Install phpmdmin on Ubuntu AWS

Although many users need a database management system-like functionality such as MySQL, they may not find it easy to interact with the system from a MySQL prompt alone.

PHPMYADMIN was created to allow users to interact with MySQL through a web interface. In this guide, we will discuss how to install and save phpMyAdmin so that you can safely use it to manage your database on Ubuntu 18.04 system.

Prerequisites

• A user with sudo privileges
• LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP)  is completely installed

Step 1 — Installing phpMyAdmin

To get started, we will install phpMyAdmin from the default Ubuntu repositories.

This is done by updating your server’s package index and then using the apt packaging system to pull down the files and install them on your system:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install phpmyadmin php-mbstring php-gettext

This will ask you a few questions in order to configure your installation correctly.

Warning: When the prompt appears, “apache2” is highlighted, but not selected. If you do not hit SPACE to select Apache, the installer will not move the necessary files during installation. Hit SPACE, TAB, and then ENTER to select Apache.

• For the server selection, choose apache2
• Select Yes when asked whether to use dbconfig-common to set up the database
• You will then be asked to choose and confirm a MySQL application password for phpMyAdmin

The installation process adds the phpMyAdmin Apache configuration file into the /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/ directory, where it is read automatically. The only thing you need to do is explicitly enable the mbstring PHP extension, which you can do by typing:

sudo phpenmod mbstring

Afterwards, restart Apache for your changes to be recognized:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

phpMyAdmin is now installed and configured. However, before you can log in and begin interacting with your MySQL databases, you will need to ensure that your MySQL users have the privileges required for interacting with the program.

Step 2 — Adjusting User Authentication and Privileges

When you installed phpMyAdmin onto your server, it automatically created a database user called phpmyadmin which performs certain underlying processes for the program. Rather than logging in as this user with the administrative password you set during installation, it’s recommended that you log in as either your root MySQL user or as a user dedicated to managing databases through the phpMyAdmin interface.

Configuring Password Access for the MySQL Root Account

In Ubuntu systems running MySQL 5.7 (and later versions), the root MySQL user is set to authenticate using the auth_socket plugin by default rather than with a password. This allows for some greater security and usability in many cases, but it can also complicate things when you need to allow an external program — like phpMyAdmin — to access the user.

In order to log in to phpMyAdmin as your root MySQL user, you will need to switch its authentication method from auth_socket to mysql_native_password if you haven’t already done so. To do this, open up the MySQL prompt from your terminal:

sudo mysql

Next, check which authentication method each of your MySQL user accounts use with the following command:

SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

Output:

+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user             | authentication_string                     | plugin                | host      |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root             |                                           | auth_socket           | localhost |
| mysql.session    | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys        | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *8486437DE5F65ADC4A4B001CA591363B64746D4C | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| phpmyadmin       | *5FD2B7524254B7F81B32873B1EA6D681503A5CA9 | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+

In this example, you can see that the root user does in fact authenticate using the auth_socket plugin. To configure the root account to authenticate with a password, run the following ALTER USER command. Be sure to change password to a strong password of your choosing:

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';

Then, run FLUSH PRIVILEGES which tells the server to reload the grant tables and put your new changes into effect

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Check the authentication methods employed by each of your users again to confirm that root no longer authenticates using the auth_socket plugin:

SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

Output:

+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user             | authentication_string                     | plugin                | host      |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root             | *DE06E242B88EFB1FE4B5083587C260BACB2A6158 | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.session    | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys        | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *8486437DE5F65ADC4A4B001CA591363B64746D4C | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| phpmyadmin       | *5FD2B7524254B7F81B32873B1EA6D681503A5CA9 | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You can see from this output that the root user will authenticate using a password. You can now log in to the phpMyAdmin interface as your root user with the password you’ve set for it here.

Configuring Password Access for a Dedicated MySQL User

Alternatively, some may find that it better suits their workflow to connect to phpMyAdmin with a dedicated user. To do this, open up the MySQL shell once again:

sudo mysql

Note: If you have password authentication enabled, as described in the previous section, you will need to use a different command to access the MySQL shell. The following will run your MySQL client with regular user privileges, and you will only gain administrator privileges within the database by authenticating:

mysql -u root -p

From there, create a new user and give it a strong password:

CREATE USER 'sammy'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Then, grant your new user appropriate privileges. For example, you could grant the user privileges to all tables within the database, as well as the power to add, change, and remove user privileges, with this command:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'sammy'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Following that, exit the MySQL shell:

exit

You can now access the web interface by visiting your server’s domain name or public IP address followed by

http://your_domain_or_IP/phpmyadmin