PhpMyAdmin is an easy and free way to manage your MySQL databases, and even postgres databases if you’re so inclined. Installing phpMyAdmin on the latest version of Ubuntu ( Ubuntu 12.10 ) is thankfully pretty easy compared to previous LTS releases due to it being an aptitude package now. Previously you had to download the installation and dpkg it, compile it from scratch, modify your config files manually etc. But no use worrying about how difficult installing phpMyAdmin was in previous versions of Ubuntu – let’s take a look at how easy it is to install in Ubuntu 12.10.
1.) Start By Installing Apache Using Tasksel
You can skip this step if you already have an existing installation of Apache on your system, but if you don’t then you need to get it installed. You could install MySQL strictly by itself, but using the tasksel command makes for a much quicker and easier installation of MySQL since it’s preconfigured. Run a sudo tasksel and select the “LAMP” role as shown in the image below.
tasksel
The wizard will walk you through the MySQL database part, so no need to worry about that. Just follow the instructions and think about what you’re doing, and you’ll be 100% fine. After the wizard is done, you can install phpMyAdmin.
2.) Install phpMyAdmin
Now you’re ready to install phpMyAdmin, run the following command to kick off the installation process.
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin -y
During the installation process, you’ll be prompted to configure phpMyAdmin for your webserver. If you have Apache on your system, go with that option – if you’re running lightHTTPD then you’re in luck, phpMyAdmin works with that web server as well. Since I’m running Apache on this server, that’s what I’ll be going with.
apache2 phpMyAdmin Configuration
3.) Configure The phpMyAdmin Database
phpMyAdmin requires a database to function properly and store its own settings. Go ahead and configure it with the dbconfig-common wizard, it will walk you through everything you need to complete the installation. The wizard will basically create a new MySQL database, phpmyadmin MySQL DB user, and have you set the passwords for the db and user accordingly.
dbconfig-common
4.) Login To Your phpMyAdmin Console
Hit the hostname of the server that you installed phpMyAdmin on, and login with the phpmyadmin user that you just created in the Step 3. In my case, I’m entering http://samba/phpmyadmin in my web browser to login.
phpMyAdmin – Welcome to phpMyAdmin
