How To Install phpPgAdmin on Ubuntu 16.04 and 14.04 LTS

phpPgAdmin is an web interface for accessing and managing PostgreSQL databases in a very easy way. We can easily create new databases, tables in the database, users, stored procedures etc. Also, we can execute PL/pgSQL and other stored procedures. It also provides an option for database backup and restores from the web interface.

This article will help you to install phpPgAdmin web interface to manage PostgreSQL server on Ubuntu Systems. We are assuming that you already have installed PostgreSQL in your Ubuntu system, If not first install it using another article Install PostgreSQL on Ubuntu first.

Step 1 – Install Prerequisites

PhpPgAdmin required PHP and Apache2 must be installed on your system. Also, you will need php-pgsql libraries installed on the system. If you don’t have PHP installed, Use tutorial Install PHP7 or Install PHP5 on system. After installing PHP and Apache install the PHP module for postgresql.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install php-pgsql   # Use package name as per php verison 

Step 2 – Install phpPgAdmin

We are assuming here that you already have PostgreSQL server running on your Ubuntu system. If not install it first. Now phpPgAdmin packages are also available under default Ubuntu repositories. Use the following command to install phpPgAdmin.

$ sudo apt-get install phppgadmin

Step 3 – Configure PostgreSQL

Now, you may need to make some changes in your PostgreSQL server to access via phpPgAdmin. First this to access PostgreSQL on all interfaces, update the following settings under postgresql.conf file.

$ sud vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf

listen_addresses = '*' 

After this enable PostgreSQL auth from remote hosts edit pg_hba.conf configuration file and add the last line showing below.

$ sudo vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf

#### Default settings  
local   all         postgres                          ident
local   all         all                               ident
host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          ident
host    all         all         ::1/128               ident
#### Add extra configuration   
host    all         all         192.168.1.0/24          md5 

Step 4 – Configure phpPgAdmin

Now, your PostgreSQL server is ready for accessing with phpPgAdmin. You may face some issue with the login on phpPgAdmin. To fix this disable the extra login security of phpPgAdmin.

$ sudo vi /var/www/html/phpPgAdmin/conf/config.inc.php

Set extra_login_security value to false.

$conf['extra_login_security'] = false;

Step 5 – Access phpPgAdmin

Now phpPgAdmin is available to access from localhost only. To access from local system just type below url in your favorite browser.

http://localhost/phppgadmin

Step 6 – Secure phpPgAdmin

Now if you want to access phpPgAdmin web interface from the remote system like your local LAN or remote public network server. We need to make little changes in PostgreSQL Apache configuration file. To do it edit file

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/phppgadmin.conf

Now comment the Require local line and add other lines in configuration file to allow specific ip ranges.

#Require local
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
allow from 192.168.1.0/24

Save you file and restart Apache service using the following command.

$ sudo service apache2 reload