an optional tool-tip the "display field" when browsing the master table, if you move the mouse to a column containing a foreign key (use also the 'table_info' table);
    (see FAQ 6.7)
  • in edit/insert mode, display a drop-down list of possible foreign keys (key value and "display field" are shown)
    (see FAQ 6.21)
  • display links on the table properties page, to check referential integrity (display missing foreign keys) for each described key;
  • in query-by-example, create automatic joins (see FAQ 6.6)
  • enable you to get a PDF schema of your database (also uses the table_coords table).
The keys can be numeric or character.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the relation table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation']
  • now as normal user open phpMyAdmin and for each one of your tables where you want to use this feature, click "Structure/Relation view/" and choose foreign fields.
Please note that in the current version, master_db must be the same as foreign_db. Those fields have been put in 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 tool-tip 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:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info']
  • then for each table where you want to use this feature, click "Structure/Relation view/Choose field to display" to choose the field.
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).

You must be using the "relation" feature.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the correct table names in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] and $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages']
Usage tips: PDF output.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info'] 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".

Starting with release 2.5.0, comments are consequently used on the table property pages and table browse view, showing up as tool-tips above the column name (properties page) or embedded within the header of table in browse view. They can also be shown in a table dump. Please see the relevant configuration directives later on.

Also new in release 2.5.0 is a MIME-transformation system which is also based on the following table structure. See Transformations for further information. To use the MIME-transformation system, your column_info table has to have the three new fields 'mimetype', 'transformation', 'transformation_options'.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info']
  • to update your PRE-2.5.0 Column_comments Table use this: 
    ALTER TABLE `pma_column_comments`
    ADD `mimetype` VARCHAR( 255 ) NOT NULL,
    ADD `transformation` VARCHAR( 255 ) NOT NULL,
    ADD `transformation_options` VARCHAR( 255 ) NOT NULL;
    and remember that the Variable in config.inc.php has been renamed from
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_comments'] to $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info']
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] string
Since release 2.5.0 you can store your SQL history, which means all queries you entered manually into the phpMyAdmin interface. If you don't want to use a table-based history, you can use the JavaScript-based history. Using that, all your history items are deleted when closing the window.

Using $cfg['QueryHistoryMax'] you can specify an amount of history items you want to have on hold. On every login, this list gets cut to the maximum amount.

The query history is only available if JavaScript is enabled in your browser.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['history']
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking'] string
Since release 3.3.x a tracking mechanism is available. It helps you to track every SQL command which is executed by phpMyAdmin. The mechanism supports logging of data manipulation and data definition statements. After enabling it you can create versions of tables.

The creation of a version has two effects:
  • phpMyAdmin saves a snapshot of the table, including structure and indexes.
  • phpMyAdmin logs all commands which change the structure and/or data of the table and links these commands with the version number.
Of course you can view the tracked changes. On the "Tracking" page a complete report is available for every version. For the report you can use filters, for example you can get a list of statements within a date range. When you want to filter usernames you can enter * for all names or you enter a list of names separated by ','. In addition you can export the (filtered) report to a file or to a temporary database.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking']
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking_version_auto_create'] boolean
Whether the tracking mechanism creates versions for tables and views automatically. Default value is false.

If this is set to true and you create a table or view with
  • CREATE TABLE ...
  • CREATE VIEW ...
and no version exists for it, the mechanism will create a version for you automatically.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking_default_statements'] string
Defines the list of statements the auto-creation uses for new versions. Default value is 
CREATE TABLE,ALTER TABLE,DROP TABLE,RENAME TABLE,
CREATE INDEX,DROP INDEX,
INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,TRUNCATE,REPLACE,
CREATE VIEW,ALTER VIEW,DROP VIEW,
CREATE DATABASE,ALTER DATABASE,DROP DATABASE
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking_version_drop_view'] boolean
Whether a DROP VIEW IF EXISTS statement will be added as first line to the log when creating a view. Default value is true.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking_version_drop_table'] boolean
Whether a DROP TABLE IF EXISTS statement will be added as first line to the log when creating a table. Default value is true.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking_version_drop_database'] boolean
Whether a DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS statement will be added as first line to the log when creating a database. Default value is true.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords'] string
Since release 2.10.0 a Designer interface is available; it permits to visually manage the relations.

To allow the usage of this functionality:
  • set up pmadb and the linked-tables infrastructure
  • put the table name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords']
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose_check'] boolean
Because release 2.5.0 introduced the new MIME-transformation support, the column_info table got enhanced with three new fields. If the above variable is set to TRUE (default) phpMyAdmin will check if you have the latest table structure available. If not, it will emit a warning to the superuser.

You can disable this checking behavior by setting the variable to false, which should offer a performance increase.

Recommended to set to FALSE, when you are sure, your table structure is up to date.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowRoot'] boolean
Whether to allow root access. This is just a shortcut for the AllowDeny rules below.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPassword'] boolean
Whether to allow logins without a password. The default value of false for this parameter prevents unintended access to a MySQL server with was left with an empty password for root or on which an anonymous (blank) user is defined.
$cfg['Servers'][$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.

Please also see $cfg['TrustedProxies'] for detecting IP address behind proxies.
$cfg['Servers'][$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 (please note that those containing SERVER_ADDRESS might not be available on all webservers): 
'all' -> 0.0.0.0/0
'localhost' -> 127.0.0.1/8
'localnetA' -> SERVER_ADDRESS/8
'localnetB' -> SERVER_ADDRESS/16
'localnetC' -> SERVER_ADDRESS/24
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)
Also IPv6 addresses are not supported.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['DisableIS'] boolean
Disable using INFORMATION_SCHEMA to retrieve information (use SHOW commands instead), because of speed issues when many databases are present. Currently used in some parts of the code, more to come.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['ShowDatabasesCommand'] string
On a server with a huge number of databases, the default SHOW DATABASES command used to fetch the name of available databases will probably be too slow, so it can be replaced by faster commands (see libraries/config.default.php for examples).
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['CountTables'] boolean
Whether to count the number of tables for each database when preparing the list of databases for the navigation frame.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['SignonSession'] string
Name of session which will be used for signon authentication method.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['SignonURL'] string
URL where user will be redirected to log in for signon authentication method. Should be absolute including protocol.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['LogoutURL'] string
URL where user will be redirected after logout (doesn't affect config authentication method). Should be absolute including protocol.
$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['MaxDbList'] integer
The maximum number of database names to be displayed in the navigation frame and the database list.
$cfg['MaxTableList'] integer
The maximum number of table names to be displayed in the main panel's list (except on the Export page). This limit is also enforced in the navigation panel when in Light mode.
$cfg['MaxCharactersInDisplayedSQL'] integer
The maximum number of characters when a SQL query is displayed. The default limit of 1000 should be correct to avoid the display of tons of hexadecimal codes that represent BLOBs, but some users have real SQL queries that are longer than 1000 characters. Also, if a query's length exceeds this limit, this query is not saved in the history.
$cfg['OBGzip'] string/boolean
Defines whether to use GZip output buffering for increased speed in HTTP transfers.
Set to true/false for enabling/disabling. When set to 'auto' (string), phpMyAdmin tries to enable output buffering and will automatically disable it if your browser has some problems with buffering. IE6 with a certain patch is known to cause data corruption when having enabled buffering.
$cfg['PersistentConnections'] boolean
Whether persistent connections should be used or not (mysql_connect or mysql_pconnect).
$cfg['ForceSSL'] boolean
Whether to force using https while accessing phpMyAdmin.
$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 and in the Synchronize feature but has no effect when PHP is running in safe mode.
$cfg['MemoryLimit'] integer [number of bytes]
Set the number of bytes a script is allowed to allocate. If set to zero, no limit is imposed.
This setting is used while importing/exporting dump files and at some other places in phpMyAdmin so you definitely don't want to put here a too low value. It has no effect when PHP is running in safe mode.
You can also use any string as in php.ini, eg. '16M'. Ensure you don't omit the suffix (16 means 16 bytes!)
$cfg['SkipLockedTables'] boolean
Mark used tables and make it possible to show databases with locked tables (since MySQL 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.
Please note that this limitation of SQL queries is not as strict as when using MySQL privileges. This is due to nature of SQL queries which might be quite complicated. So this choice should be viewed as help to avoid accidental dropping rather than strict privilege limitation.
$cfg['Confirm'] boolean
Whether a warning ("Are your really sure...") should be displayed when you're about to lose data.
$cfg['LoginCookieRecall'] boolean
Define whether the previous login should be recalled or not in cookie authentication mode.

This is automatically disabled if you do not have configured $cfg['blowfish_secret'].
$cfg['LoginCookieValidity'] integer [number of seconds]
Define how long is login cookie valid. Please note that php configuration option session.gc_maxlifetime might limit session validity and if session is lost, login cookie is also invalidated. So it is good idea to set session.gc_maxlifetime at least as high is $cfg['LoginCookieValidity'] is set.
$cfg['LoginCookieStore'] integer [number of seconds]
Define how long is login cookie should be stored in browser. Default 0 means that it will be kept for existing session. This is recommended for not trusted environments.
$cfg['LoginCookieDeleteAll'] boolean
If enabled (default), logout deletes cookies for all servers, otherwise only for current one. Setting this to false makes it easy to forget to log out from other server, when you are using more of them.
$cfg['UseDbSearch'] boolean
Define whether the "search string inside database" is enabled or not.
$cfg['IgnoreMultiSubmitErrors'] boolean
Define whether phpMyAdmin will continue executing a multi-query statement if one of the queries fails. Default is to abort execution.
$cfg['VerboseMultiSubmit'] boolean
Define whether phpMyAdmin will output the results of each query of a multi-query statement embedded into the SQL output as inline comments. Defaults to TRUE.
$cfg['AllowArbitraryServer'] boolean
If enabled allows you to log in to arbitrary servers using cookie auth.

NOTE: Please use this carefully, as this may allow users access to MySQL servers behind the firewall where your HTTP server is placed.
$cfg['Error_Handler']['display'] boolean
Whether to display errors from PHP or not.
$cfg['Error_Handler']['gather'] boolean
Whether to gather errors from PHP or not.
$cfg['LeftFrameLight'] boolean
Defines whether to use a select-based menu and display only the current tables in the left frame (smaller page). Only in Non-Lightmode you can use the feature to display nested folders using $cfg['LeftFrameTableSeparator']
$cfg['LeftFrameDBTree'] boolean
In light mode, defines whether to display the names of databases (in the selector) using a tree, see also $cfg['LeftFrameDBSeparator'].
$cfg['LeftFrameDBSeparator'] string or array
The string used to separate the parts of the database name when showing them in a tree. Alternatively you can specify more strings in an array and all of them will be used as a separator.
$cfg['LeftFrameTableSeparator'] string
Defines a string to be used to nest table spaces. Defaults to '__'. This means if you have tables like 'first__second__third' this will be shown as a three-level hierarchy like: first > second > third. If set to FALSE or empty, the feature is disabled. NOTE: You should not use this separator at the beginning or end of a table name or multiple times after another without any other characters in between.
$cfg['LeftFrameTableLevel'] string
Defines how many sublevels should be displayed when splitting up tables by the above separator.
$cfg['ShowTooltip'] boolean
Defines whether to display table comment as tool-tip in left frame or not.
$cfg['ShowTooltipAliasDB'] boolean
If tool-tips are enabled and a DB comment is set, this will flip the comment and the real name. That means that if you have a table called 'user0001' and add the comment 'MyName' on it, you will see the name 'MyName' used consequently in the left frame and the tool-tip shows the real name of the DB.
$cfg['ShowTooltipAliasTB'] boolean/string
Same as $cfg['ShowTooltipAliasDB'], except this works for table names. When setting this to 'nested', the Alias of the Tablename is only used to split/nest the tables according to the $cfg['LeftFrameTableSeparator'] directive. So only the folder is called like the Alias, the tablename itself stays the real tablename.
Defines whether or not to display the phpMyAdmin logo at the top of the left frame. Defaults to TRUE.
Enter URL where logo in the navigation frame will point to. For use especially with self made theme which changes this. The default value for this is main.php.
$cfg['LeftLogoLinkWindow'] string
Whether to open the linked page in the main window (main) or in a new one (new). Note: use new if you are linking to phpmyadmin.net.
$cfg['LeftDisplayServers'] boolean
Defines whether or not to display a server choice at the top of the left frame. Defaults to FALSE.
$cfg['DisplayServersList'] boolean
Defines whether to display this server choice as links instead of in a drop-down. Defaults to FALSE (drop-down).
$cfg['DisplayDatabasesList'] boolean or text
Defines whether to display database choice in light navigation frame as links instead of in a drop-down. Defaults to 'auto' - on main page list is shown, when database is selected, only drop down is displayed.
$cfg['LeftDefaultTabTable'] string
Defines the tab displayed by default when clicking the small icon next to each table name in the navigation panel. Possible values: "tbl_structure.php", "tbl_sql.php", "tbl_select.php", "tbl_change.php" or "sql.php".
$cfg['ShowStats'] boolean
Defines whether or not to display space usage and statistics about databases and tables.
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['ShowServerInfo'] boolean
Defines whether to display detailed server information on main page. You can additionally hide more information by using $cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose'].
$cfg['ShowPhpInfo'] boolean
$cfg['ShowChgPassword'] boolean
$cfg['ShowCreateDb'] boolean
Defines whether to display the "PHP information" and "Change password " links and form for creating database or not 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['NavigationBarIconic'] string
Defines whether navigation bar buttons and the right panel top menu contain text or symbols only. A value of TRUE displays icons, FALSE displays text and 'both' displays both icons and text.
$cfg['ShowAll'] boolean
Defines whether a user should be displayed a "show all (records)" button in browse mode or not.
$cfg['MaxRows'] integer
Number of rows displayed when browsing a result set. If the result set contains more rows, "Previous" and "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 - I.E. descending order for fields of type TIME, DATE, DATETIME and TIMESTAMP, ascending order else- by default.
$cfg['DisplayBinaryAsHex'] boolean
Defines whether the "Show binary contents as HEX" browse option is ticked by default.
$cfg['ProtectBinary'] boolean or string
Defines whether BLOB or BINARY fields are protected from editing when browsing a table's content. Valid values are:
  • FALSE to allow editing of all fields;
  • 'blob' to allow editing of all fields except BLOBS;
  • 'all' to disallow editing of all BINARY or BLOB fields.
$cfg['ShowFunctionFields'] boolean
Defines whether or not MySQL functions fields should be initially displayed in edit/insert mode. Since version 2.10, the user can toggle this setting from the interface.
$cfg['CharEditing'] string
Defines which type of editing controls should be used for CHAR and VARCHAR fields. Possible values are:
  • input - this allows to limit size of text to size of field in MySQL, but has problems with newlines in fields
  • textarea - no problems with newlines in fields, but also no length limitations
Default is old behavior so input.
$cfg['InsertRows'] integer
Defines the maximum number of concurrent entries for the Insert page.
$cfg['ForeignKeyMaxLimit'] integer
If there are fewer items than this in the set of foreign keys, then a drop-down box of foreign keys is presented, in the style described by the $cfg['ForeignKeyDropdownOrder'] setting.
$cfg['ForeignKeyDropdownOrder'] array
For the foreign key drop-down fields, there are several methods of display, offering both the key and value data. The contents of the array should be one or both of the following strings: 'content-id', 'id-content'.
$cfg['ZipDump'] boolean
$cfg['GZipDump'] boolean
$cfg['BZipDump'] boolean
Defines whether to allow the use of zip/GZip/BZip2 compression when creating a dump file
$cfg['CompressOnFly'] boolean
Defines whether to allow on the fly compression for GZip/BZip2 compressed exports. This doesn't affect smaller dumps and allows users to create larger dumps that won't otherwise fit in memory due to php memory limit. Produced files contain more GZip/BZip2 headers, but all normal programs handle this correctly.
$cfg['LightTabs'] boolean
If set to TRUE, use less graphically intense tabs on the top of the mainframe.
$cfg['PropertiesIconic'] string
If set to TRUE, will display icons instead of text for db and table properties links (like 'Browse', 'Select', 'Insert', ...).
Can be set to 'both' if you want icons AND text.
When set to FALSE, will only show text.
$cfg['PropertiesNumColumns'] integer
How many columns will be utilized to display the tables on the database property view? Default is 1 column. When setting this to a value larger than 1, the type of the database will be omitted for more display space.
$cfg['DefaultTabServer'] string
Defines the tab displayed by default on server view. Possible values: "main.php" (recommended for multi-user setups), "server_databases.php", "server_status.php", "server_variables.php", "server_privileges.php" or "server_processlist.php".
$cfg['DefaultTabDatabase'] string
Defines the tab displayed by default on database view. Possible values: "db_structure.php", "db_sql.php" or "db_search.php".
$cfg['DefaultTabTable'] string
Defines the tab displayed by default on table view. Possible values: "tbl_structure.php", "tbl_sql.php", "tbl_select.php", "tbl_change.php" or "sql.php".
$cfg['MySQLManualBase'] string
If set to an URL which points to the MySQL documentation (type depends on $cfg['MySQLManualType']), appropriate help links are generated.
See MySQL Documentation page for more information about MySQL manuals and their types.
$cfg['MySQLManualType'] string
Type of MySQL documentation:
  • viewable - "viewable online", current one used on MySQL website
  • searchable - "Searchable, with user comments"
  • chapters - "HTML, one page per chapter"
  • big - "HTML, all on one page"
  • none - do not show documentation links
$cfg['DefaultLang'] string
Defines the default language to use, if not browser-defined or user-defined.
See the select_lang.lib.php script to know the valid values for this setting.
$cfg['DefaultConnectionCollation'] string
Defines the default connection collation to use, if not user-defined.
See the MySQL documentation for list of possible values.
$cfg['Lang'] string
Force: always use this language (must be defined in the select_lang.lib.php script).
$cfg['FilterLanguages'] string
Limit list of available languages to those matching the given regular expression. For example if you want only Czech and English, you should set filter to '^(cs|en)'.
$cfg['DefaultCharset'] string
Default character set to use for recoding of MySQL queries. This must be enabled and it's described by $cfg['AllowAnywhereRecoding'] option.
You can give here any character set which is in $cfg['AvailableCharsets'] array and this is just default choice, user can select any of them.
$cfg['AllowAnywhereRecoding'] boolean
Allow character set 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).

Setting this to TRUE also activates a pull-down menu in the Export and Import pages, to choose the character set when exporting a file. The default value in this menu comes from $cfg['Export']['charset'] and $cfg['Import']['charset'].
$cfg['RecodingEngine'] string
You can select here which functions will be used for character set conversion. Possible values are:
  • auto - automatically use available one (first is tested iconv, then recode)
  • iconv - use iconv or libiconv functions
  • recode - use recode_string function
Default is auto.
$cfg['IconvExtraParams'] string
Specify some parameters for iconv used in charset conversion. See iconv documentation for details. By default //TRANSLIT is used, so that invalid characters will be transliterated.
$cfg['AvailableCharsets'] array
Available character sets for MySQL conversion. You can add your own (any of supported by recode/iconv) or remove these which you don't use. Character sets will be shown in same order as here listed, so if you frequently use some of these move them to the top.
$cfg['TrustedProxies'] array
Lists proxies and HTTP headers which are trusted for IP Allow/Deny. This list is by default empty, you need to fill in some trusted proxy servers if you want to use rules for IP addresses behind proxy.

The following example specifies that phpMyAdmin should trust a HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR (X-Forwarded-For) header coming from the proxy 1.2.3.4: 
$cfg['TrustedProxies'] =
     array('1.2.3.4' => 'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR');
The $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['rules'] directive uses the client's IP address as usual.
$cfg['GD2Available'] string
Specifies whether GD >= 2 is available. If yes it can be used for MIME transformations.
Possible values are:
  • auto - automatically detect, this is a bit expensive operation for php < 4.3.0 so it is preferred to change this according to your server real possibilities
  • yes - GD 2 functions can be used
  • no - GD 2 function cannot be used
Default is auto.
$cfg['CheckConfigurationPermissions'] boolean
We normally check the permissions on the configuration file to ensure it's not world writable. However, phpMyAdmin could be installed on a NTFS filesystem mounted on a non-Windows server, in which case the permissions seems wrong but in fact cannot be detected. In this case a sysadmin would set this parameter to FALSE. Default is TRUE.
$cfg['LinkLengthLimit'] integer
Limit for length of URL in links. When length would be above this limit, it is replaced by form with button. This is required as some web servers (IIS) have problems with long URLs. Default is 1000.
$cfg['NaviWidth'] integer
Navi frame width in pixels. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['NaviBackground'] string [valid css code for background]
$cfg['MainBackground'] string [valid css code for background]
The background styles used for both the frames. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['NaviPointerBackground'] string [valid css code for background]
$cfg['NaviPointerColor'] string [valid css color]
The style used for the pointer in the navi frame. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['NaviDatabaseNameColor'] string [valid css code]
The color used for the database name in the navi frame. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['LeftPointerEnable'] boolean
A value of TRUE activates the navi pointer (when LeftFrameLight is FALSE).
$cfg['Border'] integer
The size of a table's border. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['ThBackground'] string [valid css code for background]
$cfg['ThColor'] string [valid css color]
The style used for table headers. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['BgOne'] string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) #1 for table rows. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['BgTwo'] string [HTML color]
The color (HTML) #2 for table rows. See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['BrowsePointerBackground'] string [HTML color]
$cfg['BrowsePointerColor'] string [HTML color]
$cfg['BrowseMarkerBackground'] string [HTML color]
$cfg['BrowseMarkerColor'] string [HTML color]
The colors (HTML) uses for the pointer and the marker in browse mode.
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.
See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['FontFamily'] string
You put here a valid CSS font family value, for example arial, sans-serif.
See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['FontFamilyFixed'] string
You put here a valid CSS font family value, for example monospace. This one is used in textarea.
See themes/themename/layout.inc.php.
$cfg['BrowsePointerEnable'] boolean
Whether to activate the browse pointer or not.
$cfg['BrowseMarkerEnable'] boolean
Whether to activate the browse marker or not.
$cfg['TextareaCols'] integer
$cfg['TextareaRows'] integer
$cfg['CharTextareaCols'] integer
$cfg['CharTextareaRows'] integer
Number of columns and rows for the textareas.
This value will be emphasized (*2) for SQL query textareas and (*1.25) for SQL textareas inside the query window.
The Char* values are used for CHAR and VARCHAR editing (if configured via $cfg['CharEditing']).
$cfg['LongtextDoubleTextarea'] boolean
Defines whether textarea for LONGTEXT fields should have double size.
$cfg['TextareaAutoSelect'] boolean
Defines if the whole textarea of the query box will be selected on click.
$cfg['CtrlArrowsMoving'] boolean
Enable Ctrl+Arrows (Option+Arrows in Safari) moving between fields when editing.
$cfg['LimitChars'] integer
Maximum number of characters showen in any non-numeric 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 $cfg['HeaderFlipType'] string
There are 3 display modes: horizontal, horizontalflipped and vertical. Define which one is displayed by default. The first mode displays each row on a horizontal line, the second rotates the headers by 90 degrees, so you can use descriptive headers even though fields only contain small values and still print them out. The vertical mode sorts each row on a vertical lineup.

The HeaderFlipType can be set to 'css' or 'fake'. When using 'css' the rotation of the header for horizontalflipped is done via CSS. If set to 'fake' PHP does the transformation for you, but of course this does not look as good as CSS.
$cfg['DefaultPropDisplay'] string or integer
When editing/creating new columns in a table all fields normally get lined up one field a line. (default: 'horizontal'). If you set this to 'vertical' you can have each field lined up vertically beneath each other. You can save up a lot of place on the horizontal direction and no longer have to scroll. If you set this to integer, editing of fewer columns will appear in 'vertical' mode, while editing of more fields still in 'horizontal' mode. This way you can still effectively edit large number of fields, while having full view on few of them.
$cfg['ShowBrowseComments'] boolean
$cfg['ShowPropertyComments'] boolean
By setting the corresponding variable to TRUE you can enable the display of column comments in Browse or Property display. In browse mode, the comments are shown inside the header. In property mode, comments are displayed using a CSS-formatted dashed-line below the name of the field. The comment is shown as a tool-tip for that field.
$cfg['SQLQuery']['Edit'] boolean
Whether to display an edit link to change a query in any SQL Query box.
$cfg['SQLQuery']['Explain'] boolean
Whether to display a link to explain a SELECT query in any SQL Query box.
$cfg['SQLQuery']['ShowAsPHP'] boolean
Whether to display a link to wrap a query in PHP code in any SQL Query box.
$cfg['SQLQuery']['Validate'] boolean
Whether to display a link to validate a query in any SQL Query box. See also $cfg_SQLValidator.
$cfg['SQLQuery']['Refresh'] boolean
Whether to display a link to refresh a query in any SQL Query box.
$cfg['UploadDir'] string
The name of the directory where SQL files have been uploaded by other means than phpMyAdmin (for example, ftp). Those files are available under a drop-down box when you click the database or table name, then the Import tab.

If you want different directory for each user, %u will be replaced with username.

Please note that the file names must have the suffix ".sql" (or ".sql.bz2" or ".sql.gz" if support for compressed formats is enabled).

This feature is useful when your file is too big to be uploaded via HTTP, or when file uploads are disabled in PHP.

Please note that if PHP is running in safe mode, this directory must be owned by the same user as the owner of the phpMyAdmin scripts.

See also FAQ 1.16 for alternatives.
$cfg['SaveDir'] string
The name of the directory where dumps can be saved.

If you want different directory for each user, %u will be replaced with username.

Please note that the directory must exist and has to be writable for the user running webserver.

Please note that if PHP is running in safe mode, this directory must be owned by the same user as the owner of the phpMyAdmin scripts.
$cfg['TempDir'] string
The name of the directory where temporary files can be stored.

This is needed for native MS Excel export, see FAQ 6.23 and to work around limitations of open_basedir for uploaded files, see FAQ 1.11.

If the directory where phpMyAdmin is installed is subject to an open_basedir restriction, you need to create a temporary directory in some directory accessible by the web server. However for security reasons, this directory should be outside the tree published by webserver. If you cannot avoid having this directory published by webserver, place at least an empty index.html file there, so that directory listing is not possible.

This directory should have as strict permissions as possible as the only user required to access this directory is the one who runs the webserver. If you have root privileges, simply make this user owner of this directory and make it accessible only by it: 

chown www-data:www-data tmp
chmod 700 tmp
If you cannot change owner of the directory, you can achieve a similar setup using ACL: 
chmod 700 tmp
setfacl -m "g:www-data:rwx" tmp
setfacl -d -m "g:www-data:rwx" tmp
If neither of above works for you, you can still make the directory chmod 777, but it might impose risk of other users on system reading and writing data in this directory.
$cfg['Export'] array
In this array are defined default parameters for export, names of items are similar to texts seen on export page, so you can easily identify what they mean.
$cfg['Import'] array
In this array are defined default parameters for import, names of items are similar to texts seen on import page, so you can easily identify what they mean.
$cfg['RepeatCells'] integer
Repeat the headers every X cells, or 0 to deactivate.
$cfg['EditInWindow'] boolean
$cfg['QueryWindowWidth'] integer
$cfg['QueryWindowHeight'] integer
$cfg['QueryHistoryDB'] boolean
$cfg['QueryWindowDefTab'] string
$cfg['QueryHistoryMax'] integer
All those variables affect the query window feature. A SQL link or icon is always displayed on the left panel. If JavaScript is enabled in your browser, a click on this opens a distinct query window, which is a direct interface to enter SQL queries. Otherwise, the right panel changes to display a query box.

The size of this query window can be customized with $cfg['QueryWindowWidth'] and $cfg['QueryWindowHeight'] - both integers for the size in pixels. Note that normally, those parameters will be modified in layout.inc.php for the theme you are using.

If $cfg['EditInWindow'] is set to true, a click on [Edit] from the results page (in the "Showing Rows" section) opens the query window and puts the current query inside it. If set to false, clicking on the link puts the SQL query in the right panel's query box.

The usage of the JavaScript query window is recommended if you have a JavaScript enabled browser. Basic functions are used to exchange quite a few variables, so most 4th generation browsers should be capable to use that feature. It currently is only tested with Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla 1.x.

If $cfg['QueryHistoryDB'] is set to TRUE, all your Queries are logged to a table, which has to be created by you (see $cfg['Servers'][$i]['history']). If set to FALSE, all your queries will be appended to the form, but only as long as your window is opened they remain saved.

When using the JavaScript based query window, it will always get updated when you click on a new table/db to browse and will focus if you click on "Edit SQL" after using a query. You can suppress updating the query window by checking the box "Do not overwrite this query from outside the window" below the query textarea. Then you can browse tables/databases in the background without losing the contents of the textarea, so this is especially useful when composing a query with tables you first have to look in. The checkbox will get automatically checked whenever you change the contents of the textarea. Please uncheck the button whenever you definitely want the query window to get updated even though you have made alterations.

If $cfg['QueryHistoryDB'] is set to TRUE you can specify the amount of saved history items using $cfg['QueryHistoryMax'].

The query window also has a custom tabbed look to group the features. Using the variable $cfg['QueryWindowDefTab'] you can specify the default tab to be used when opening the query window. It can be set to either 'sql', 'files', 'history' or 'full'.
$cfg['BrowseMIME'] boolean
Enable MIME-transformations.
$cfg['MaxExactCount'] integer
For InnoDB tables, determines for how large tables phpMyAdmin should get the exact row count using SELECT COUNT. If the approximate row count as returned by SHOW TABLE STATUS is smaller than this value, SELECT COUNT will be used, otherwise the approximate count will be used.
$cfg['MaxExactCountViews'] integer
For VIEWs, since obtaining the exact count could have an impact on performance, this value is the maximum to be displayed, using a SELECT COUNT ... LIMIT. The default value of 0 bypasses any row counting.
$cfg['WYSIWYG-PDF'] boolean
Utilizes a WYSIWYG editing control to easily place elements of a PDF page. By clicking on the button 'toggle scratchboard' on the page where you edit x/y coordinates of those elements you can activate a scratchboard where all your elements are placed. By clicking on an element, you can move them around in the pre-defined area and the x/y coordinates will get updated dynamically. Likewise, when entering a new position directly into the input field, the new position in the scratchboard changes after your cursor leaves the input field.
You have to click on the 'OK'-button below the tables to save the new positions. If you want to place a new element, first add it to the table of elements and then you can drag the new element around.
By changing the paper size and the orientation you can change the size of the scratchboard as well. You can do so by just changing the dropdown field below, and the scratchboard will resize automatically, without interfering with the current placement of the elements.
If ever an element gets out of range you can either enlarge the paper size or click on the 'reset' button to place all elements below each other.
NOTE: You have to use a recent browser like IE6 or Mozilla to get this control to work. The basic Drag&Drop script functionality was kindly borrowed from www.youngpup.net and is underlying so specific license.
$cfg['NaturalOrder'] boolean
Sorts database and table names according to natural order (for example, t1, t2, t10). Currently implemented in the left panel (Light mode) and in Database view, for the table list.
$cfg['InitialSlidersState'] string
If set to 'closed', the visual sliders are initially in a closed state. A value of 'open' does the reverse. To completely disable all visual sliders, use 'disabled'.
$cfg['TitleTable'] string
$cfg['TitleDatabase'] string
$cfg['TitleServer'] string
$cfg['TitleDefault'] string
Allows you to specify window's title bar. Following magic string can be used to get special values:
@HTTP_HOST@
HTTP host that runs phpMyAdmin
@SERVER@
MySQL server name
@VERBOSE@
Verbose MySQL server name as defined in server configuration
@VSERVER@
Verbose MySQL server name if set, otherwise normal
@DATABASE@
Currently opened database
@TABLE@
Currently opened table
@PHPMYADMIN@
phpMyAdmin with version
$cfg['ErrorIconic'] boolean
Uses icons for warnings, errors and informations.
$cfg['MainPageIconic'] boolean
Uses icons on main page in lists and menu tabs.
$cfg['ReplaceHelpImg'] boolean
Shows a help button instead of the "Documentation" message.
$cfg['ThemePath'] string
If theme manager is active, use this as the path of the subdirectory containing all the themes.
$cfg['ThemeManager'] boolean
Enables user-selectable themes. See FAQ 2.7.
$cfg['ThemeDefault'] string
The default theme (a subdirectory under cfg['ThemePath']).
$cfg['ThemePerServer'] boolean
Whether to allow different theme for each server.
$cfg['DefaultQueryTable'] string
$cfg['DefaultQueryDatabase'] string
Default queries that will be displayed in query boxes when user didn't specify any. Use %d for database name, %t for table name and %f for a comma separated list of field names. Note that %t and %f are only applicable to $cfg['DefaultQueryTable'].
$cfg['SQP']['fmtType'] string [html|none]
The main use of the new SQL Parser is to pretty-print SQL queries. By default we use HTML to format the query, but you can disable this by setting this variable to 'none'.
$cfg['SQP']['fmtInd'] float
$cfg['SQP']['fmtIndUnit'] string [em|px|pt|ex]
For the pretty-printing of SQL queries, under some cases the part of a query inside a bracket is indented. By changing $cfg['SQP']['fmtInd'] you can change the amount of this indent.
Related in purpose is $cfg['SQP']['fmtIndUnit'] which specifies the units of the indent amount that you specified. This is used via stylesheets.
$cfg['SQP']['fmtColor'] array of string tuples
This array is used to define the colours for each type of element of the pretty-printed SQL queries. The tuple format is
class => [HTML colour code | empty string]
If you specify an empty string for the color of a class, it is ignored in creating the stylesheet. You should not alter the class names, only the colour strings.
Class name key:
  • comment Applies to all comment sub-classes
  • comment_mysql Comments as "#...\n"
  • comment_ansi Comments as "-- ...\n"
  • comment_c Comments as "/*...*/"
  • digit Applies to all digit sub-classes
  • digit_hex Hexadecimal numbers
  • digit_integer Integer numbers
  • digit_float Floating point numbers
  • punct Applies to all punctuation sub-classes
  • punct_bracket_open_round Opening brackets"("
  • punct_bracket_close_round Closing brackets ")"
  • punct_listsep List item Separator ","
  • punct_qualifier Table/Column Qualifier "."
  • punct_queryend End of query marker ";"
  • alpha Applies to all alphabetic classes
  • alpha_columnType Identifiers matching a column type
  • alpha_columnAttrib Identifiers matching a database/table/column attribute
  • alpha_functionName Identifiers matching a MySQL function name
  • alpha_reservedWord Identifiers matching any other reserved word
  • alpha_variable Identifiers matching a SQL variable "@foo"
  • alpha_identifier All other identifiers
  • quote Applies to all quotation mark classes
  • quote_double Double quotes "
  • quote_single Single quotes '
  • quote_backtick Backtick quotes `
$cfg['SQLValidator'] boolean
$cfg['SQLValidator']['use'] boolean
phpMyAdmin now supports use of the Mimer SQL Validator service, as originally published on Slashdot.
For help in setting up your system to use the service, see the FAQ 6.14.
$cfg['SQLValidator']['username'] string
$cfg['SQLValidator']['password'] string
The SOAP service allows you to log in with anonymous and any password, so we use those by default. Instead, if you have an account with them, you can put your login details here, and it will be used in place of the anonymous login.
$cfg['DBG']
DEVELOPERS ONLY!
$cfg['DBG']['sql'] boolean
DEVELOPERS ONLY!
Enable logging queries and execution times to be displayed in the bottom of main page (right frame).
$cfg['DBG']['php'] boolean
DEVELOPERS ONLY!
Enable the DBG extension for debugging phpMyAdmin. Required for profiling the code.
For help in setting up your system to this, see the Developers section.
$cfg['DBG']['profile']['enable'] boolean
DEVELOPERS ONLY!
Enable profiling support for phpMyAdmin. This will append a chunk of data to the end of every page displayed in the main window with profiling statistics for that page.
You may need to increase the maximum execution time for this to complete successfully.Profiling was removed from the code for version 2.9.0 due to licensing issues.
$cfg['DBG']['profile']['threshold'] float (units in milliseconds)
DEVELOPERS ONLY!
When profiling data is displayed, this variable controls the threshold of display for any profiling data, based on the average time each time has taken. If it is over the threshold it is displayed, otherwise it is not displayed. This takes a value in milliseconds. In most cases you don't need to edit this.
$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['RestrictColumnTypes'] array
Mapping of column types to meta types used for preferring displayed functions. In most cases you don't need to edit this.
$cfg['RestrictFunctions'] array
Functions preferred for column meta types as defined in $cfg['RestrictColumnTypes']. In most cases you don't need to edit this.
$cfg['DefaultFunctions'] array
Functions selected by default when inserting/changing row, Functions are defined for meta types from $cfg['RestrictColumnTypes'] and for first_timestamp, which is used for first timestamp column in table.
$cfg['NumOperators'] array
Operators available for search operations on numeric and date fields.
$cfg['TextOperators'] array
Operators available for search operations on character fields. Note that we put LIKE by default instead of LIKE %...%, to avoid unintended performance problems in case of huge tables.
$cfg['EnumOperators'] array
Operators available for search operations on enum fields.
$cfg['NullOperators'] array
Additional operators available for search operations when the field can be null.

Transformations

  1. Introduction
  2. Usage
  3. File structure

1. Introduction

To enable transformations, you have to setup the column_info table and the proper directives. Please see the Configuration section on how to do so.

You can apply different transformations to the contents of each field. The transformation will take the content of each field and transform it with certain rules defined in the selected transformation.

Say you have a field 'filename' which contains a filename. Normally you would see in phpMyAdmin only this filename. Using transformations you can transform that filename into a HTML link, so you can click inside of the phpMyAdmin structure on the field's link and will see the file displayed in a new browser window. Using transformation options you can also specify strings to append/prepend to a string or the format you want the output stored in.

For a general overview of all available transformations and their options, you can consult your <www.your-host.com>/<your-install-dir>/transformation_overview.php installation.

For a tutorial on how to effectively use transformations, see our Link section on the official phpMyAdmin homepage.

2. Usage

Go to your tbl_structure.php page (i.e. reached through clicking on the 'Structure' link for a table). There click on "Change" (or change icon) and there you will see three new fields at the end of the line. They are called 'MIME-type', 'Browser transformation' and 'Transformation options'.

3. File structure

All mimetypes and their transformations are defined through single files in the directory 'libraries/transformations/'.

They are stored in files to ease up customization and easy adding of new transformations.

Because the user cannot enter own mimetypes, it is kept sure that transformations always work. It makes no sense to apply a transformation to a mimetype, the transform-function doesn't know to handle.

One can, however, use empty mime-types and global transformations which should work for many mimetypes. You can also use transforms on a different mimetype they where built for, but pay attention to option usage as well as what the transformation does to your field.

There is a basic file called 'global.inc.php'. This function can be included by any other transform function and provides some basic functions.

There are 5 possible file names:

  1. A mimetype+subtype transform:

    [mimetype]_[subtype]__[transform].inc.php

    Please not that mimetype and subtype are separated via '_', which shall not be contained in their names. The transform function/filename may contain only characters which cause no problems in the file system as well as the PHP function naming convention.

    The transform function will the be called 'PMA_transform_[mimetype]_[subtype]__[transform]()'.

    Example:

    text_html__formatted.inc.php
    PMA_transform_text_html__formatted()
  2. A mimetype (w/o subtype) transform:

    [mimetype]__[transform].inc.php

    Please note that there are no single '_' characters. The transform function/filename may contain only characters which cause no problems in the file system as well as the PHP function naming convention.

    The transform function will the be called 'PMA_transform_[mimetype]__[transform]()'.

    Example:

    text__formatted.inc.php
    PMA_transform_text__formatted()
  3. A mimetype+subtype without specific transform function

    [mimetype]_[subtype].inc.php

    Please note that there are no '__' characters in the filename. Do not use special characters in the filename causing problems with the file system.

    No transformation function is defined in the file itself.

    Example:

    text_plain.inc.php
    (No function)
  4. A mimetype (w/o subtype) without specific transform function

    [mimetype].inc.php

    Please note that there are no '_' characters in the filename. Do not use special characters in the filename causing problems with the file system.

    No transformation function is defined in the file itself.

    Example:

    text.inc.php
    (No function)
  5. A global transform function with no specific mimetype

    global__[transform].inc.php

    The transform function will the be called 'PMA_transform_global__[transform]()'.

    Example:

    global__formatted
    PMA_transform_global__formatted()

So generally use '_' to split up mimetype and subtype, and '__' to provide a transform function.

All filenames containing no '__' in themselves are not shown as valid transform functions in the dropdown.

Please see the libraries/transformations/TEMPLATE file for adding your own transform function. See the libraries/transformations/TEMPLATE_MIMETYPE for adding a mimetype without a transform function. Also note the introduction of a function description in the language files. For each function a $strTransformation_[filename without .inc.php] has to exist.

You can use the template generator to generate new functions and entries in the language file.

To create a new transform function please see libraries/transformations/template_generator.sh. To create a new, empty mimetype please see libraries/transformations/template_generator_mimetype.sh.

A transform function always gets passed three variables:

  1. $buffer - Contains the text inside of the column. This is the text, you want to transform.
  2. $options - Contains any user-passed options to a transform function as an array.
  3. $meta - Contains an object with field information to your column. The data is drawn from the output of the mysql_fetch_field() function. This means, all object properties described on the manual page are available in this variable and can be used to transform a field accordingly to unsigned/zerofill/not_null/... properties.
    The $meta->mimetype variable contains the original MIME-type of the field (i.e. 'text/plain', 'image/jpeg' etc.)

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Server
  2. Configuration
  3. Known limitations
  4. ISPs, multi-user installations
  5. Browsers or client OS
  6. Using phpMyAdmin
  7. phpMyAdmin project
  8. Security
  9. Synchronization

Please have a look at our Link section on the official phpMyAdmin homepage for in-depth coverage of phpMyAdmin's features and or interface.

Server

1.1 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 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.

1.2 My Apache server crashes when using phpMyAdmin.

You should first try the latest versions of Apache (and possibly MySQL).
See also the FAQ 1.1 entry about PHP bugs with output buffering.
If your server keeps crashing, please ask for help in the various Apache support groups.

1.3 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 known 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.

1.4 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.

1.5 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. Please use instead the cookie authentication mode.

1.6 I can't use phpMyAdmin on PWS: nothing is displayed!

This seems to be a PWS bug. Filippo Simoncini found a workaround (at this time there is no better fix): remove or comment the DOCTYPE declarations (2 lines) from the scripts libraries/header.inc.php, libraries/header_printview.inc.php, index.php, navigation.php and libraries/common.lib.php.

1.7 How can I GZip or Bzip a dump or a CSV export? It does not seem to 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.

1.8 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:

1.9 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!

1.10 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 Internet Explorer and SSL.

1.11 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. However you need to create temporary directory and configure it as $cfg['TempDir']. The uploaded files will be moved there, and after execution of your SQL commands, removed.

1.12 I have lost my MySQL root password, what can I do?

The MySQL manual explains how to reset the permissions.

1.13 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.

1.14 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.

1.15 I have problems with mysql.user field names.

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

1.16 I cannot upload big dump files (memory, HTTP or timeout problems).

Starting with version 2.7.0, the import engine has been re–written and these problems should not occur. If possible, upgrade your phpMyAdmin to the latest version to take advantage of the new import features.

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. One user also said that post_max_size and memory_limit need to be larger than upload_max_filesize.

There exist several workarounds if your upload is too big or your hosting provider is unwilling to change the settings:

1.17 Which MySQL versions does phpMyAdmin support?

Since phpMyAdmin 3.0.x, only MySQL 5.0.1 and newer are supported. For older MySQL versions, you need to use 2.8.x branch. phpMyAdmin can connect to your MySQL server using PHP's classic MySQL extension as well as the improved MySQL extension (MySQLi) that is available in php 5.0. The latter one should be used unless you have good reason not to do so.
When compiling php, we strongly recommend that you manually link the MySQL extension of your choice to a MySQL client library of at least the same minor version since the one that is bundled with some PHP distributions is rather old and might cause problems (see FAQ 1.17a). If your webserver is running on a windows system, you might want to try MySQL's Connector/PHP instead of the MySQL / MySQLi extensions that are bundled with the official php Win32 builds.

1.17a I cannot connect to the MySQL server. It always returns the error message, "Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client"

You tried to access MySQL with an old MySQL client library. The version of your MySQL client library can be checked in your phpinfo() output. In general, it should have at least the same minor version as your server - as mentioned in FAQ 1.17.

This problem is generally caused by using MySQL version 4.1 or newer. MySQL changed the authentication hash and your PHP is trying to use the old method. The proper solution is to use the mysqli extension with the proper client library to match your MySQL installation. Your chosen extension is specified in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension']. More information (and several workarounds) are located in the MySQL Documentation.

1.18 I'm running MySQL <= 4.0.1 having lower_case_table_names set to 1. If I create a new table with a capital letter in its name it is changed to lowercase as it should. But if I try to DROP this table MySQL is unable to find the corresponding file.

This is a bug of MySQL <= 4.0.1. Please upgrade to at least MySQL 4.0.2 or turn off your lower_case_table_names directive.

1.19 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.

1.20 I receive the error "cannot load MySQL extension, please check PHP Configuration".

To connect to a MySQL server, PHP needs a set of MySQL functions called "MySQL extension". This extension may be part of the PHP distribution (compiled-in), otherwise it needs to be loaded dynamically. Its name is probably mysql.so or php_mysql.dll. phpMyAdmin tried to load the extension but failed.

Usually, the problem is solved by installing a software package called "PHP-MySQL" or something similar.

1.21 I am running the CGI version of PHP under Unix, and I cannot log in using cookie auth.

In php.ini, set mysql.max_links higher than 1.

1.22 I don't see the "Location of text file" field, so I cannot upload.

This is most likely because in php.ini, your file_uploads parameter is not set to "on".

1.23 I'm running MySQL on a Win32 machine. Each time I create a new table the table and field names are changed to lowercase!

This happens because the MySQL directive lower_case_table_names defaults to 1 (ON) in the Win32 version of MySQL. You can change this behavior by simply changing the directive to 0 (OFF):
Just edit your my.ini file that should be located in your Windows directory and add the following line to the group [mysqld]:

set-variable = lower_case_table_names=0

Next, save the file and restart the MySQL service. You can always check the value of this directive using the query

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'lower_case_table_names';

1.24 Some characters are being truncated in my queries, or I get characters randomly added. I am running PHP 4.2.3.

This is a PHP 4.2.3 bug.

1.25 I am running Apache with mod_gzip-1.3.26.1a on Windows XP, and I get problems, such as undefined variables when I run a SQL query.

A tip from Jose Fandos: put a comment on the following two lines in httpd.conf, like this:

# mod_gzip_item_include file \.php$
# mod_gzip_item_include mime "application/x-httpd-php.*"

as this version of mod_gzip on Apache (Windows) has problems handling PHP scripts. Of course you have to restart Apache.

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.

This is a permission problem. Right-click on the phpmyadmin folder and choose properties. Under the tab Security, click on "Add" and select the user "IUSR_machine" from the list. Now set his permissions and it should work.

1.27 I get empty page when I want to view huge page (eg. db_structure.php with plenty of tables).

This is a PHP bug that occur when GZIP output buffering is enabled. If you turn off it (by $cfg['OBGzip'] = false in config.inc.php), it should work. This bug will be fixed in PHP 5.0.0.

1.28 My MySQL server sometimes refuses queries and returns the message 'Errorcode: 13'. What does this mean?

This can happen due to a MySQL bug when having database / table names with upper case characters although lower_case_table_names is set to 1. To fix this, turn off this directive, convert all database and table names to lower case and turn it on again. Alternatively, there's a bug-fix available starting with MySQL 3.23.56 / 4.0.11-gamma.

1.29 When I create a table or modify a field, I get an error and the fields are duplicated.

It is possible to configure Apache in such a way that PHP has problems interpreting .php files.

The problems occur when two different (and conflicting) set of directives are used:

SetOutputFilter PHP
SetInputFilter PHP

and

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

In the case we saw, one set of directives was in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, while the other set was in /etc/httpd/conf/addon-modules/php.conf.
The recommended way is with AddType, so just comment out the first set of lines and restart Apache:

#SetOutputFilter PHP
#SetInputFilter PHP

1.30 I get the error "navigation.php: Missing hash".

This problem is known to happen when the server is running Turck MMCache but upgrading MMCache to version 2.3.21 solves the problem.

1.31 Does phpMyAdmin support php5?

Yes.
However, phpMyAdmin needs to be backwards compatible to php4. This is why phpMyAdmin disables the E_STRICT error_level in error_reporting settings.

1.32 Can I use HTTP authentication with IIS?

Yes. This procedure was tested with phpMyAdmin 2.6.1, PHP 4.3.9 in ISAPI mode under IIS 5.1.

  1. In your php.ini file, set cgi.rfc2616_headers = 0
  2. In Web Site Properties -> File/Directory Security -> Anonymous Access dialog box, check the Anonymous access checkbox and uncheck any other checkboxes (i.e. uncheck Basic authentication, Integrated Windows authentication, and Digest if it's enabled.) Click OK.
  3. In Custom Errors, select the range of 401;1 through 401;5 and click the Set to Default button.

1.33 Is there a problem with the mysqli extension when running PHP 5.0.4 on 64-bit systems?

Yes. This problem affects phpMyAdmin ("Call to undefined function pma_reloadnavigation"), so upgrade your PHP to the next version.

1.34 Can I access directly to database or table pages?

Yes. Out of the box, you can use URLs like http://server/phpMyAdmin/index.php?server=X&db=database&table=table&target=script. For server you use the server number which refers to the order of the server paragraph in config.inc.php. Table and script parts are optional. If you want http://server/phpMyAdmin/database[/table][/script] URLs, you need to do some configuration. Following lines apply only for Apache web server. First make sure, that you have enabled some features within global configuration. You need Options FollowSymLinks and AllowOverride FileInfo enabled for directory where phpMyAdmin is installed and you need mod_rewrite to be enabled. Then you just need to create following .htaccess file in root folder of phpMyAdmin installation (don't forget to change directory name inside of it):

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /path_to_phpMyAdmin
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)/([a-z_]+\.php)$ index.php?db=$1&table=$2&target=$3 [R]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)/([a-z_]+\.php)$ index.php?db=$1&target=$2 [R]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)$ index.php?db=$1&table=$2 [R]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)$ index.php?db=$1 [R]

1.35 Can I use HTTP authentication with Apache CGI?

Yes. However you need to pass authentication variable to CGI using following rewrite rule:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=REMOTE_USER:%{HTTP:Authorization},L]

1.36 I get an error "500 Internal Server Error".

There can be many explanations to this and a look at your server's error log file might give a clue.

1.37 I run phpMyAdmin on cluster of different machines and password encryption in cookie auth doesn't work.

If your cluster consist of different architectures, PHP code used for encryption/decryption won't work correct. This is caused by use of pack/unpack functions in code. Only solution is to use mcrypt extension which works fine in this case.

1.38 Can I use phpMyAdmin on a server on which Suhosin is enabled?

Yes but the default configuration values of Suhosin are known to cause problems with some operations, for example editing a table with many columns and no primary key or with textual primary key.

Suhosin configuration might lead to malfunction in some cases and it can not be fully avoided as phpMyAdmin is kind of application which needs to transfer big amounts of fields in single HTTP request, what is something what Suhosin tries to prevent. Generally all suhosin.request.*, suhosin.post.* and suhosin.get.* directives can have negative effect on phpMyAdmin usability. You can always find in your error logs which limit did cause dropping of variable, so you can diagnose the problem and adjust matching configuration variable.

The default values for most Suhosin configuration options will work in most scenarios, however you might want to adjust at least following parameters:

You can also disable the warning using the SuhosinDisableWarning directive.

1.39 When I try to connect via https, I can log in, but then my connection is redirected back to http. What can cause this behavior?

Be sure that you have enabled SSLOptions and StdEnvVars in your Apache configuration. See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_ssl.html#ssloptions.

1.40 When accessing phpMyAdmin via an Apache reverse proxy, cookie login does not work,

To be able to use cookie auth Apache must know that it has to rewrite the set-cookie headers.
Example from the Apache 2.2 documentation:

ProxyPass /mirror/foo/ http://backend.example.com/
ProxyPassReverse /mirror/foo/ http://backend.example.com/
ProxyPassReverseCookieDomain backend.example.com public.example.com 
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath / /mirror/foo/

Note: if the backend url looks like http://host/~user/phpmyadmin, the tilde (~) must be url encoded as %7E in the ProxyPassReverse* lines. This is not specific to phpmyadmin, it's just the behavior of Apache. 

ProxyPass /mirror/foo/ http://backend.example.com/~user/phpmyadmin
ProxyPassReverse /mirror/foo/
http://backend.example.com/%7Euser/phpmyadmin
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath /%7Euser/phpmyadmin /mirror/foo

See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy.html for more details.

1.41 When I view a database and ask to see its privileges, I get an error about an unknown column.

The MySQL server's privilege tables are not up to date, you need to run the mysql_upgrade command on the server.

Configuration

2.1 The error message "Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by ..." is displayed, what's the problem?

Edit your config.inc.php file and ensure there is nothing (I.E. no blank lines, no spaces, no characters...) neither before the <?php tag at the beginning, neither after the ?> tag at the end. We also got a report from a user under IIS, that used a zipped distribution kit: the file libraries/Config.class.php contained an end-of-line character (hex 0A) at the end; removing this character cleared his errors.

2.2 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.

2.3 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:

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

2.4 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.

2.5 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 log in again. What's wrong?

Check the value you set for the $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] directive in the phpMyAdmin configuration file.

2.6 I get an "Access denied for user: 'root@localhost' (Using password: YES)"-error when trying to access a MySQL-Server on a host which is port-forwarded for my localhost.

When you are using a port on your localhost, which you redirect via port-forwarding to another host, MySQL is not resolving the localhost as expected.
Erik Wasser explains: The solution is: if your host is "localhost" MySQL (the commandline tool 'mysql' as well) always tries to use the socket connection for speeding up things. And that doesn't work in this configuration with port forwarding.
If you enter "127.0.0.1" as hostname, everything is right and MySQL uses the TCP connection.

2.7 Using and creating themes

Themes are configured with $cfg['ThemePath'], $cfg['ThemeManager'] and $cfg['ThemeDefault'].

Under $cfg['ThemePath'], you should not delete the directory "original" or its underlying structure, because this is the system theme used by phpMyAdmin. "original" contains all images and styles, for backwards compatibility and for all themes that would not include images or css-files.

If $cfg['ThemeManager'] is enabled, you can select your favorite theme on the main page. Your selected theme will be stored in a cookie.

To create a theme:

In theme directory there is file info.inc.php which contains theme verbose name, theme generation and theme version. These versions and generations are enumerated from 1 and do not have any direct dependence on phpMyAdmin version. Themes within same generation should be backwards compatible - theme with version 2 should work in phpMyAdmin requiring version 1. Themes with different generation are incompatible.

If you do not want to use your own symbols and buttons, remove the directory "img" in "your_theme_name". phpMyAdmin will use the default icons and buttons (from the system-theme "original").

2.8 I get "Missing parameters" errors, what can I do?

Here are a few points to check:

2.9 Seeing an upload progress bar

To be able to see a progress bar during your uploads, your server must have either the APC extension or the uploadprogress one. Moreover, the JSON extension has to be enabled in your PHP.

If using APC, you must set apc.rfc1867 to on in your php.ini.

Known limitations

3.1 When using HTTP authentication, an user who logged out can not log in again in with the same nick.

This is related to the authentication mechanism (protocol) used by phpMyAdmin. To bypass this problem: just close all the opened browser windows and then go back to phpMyAdmin. You should be able to log in again.

3.2 When dumping a large table in compressed mode, I get a memory limit error or a time limit error.

Compressed dumps are built in memory and because of this are limited to php's memory limit. For GZip/BZip2 exports this can be overcome since 2.5.4 using $cfg['CompressOnFly'] (enabled by default). Zip exports can not be handled this way, so if you need Zip files for larger dump, you have to use another way.

3.3 With InnoDB tables, I lose foreign key relationships when I rename a table or a column.

This is an InnoDB bug, see http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=21704.

3.4 I am unable to import dumps I created with the mysqldump tool bundled with the MySQL server distribution.

The problem is that older versions of mysqldump created invalid comments like this:

-- MySQL dump 8.22
--
-- Host: localhost Database: database
---------------------------------------------------------
-- Server version 3.23.54

The invalid part of the code is the horizontal line made of dashes that appears once in every dump created with mysqldump. If you want to run your dump you have to turn it into valid MySQL. This means, you have to add a whitespace after the first two dashes of the line or add a # before it:
-- -------------------------------------------------------
 or
#---------------------------------------------------------

3.5 When using nested folders there are some multiple hierarchies displayed in a wrong manner?! ($cfg['LeftFrameTableSeparator'])

Please note that you should not use the separating string multiple times without any characters between them, or at the beginning/end of your table name. If you have to, think about using another TableSeparator or disabling that feature

3.6 What is currently not supported in phpMyAdmin about InnoDB?

In Relation view, being able to choose a table in another database, or having more than one index field in the foreign key.

In Query-by-example (Query), automatic generation of the query LEFT JOIN from the foreign table.

3.7 I have table with many (100+) fields and when I try to browse table I get series of errors like "Warning: unable to parse url". How can this be fixed?

Your table neither have a primary key nor an unique one, so we must use a long expression to identify this row. This causes problems to parse_url function. The workaround is to create a primary or unique key.

3.8 I cannot use (clickable) HTML-forms in fields where I put a MIME-Transformation onto!

Due to a surrounding form-container (for multi-row delete checkboxes), no nested forms can be put inside the table where phpMyAdmin displays the results. You can, however, use any form inside of a table if keep the parent form-container with the target to tbl_row_delete.php and just put your own input-elements inside. If you use a custom submit input field, the form will submit itself to the displaying page again, where you can validate the $HTTP_POST_VARS in a transformation. For a tutorial on how to effectively use transformations, see our Link section on the official phpMyAdmin-homepage.

3.9 I get error messages when using "--sql_mode=ANSI" for the MySQL server

When MySQL is running in ANSI-compatibility mode, there are some major differences in how SQL is structured (see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/ANSI_mode.html). Most important of all, the quote-character (") is interpreted as an identifier quote character and not as a string quote character, which makes many internal phpMyAdmin operations into invalid SQL statements. There is no workaround to this behaviour. News to this item will be posted in Bug report #816858

3.10 Homonyms and no primary key: When the results of a SELECT display more that one column with the same value (for example SELECT lastname from employees where firstname like 'A%' and two "Smith" values are displayed), if I click Edit I cannot be sure that I am editing the intended row.

Please make sure that your table has a primary key, so that phpMyAdmin can use it for the Edit and Delete links.

3.11 The number of records for InnoDB tables is not correct.

phpMyAdmin uses a quick method to get the row count, and this method only returns an approximate count in the case of InnoDB tables. See $cfg['MaxExactCount'] for a way to modify those results, but this could have a serious impact on performance.

3.12 What are the phpMyAdmin limitations for MySQL 3?

The number of records in queries containing COUNT and GROUP BY is not correctly calculated. Also, sorting results of a query like "SELECT * from table GROUP BY" ... is problematic.

3.13 I get an error when entering USE followed by a db name containing an hyphen.

The tests I have made with current MySQL 4.1.11 API shows that the API does not accept this syntax for the USE command. Enclosing the db name with backquotes works. For further confusion, no backquotes are needed with command-line mysql.

3.14 I am not able to browse a table when I don't have the right to SELECT one of the columns.

This has been a known limitation of phpMyAdmin since the beginning and it's not likely to be solved in the future.

3.15 When I import an Excel spreadsheet, some cells with calculations do not display correctly.

phpMyAdmin uses the PHPExcel library to parse Excel XLS and XLSX spreadsheets. Therefore, any limitations that are listed on their page regarding Excel calculations will also apply here.

PHPExcel will be kept up to date so as to make all improvements available to phpMyAdmin users.

3.16 When I compress (gzip, bzip2, zip) an Excel workbook and attempt to import it, nothing happens.

Since Excel XLSX workbooks are already compressed, there is often times only a small benefit from compressing them yet again. Support for compressed Excel XLSX and XLS workbooks may be added in the future.

3.17 When I import an Excel spreadsheet, my custom cell types are not represented as they are in Excel.

Excel's internal representation of custom cell types is rather muddled (especially in Excel 97-2003 binary XLS files). If possible, consider using a built-in type. These are almost always guarenteed to import correctly.

3.18 When I import a CSV file that contains multiple tables, they are lumped together into a single table.

There is no reliable way to differetiate tables in CSV format. For the time being, you will have to break apart CSV files containing multiple tables.

3.19 When I import a file and have phpMyAdmin determine the appropriate data structure it only uses int, decimal, and varchar types.

Currently, the import type-detection system can only assign these MySQL types to columns. In future, more will likely be added but for the time being you will have to edit the structure to your liking post-import.

Also, you should note the fact that phpMyAdmin will use the size of the largest item in any given column as the column size for the appropriate type. If you know you will be adding larger items to that column then you should manually adjust the column sizes accordingly. This is done for the sake of efficiency.

ISPs, multi-user installations

4.1 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".

4.2 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 or cookie authentication features.

Suggestions:

4.3 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.

4.4 phpMyAdmin always gives "Access denied" when using HTTP authentication.

This could happen for several reasons:

4.5 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 (for example "joe%"), 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).

4.6 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',
    );

4.7 Authentication window is displayed more than once, why?

This happens if you are using a URL to start phpMyAdmin which is different than the one set in your $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri']. For example, a missing "www", or entering with an IP address while a domain name is defined in the config file.

4.8 Which parameters can I use in the URL that starts phpMyAdmin?

When starting phpMyAdmin, you can use the db, pma_username, pma_password and server parameters. This last one can contain either the numeric host index (from $i of the configuration file) or one of the host names present in the configuration file. Using pma_username and pma_password has been tested along with the usage of 'cookie' auth_type.

Browsers or client OS

5.1 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.

5.2 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.

5.3 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.

5.4 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!

5.5 In Internet Explorer 5.0, I get JavaScript errors when browsing my rows.

Upgrade to at least Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2.

5.6 In Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5 or 6.0, I get an error (like "Page not found") 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 length 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.

5.7 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.

5.8 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.

5.9 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).

5.10 With Netscape 4.75 I get empty rows between each row of data in a CSV exported file.

This is a known Netscape 4.75 bug: it adds some line feeds when exporting data in octet-stream mode. Since we can't detect the specific Netscape version, we cannot workaround this bug.

5.11 Extended-ASCII characters like German umlauts are displayed wrong.

Please ensure that you have set your browser's character set to the one of the language file you have selected on phpMyAdmin's start page. Alternatively, you can try the auto detection mode that is supported by the recent versions of the most browsers.

5.12 Mac OS X: Safari browser changes special characters to "?".

This issue has been reported by a OS X user, who adds that Chimera, Netscape and Mozilla do not have this problem.

5.13 With Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6, and HTTP authentication type, I cannot manage two servers: I log in to the first one, then the other one, but if I switch back to the first, I have to log in on each operation.

This is a bug in Internet Explorer, other browsers do not behave this way.

5.14 Using Opera6, I can manage to get to the authentication, but nothing happens after that, only a blank screen.

Please upgrade to Opera7 at least.

5.15 I have display problems with Safari.

Please upgrade to at least version 1.2.3.

5.16 With Internet Explorer, I get "Access is denied" Javascript errors. Or I cannot make phpMyAdmin work under Windows.

Please check the following points:

5.17 With Firefox, I cannot delete rows of data or drop a database.

Many users have confirmed that the Tabbrowser Extensions plugin they installed in their Firefox is causing the problem.

5.18 With Konqueror 4.2.x an invalid LIMIT clause is generated when I browse a table.

This happens only when both of these conditions are met: using the http authentication mode and register_globals being set to On on the server. It seems to be a browser-specific problem; meanwhile use the cookie authentication mode.

Using phpMyAdmin

6.1 I can't insert new rows into a table / I can't create a table - MySQL brings up a SQL-error.

Examine the SQL error with care. Often the problem is caused by 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.

6.2 When I create a table, I set an index for two fields and phpMyAdmin generates only one index with those two fields.

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.

6.3 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. Since version 2.5.5, you have to use the checkbox to get a real NULL value, so if you enter "NULL" this means you want a literal NULL in the field, and not a NULL value (this works in PHP4).

6.4 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 on the menu, click "Export", 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.

6.5 How can I restore (upload) my database or table using a dump? How can I run a ".sql" file?

Click on a database name in the left frame, the properties will be displayed. Select "Import" from the list of tabs in the right–hand frame (or "SQL" if your phpMyAdmin version is previous to 2.7.0). In the "Location of the text file" section, type in the path to your dump filename, or use the Browse button. Then click Go.

With version 2.7.0, the import engine has been re–written, if possible it is suggested that you upgrade to take advantage of the new features.

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

6.6 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 REL_countries (
    country_code char(1) NOT NULL default '',
    description varchar(10) NOT NULL default '',
    PRIMARY KEY (country_code)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

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

CREATE TABLE REL_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 REL_persons VALUES (11, 'Marc', 'S', '');
INSERT INTO REL_persons VALUES (15, 'Paul', 'S', 'C');

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

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

To setup appropriate links and display information:

Then test like this:

6.7 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.

See also FAQ 6.21 for an additional feature that "display field" enables: drop-down list of possible values.

6.8 How can I produce a PDF schema of my database?

First the configuration variables "relation", "table_coords" and "pdf_pages" have to be filled in.

Then you need to think about your schema layout. Which tables will go on which pages?

6.9 phpMyAdmin is changing the type of one of my columns!

No, it's MySQL that is doing silent column type changing.

6.10 When creating a privilege, what happens with underscores in the database name?

If you do not put a backslash before the underscore, this is a wildcard grant, and the underscore means "any character". So, if the database name is "john_db", the user would get rights to john1db, john2db ...

If you put a backslash before the underscore, it means that the database name will have a real underscore.

6.11 What is the curious symbol ø in the statistics pages?

It means "average".

6.12 I want to understand some Export options.

Structure:

Data:

6.13 I would like to create a database with a dot in its name.

This is a bad idea, because in MySQL the syntax "database.table" is the normal way to reference a database and table name. Worse, MySQL will usually let you create a database with a dot, but then you cannot work with it, nor delete it.

6.14 How do I set up the SQL Validator?

To use it, you need a very recent version of PHP, 4.3.0 recommended, with XML, PCRE and PEAR support. On your system command line, run "pear install Net_Socket Net_URL HTTP_Request Mail_Mime Net_DIME SOAP" to get the necessary PEAR modules for usage.
On a more recent pear version, I had problems with the state of Net_DIME being beta, so this single command "pear -d preferred_state=beta install -a SOAP" installed all the needed modules.
If you use the Validator, you should be aware that any SQL statement you submit will be stored anonymously (database/table/column names, strings, numbers replaced with generic values). The Mimer SQL Validator itself, is © 2001 Upright Database Technology. We utilize it as free SOAP service.

6.15 I want to add a BLOB field and put an index on it, but MySQL says "BLOB column '...' used in key specification without a key length".

The right way to do this, is to create the field without any indexes, then display the table structure and use the "Create an index" dialog. On this page, you will be able to choose your BLOB field, and set a size to the index, which is the condition to create an index on a BLOB field.

6.16 How can I simply move in page with plenty editing fields?

You can use Ctrl+arrows (Option+Arrows in Safari) for moving on most pages with many editing fields (table structure changes, row editing, etc.) (must be enabled in configuration - see. $cfg['CtrlArrowsMoving']). You can also have a look at the directive $cfg['DefaultPropDisplay'] ('vertical') and see if this eases up editing for you.

6.17 Transformations: I can't enter my own mimetype! WTF is this feature then useful for?

Slow down :). Defining mimetypes is of no use, if you can't put transformations on them. Otherwise you could just put a comment on the field. Because entering your own mimetype will cause serious syntax checking issues and validation, this introduces a high-risk false-user-input situation. Instead you have to initialize mimetypes using functions or empty mimetype definitions.
Plus, you have a whole overview of available mimetypes. Who knows all those mimetypes by heart so he/she can enter it at will?

6.18 Bookmarks: Where can I store bookmarks? Why can't I see any bookmarks below the query box? What is this variable for?

Any query you have executed can be stored as a bookmark on the page where the results are displayed. You will find a button labeled 'Bookmark this query' just at the end of the page.
As soon as you have stored a bookmark, it is related to the database you run the query on. You can now access a bookmark dropdown on each page, the query box appears on for that database.

Since phpMyAdmin 2.5.0 you are also able to store variables for the bookmarks. Just use the string /*[VARIABLE]*/ anywhere in your query. Everything which is put into the value input box on the query box page will replace the string "/*[VARIABLE]*/" in your stored query. Just be aware of that you HAVE to create a valid query, otherwise your query won't be even able to be stored in the database.
Also remember, that everything else inside the /*[VARIABLE]*/ string for your query will remain the way it is, but will be stripped of the /**/ chars. So you can use:

/*, [VARIABLE] AS myname */

which will be expanded to

, VARIABLE as myname

in your query, where VARIABLE is the string you entered in the input box. If an empty string is provided, no replacements are made.

A more complex example. Say you have stored this query:

SELECT Name, Address FROM addresses WHERE 1 /* AND Name LIKE '%[VARIABLE]%' */

Say, you now enter "phpMyAdmin" as the variable for the stored query, the full query will be:

SELECT Name, Address FROM addresses WHERE 1 AND Name LIKE '%phpMyAdmin%'

You can use multiple occurrences of /*[VARIABLE]*/ in a single query.
NOTE THE ABSENCE OF SPACES inside the "/**/" construct. Any spaces inserted there will be later also inserted as spaces in your query and may lead to unexpected results especially when using the variable expansion inside of a "LIKE ''" expression.
Your initial query which is going to be stored as a bookmark has to yield at least one result row so you can store the bookmark. You may have that to work around using well positioned "/**/" comments.

6.19 How can I create simple LATEX document to include exported table?

You can simply include table in your LATEX documents, minimal sample document should look like following one (assuming you have table exported in file table.tex):

\documentclass{article} % or any class you want
\usepackage{longtable}  % for displaying table
\begin{document}        % start of document
\include{table}         % including exported table
\end{document}          % end of document

6.20 In MySQL 4, I see a lot of databases which are not mine, and cannot access them.

Upgrading to MySQL 4 usually gives users those global privileges: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, SHOW DATABASES, LOCK TABLES. Those privileges also enable users to see all the database names. See this bug report.

So if your users do not need those privileges, you can remove them and their databases list will shorten.

6.21 In edit/insert mode, how can I see a list of possible values for a field, based on some foreign table?

You have to setup appropriate links between the tables, and also setup the "display field" in the foreign table. See FAQ 6.6 for an example. Then, if there are 100 values or less in the foreign table, a drop-down list of values will be available. You will see two lists of values, the first list containing the key and the display field, the second list containing the display field and the key. The reason for this is to be able to type the first letter of either the key or the display field.

For 100 values or more, a distinct window will appear, to browse foreign key values and choose one. To change the default limit of 100, see $cfg['ForeignKeyMaxLimit'].

6.22 Bookmarks: Can I execute a default bookmark automatically when entering Browse mode for a table?

Yes. If a bookmark has the same label as a table name, it will be executed.

6.23 Export: I heard phpMyAdmin can export Microsoft Excel files, how can I enable that?

Current version does support direct export to Microsoft Excel and Word versions 2000 and newer. If you need export older versions, you can use CSV suitable for Microsoft Excel, which works out of the box or you can try native experimental MS Excel exporter. This export has several problems, most important are limitation of cell content to 255 chars and no support for charsets, so think carefully whether you want to enable this.. For enabling this you need to set $cfg['TempDir'] to place where web server user can write (for example './tmp') and install PEAR module Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer into php include path. The installation can be done by following command:

pear -d preferred_state=beta install -a Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer

First part of switches set we want to install beta version of that module (no stable version available yet) and then we tell pear we want to satisfy dependencies.

If you are running in PHP safe mode, you will have to set in php.ini the safe_mode_include_dir to the directory where your PEAR modules are located, for example:

safe_mode_include_dir = /usr/local/lib/php

To create the temporary directory on a UNIX-based system, you can do:

cd phpMyAdmin
mkdir tmp
chmod o+rwx tmp

6.24 Now that phpMyAdmin supports native MySQL 4.1.x column comments, what happens to my column comments stored in pmadb?

Automatic migration of a table's pmadb-style column comments to the native ones is done whenever you enter Structure page for this table.

6.25 How does BLOB streaming work in phpMyAdmin?

First, for general information about BLOB streaming on MySQL, visit blobstreaming.org. We currently support streaming if you are running MySQL 5.1 with the PBXT and PBMS storage engines.

  1. In config.inc.php your host should be defined with a FQDN (fully qualified domain name) instead of something like "localhost".
  2. A current limitation is that your first login via phpMyAdmin to a freshly-started server must be done with an account that has the SUPER privilege.
  3. On your target database, go to Operations and in the "BLOB Repository" section, click "Enable". This creates the PBMS system tables inside your database.
  4. Ensure that your target table is under the PBXT storage engine and has a LONGBLOB column.
  5. When you insert or update a row in this table, put a checkmark on the "Upload to BLOB repository" optional choice; otherwise, the upload will be done directly in your column instead of the repository.
  6. Finally when you browse your table, you'll see in your column a link to stream your data, for example "View image". A header containing the correct MIME-type will be sent to your browser; this MIME-type was stored at upload time but in case it's incorrect, it's possible to edit it by clicking on the displayed MIME-type.

phpMyAdmin project

7.1 I have found a bug. How do I inform developers?

Our Bug Tracker is located at http://sf.net/projects/phpmyadmin/ under the Bugs section.

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

7.2 I want to translate the messages to a new language or upgrade an existing language, where do I start?

Always use the current SVN version of your language file. For a new language, start from english-utf-8.inc.php. If you don't know how to get the SVN version, please ask one of the developers.
Please note that we try not to use HTML entities like &eacute; in the translations, since we define the right character set in the file. With HTML entities, the text on JavaScript messages would not display correctly. However there are some entities that need to be there, for quotes ,non-breakable spaces, ampersands, less than, greater than.
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.

7.3 I would like to help out with the development of phpMyAdmin. How should I proceed?

The following method is preferred for new developers:

  1. fetch the current git repository over anonymous git:
    git clone git://phpmyadmin.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
  2. add your stuff
  3. generate patch with your changes: git diff > xxx.diff
  4. submit your patch via the patch tracker of the phpMyAdmin project.

More details on git are available on our wiki.

Write access to the repository is granted only to experienced developers who have already contributed something useful to phpMyAdmin.
Also, have a look at the Developers section.

Security

8.1 Where can I get information about the security alerts issued for phpMyAdmin?

Please refer to http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/security.php

8.2 How can I protect phpMyAdmin against brute force attacks?

If you use Apache web server, phpMyAdmin exports information about authentication to Apache environment and it can be used in Apache logs. Currently there are two variables available:

userID
User name of currently active user (he does not have to be logged in).
userStatus
Status of currently active user, one of ok (user is logged in), mysql-denied (MySQL denied user login), allow-denied (user denied by allow/deny rules), root-denied (root is denied in configuration), empty-denied (empty password is denied).

LogFormat directive for Apache can look like following: 

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \
\"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" %{userID}n %{userStatus}n"   pma_combined

You can then use any log analyzing tools to detect possible break-in attempts.

Synchronization

9.1 How can I synchronize two databases/tables in phpMyAdmin?

You can now synchronize databases/tables in phpMyAdmin using the Synchronize feature. It allows you to connect to local as well as remote servers.This requires you to enter server host name, username, password, port and the name of the database. Therefore you can now synchronize your databases placed on the same server or some remote server.

For more details see How to synchronize

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:

Copyright (C) 1998-2000 Tobias Ratschiller <tobias_at_ratschiller.com>
Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Marc Delisle <marc_at_infomarc.info>
                        Olivier Müller <om_at_omnis.ch>
                        Robin Johnson <robbat2_at_users.sourceforge.net>
                        Alexander M. Turek <me_at_derrabus.de>
                        Michal Čihař <michal_at_cihar.com>
                        Garvin Hicking <me_at_supergarv.de>
                        Michael Keck <mkkeck_at_users.sourceforge.net>
                        Sebastian Mendel <cybot_tm_at_users.sourceforge.net>
                        [check credits for more details]

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

Credits

Credits, in chronological order

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, Mats Engstrom, Ian Davidson, Laurent Dhima, Kristof Hamann, Thomas Kläger, Lubos Klokner, Martin Marconcini, Girish Nair, David Nordenberg, Andreas Pauley, Bernard M. Piller, Laurent Haas, "Sakamoto", Yuval Sarna, www.securereality.com.au, Alexis Soulard, Alvar Soome, Siu Sun, Peter Svec, Michael Tacelosky, Rachim Tamsjadi, Kositer Uros, Luís V., Martijn W. van der Lee, Algis Vainauskas, Daniel Villanueva, Vinay, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Chee Wai, Jakub Wilk, Thomas Michael Winningham, Vilius Zigmantas, "Manuzhai".

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

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.

Glossary

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia