You can use phpMyAdmin to manage your MySQL databases on a VPS. It’s an excellent tool for browsing, editing, creating, and dropping tables, as well as modifying columns and data. You don’t need to SSH into remote machines or load up some new terminal window to execute a few SQL queries every time you want to run some database queries. Instead, you can use a program like phpMyAdmin and keep everything in one place.

This blog will show you how to install and set up phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 22.04 server.

Step 1 – Install Apache and PHP

We are assuming you already have installed the MySQL server on Ubuntu system. So just install the other required packages to run and access phpMyAdmin.

sudo apt install apache2 wget unzip 
sudo apt install php php-zip php-json php-mbstring php-mysql 

Once the installation is finished, enable and start the Apache web server.

sudo systemctl enable apache2 
sudo systemctl start apache2 

Step 2 – Install phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 22.04

You can quickly install the phpMyAdmin from the default Ubuntu repositories. But they contain an older version of phpMyAdmin. If you are okay with the old version simply type apt install phpmyadmin, but to install the latest version, you need to download it from the official website.

Your system is ready for the phpMyAdmin installation. Download the latest phpMyAdmin archive from the official download page, or use the below commands to download phpMyAdmin 5.2 on your system. Once the downloading is finished, extract the archive and move it to the proper location.

wget https://files.phpmyadmin.net/phpMyAdmin/5.2.0/phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages.zip 
unzip phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages.zip 
sudo mv phpMyAdmin-5.2.0-all-languages /usr/share/phpmyadmin 

Next, create tmp directory and set the proper permissions. This is a necessary step to make it work properly.

sudo mkdir /usr/share/phpmyadmin/tmp 
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/phpmyadmin 
sudo chmod 777 /usr/share/phpmyadmin/tmp 

Step 3 – Configure phpMyAdmin

Now, you need to configure the webserver to serve phpMyAdmin on the network. Create an Apache configuration file for phpMyAdmin and edit it in a text editor:

sudo vim /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin.conf 

add the below content to the file.

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Alias /phpmyadmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin

Alias /phpMyAdmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin

<Directory /usr/share/phpmyadmin/>

   AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

   <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>

      <RequireAny>

      Require all granted

     </RequireAny>

   </IfModule>

</Directory>

<Directory /usr/share/phpmyadmin/setup/>

   <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>

     <RequireAny>

       Require all granted

     </RequireAny>

   </IfModule>

</Directory>

Save your file. Press ESC key to switch to command more. Then type :wq (colon w q) and hit Enter button.

After making all the changes, make sure to start the Apache service to reload all settings.

sudo a2enconf phpmyadmin 
sudo systemctl restart apache2 

Step 4 – Adjusting FirewallD

The systems with enabled firewalls need to allow HTTP service from the firewall. Run the below commands to open a port for the webserver in the firewall.

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http 
sudo firewall-cmd --reload 

Step 5 – Create a MySQL Database and User

Connect to the MySQL server running on your system.

mysql 

Execute the following MySQL queries one by one to create a database and user. Also, assign the privileges to the user on the database.

mysql> CREATE DATABASE  tecadmin;

Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> CREATE USER ‘tecadmin’@‘localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘Pa$$w0rd’;

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> GRANT ALL ON tecadmin.* TO ‘tecadmin’@‘localhost’;

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Step 6 – Access phpMyAdmin

All done. You have finished the setup with the phpMyAdmin on the Ubuntu Linux system. Now access phpMyAdmin with the server IP address or domain name.

http://your-server-ip-domain/phpmyadmin

Replace your-server-ip-domain with the localhost (for the local machines), or system IP address for remote machines. I have updated our DNS and pointed dbhost.tecadmin.net to the server’s IP address.

How To Install phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 22.04 mysql phpMyAdmin PMA
phpMyAdmin Login Screen

Log in with the username and password used to access MySQL on the command line.

How To Install phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 22.04 mysql phpMyAdmin PMA
phpMyAdmin Dashboard

Conclusion

You have successfully configured phpMyAdmin on the Ubuntu system. Also you can disable root user login for the for the security purposes in phpMyAdmin.

You can use phpMyAdmin to administer the MySQL server without login in through the command line.