How to Install and Secure PhpMyAdmin on Linux using Source Archive

Last updated April 18, 2018 by Rahul K.

Linux Tutorials Adminer, dbaccess, mysql, MySQL Web Interface, php, phpmyadmin, PMA

phpMyAdmin is web-based client written in PHP programming language for managing MySQL databases. It provides a user-friendly web interface to access and manage your databases. This article will help you to install phpMyAdmin on CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian and other Linux operating systems. Before installing PHPMyAdmin make sure that you have Apache, PHP and MySQL installed on the server. If you do not have them read our tutorials on how to install them.

Step 1 – Download phpMyAdmin Archive

Download latest phpMyAdmin source code and extract on your system using. Click here to download latest or any older release of phpMyAdmin. Also extract the downloaded archive. This version of phpMyAdmin is compatible with PHP >= 5.5 and MySQL >= 5.5.

cd /usr/share
wget https://files.phpmyadmin.net/phpMyAdmin/4.8.0/phpMyAdmin-4.8.0-all-languages.zip
unzip phpMyAdmin-4.8.0-all-languages.zip
mv phpMyAdmin-4.8.0-all-languages phpmyadmin

Now set the proper permissions on files to be used with the web server. Generally, Apache web server runs under user and group named www-data on Debian based systems and apache on Redhat based systems.

### Debian based system 
chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/phpmyadmin
chmod -R 755 /usr/share/phpmyadmin

### Redhat based system 
chown -R apache:apache /usr/share/phpmyadmin
chmod -R 755 /usr/share/phpmyadmin

Step 2 – Setup Apache for phpMyAdmin

Create a new Apache configuration file for phpMyAdmin /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf for RedHat based system and /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin.conf for Debian based systems and add following settings there.

<Directory "/usr/share/phpmyadmin">
  Order Deny,Allow
  Deny from all
  Allow from localhost
  Allow from 127.0.0.1
  Allow from 192.168.1.0/24
</Directory>

Alias /phpmyadmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin
Alias /phpMyAdmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin

Change 192.168.1.0/24 with your LAN subnet IP addresses.

Step 3 – Restart Apache Service

After creating configuration file we need to restart or reload Apache service. I prefer to just reload on production servers.

sudo service httpd reload           ## RedHat based systems 
sudo service apache2 reload         ## Debian based systems

Step 4 – Access phpMyAdmin

Now you can access phpMyAdmin in a browser using the following URL. Change localhost with your server’s IP or hostname.

URL: http://localhost/phpMyAdmin/
Login Details: Use MySQL username and password.

Congratulation’s You have successfully installed phpMyAdmin.

Rahul K.

I, Rahul Kumar am the founder and chief editor of TecAdmin.net. I am a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and working as an IT professional since 2009..

17 Comments

sibi Reply to sibi
May 24, 2018 at 10:31 am
I installed phpMyAdmin-4.8.0.1 in /home/user/www/phpmyadmin.
config.inc.php already there. For fixing the eror i tried by editing ‘cookie’ wih http lke you told in the comment. but not fixed.
Getting error like the screenshot
http://imagehostnow.com/uploads/ccbc87e4b5/2717.jpg
- Rahul K. Reply to Rahul
  May 28, 2018 at 4:37 am
  Hi Sibi,
  It’s showing php script on page. It means you don’t have PHP module for Apache. Try below command:
  apt install libapache2-mod-php
  Or use the module with the same version of your php like (libapache2-mod-php7.2 or libapache2-mod-php5.6) etc.
me Reply to me
February 8, 2017 at 8:39 am
keep having 403 , I did “acces from all” since I dont need to filter the ip , it’s a local server
- Rahul K. Reply to Rahul
  April 18, 2018 at 8:31 am
  You can use “Allow from 127.0.0.1” in the configuration file. Also updated the tutorial accordingly.
Alfakom.mk Reply to Alfakom.mk
January 22, 2015 at 12:27 pm
Your problems may have different solutions.
1. If you have previosely installed another version of phpmyadmin, then even if you’ve uninstalled it, the phpmyadmin folder remained, and folowing this tutorial instead of renaming the folder into phpmyadmin, you’ve moved it in the same folder as subfolder…
Solution:
# cd phpmyadmin
# ls
Check if there is only one folder (the name of the phpmyadmin version) and if so:
# mv phpMyAdmin-4.2.10-all-languages /usr/share/
# rm -r phpmyadmin
And then the rest of the process from this tutorial starting from:
# mv phpMyAdmin-4.2.10-all-languages phpmyadmin
2. Solution
# cd /usr/share/phpmyadmin/
# mv config.sample.inc.php config.inc.php
# vi config.inc.php
Edit this line and change the ‘cookie’ to ‘http’
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
Save the file restart httpd and try to connect.
I would suggest to comment the whole <directory part from phpMyAdmin.conf and generate a strong root password with
# mysql_secure_installation
So you can later authenticate as root user from your browser…
My comment wont do you any good, but better late than never. And also as a solution for all the other users which will have the same problem…
Aaditya Reply to Aaditya
December 1, 2014 at 9:39 pm
Hi Rahul,
Great post, and great site! It’s definitely helped me out a lot!
I have used this guide to install phpMyAdmin on my server, but I get a blank page when loading the url… First I had the 403 Access Forbidden error just as Ivan and Isma, but I changed the conf file as suggested, and now the page is just blank. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
isma Reply to isma
October 14, 2014 at 8:02 am
Same problem than Ivan here!
Impossible to solve the “Forbidden”
Ivan Reply to Ivan
July 22, 2014 at 2:12 pm
Hi Rahul,
Thank you for your reply.
Here is the file, as you can see it’s exactly as yours.
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from all
#Allow from 192.168.1.0/24
Alias /phpmyadmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin
Alias /phpMyAdmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin
Ivan Reply to Ivan
July 22, 2014 at 5:33 am
Hello Rahul,
Firstly, let me thank you for your wonderful tutorials, I’ve learned very much with your help.
Even though in this ocassion it’s been impossible to access PhpMyAdmin, I´ve installed and reinstalled every thing from scratch over and over again, created new Instances on Amazon, etc, however the result is always the same, this frustrating message: “Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /phpmyadmin/ on this server.”
I’d appreaciate very much any help you can provide to me.
Thank you in advance,
I’m using:
RHEL 7, MariaDB, PHP 5.4.30, Apache 2
(http://ec2-54-94-156-123.sa-east-1.compute.amazonaws.com/phpinfo.php)
- Rahul Reply to Rahul
  July 22, 2014 at 9:05 am
  Hi Ivan,
  Post your /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf file content.
- Rahul Reply to Rahul
  July 22, 2014 at 9:07 am
  Hi Ivan,
  When you need to access phpMyAdmin from public network.. try to update phpMyAdmin.conf as below –
  Order Deny,Allow
  Deny from all
  Allow from all
  - Ivan Reply to Ivan
    July 23, 2014 at 2:08 am
    Hi Rahul,
    I retry several more times, followed every step, but it’s simply impossible, error 403 persists. I’ll terminate the instances on AWS and start all over again for the fourth time.
    Thanks anyways Rahul.
    - Rahul Reply to Rahul
      July 23, 2014 at 3:44 am
      Hi Ivan,
      If possible, provide me your server access. I can check it directly on your server. Contact me on my email.
Siddharth Reply to Siddharth
June 5, 2014 at 11:02 am
I have installed phpmyadmin by above method but i got below error.
“The mysqli extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration. See our documentation for more information.”
Tell me how to fix
- Rahul Reply to Rahul
  June 5, 2014 at 12:43 pm
  Hi Siddharth,
  Please install php-mysql extension first.
  - Sheik Abdul kathar Reply to Sheik
    March 20, 2018 at 8:57 am
    Hi,
    whenever I’m installing phpmyadmin I’m getting an error it’s saying depencies need to install and If I installed the same also the same issue.
    Please suggest for the same.
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]# tar -xvf phpMyAdmin-4.7.6-all-languages.zip
    tar: This does not look like a tar archive
    tar: Skipping to next header
    tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]# tar xvzf phpMyAdmin-4.7.6-all-languages.zip
    gzip: stdin has more than one entry–rest ignored
    tar: Child returned status 2
    tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]# gunzip phpMyAdmin-4.7.6-all-languages.zip
    gzip: phpMyAdmin-4.7.6-all-languages.zip: unknown suffix — ignored
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]# tar tvf phpMyAdmin-4.7.6-all-languages.zip
    tar: This does not look like a tar archive
    tar: Skipping to next header
    tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]# clear
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]#
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]#
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]#
    [[email protected] phpmyadmin]#
    login as: root
    [email protected]‘s password:
    Last login: Tue Mar 20 12:21:00 2018 from noc2-hcl-pc.iimb.ernet.in
    [[email protected] ~]# yum install phpmyadmin
    Loaded plugins: langpacks, product-id, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager
    This system is registered with an entitlement server, but is not receiving updates. You can use subscription-manager to assign subscriptions.
    Resolving Dependencies
    –> Running transaction check
    —> Package phpMyAdmin.noarch 0:4.4.15.10-2.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring >= 5.3.7 for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-php-gettext for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-tcpdf for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-tcpdf-dejavu-sans-fonts for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Running transaction check
    —> Package php-php-gettext.noarch 0:1.0.12-1.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring for package: php-php-gettext-1.0.12-1.el7.noarch
    —> Package php-tcpdf.noarch 0:6.2.13-1.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-bcmath for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-composer(fedora/autoloader) for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-tidy for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    —> Package php-tcpdf-dejavu-sans-fonts.noarch 0:6.2.13-1.el7 will be installed
    —> Package phpMyAdmin.noarch 0:4.4.15.10-2.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring >= 5.3.7 for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Running transaction check
    —> Package php-fedora-autoloader.noarch 0:1.0.0-1.el7 will be installed
    —> Package php-php-gettext.noarch 0:1.0.12-1.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring for package: php-php-gettext-1.0.12-1.el7.noarch
    —> Package php-tcpdf.noarch 0:6.2.13-1.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-bcmath for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    —> Package php-tidy.x86_64 0:5.4.16-7.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: libtidy-0.99.so.0()(64bit) for package: php-tidy-5.4.16-7.el7.x86_64
    —> Package phpMyAdmin.noarch 0:4.4.15.10-2.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring >= 5.3.7 for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Running transaction check
    —> Package compat-libtidy.x86_64 0:0.99.0-37.20091203.el7 will be installed
    —> Package php-php-gettext.noarch 0:1.0.12-1.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring for package: php-php-gettext-1.0.12-1.el7.noarch
    —> Package php-tcpdf.noarch 0:6.2.13-1.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-bcmath for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring for package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch
    —> Package phpMyAdmin.noarch 0:4.4.15.10-2.el7 will be installed
    –> Processing Dependency: php-mbstring >= 5.3.7 for package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch
    –> Finished Dependency Resolution
    Error: Package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch (epel)
    Requires: php-mbstring
    Error: Package: php-php-gettext-1.0.12-1.el7.noarch (epel)
    Requires: php-mbstring
    Error: Package: phpMyAdmin-4.4.15.10-2.el7.noarch (epel)
    Requires: php-mbstring >= 5.3.7
    Error: Package: php-tcpdf-6.2.13-1.el7.noarch (epel)
    Requires: php-bcmath
    You could try using –skip-broken to work around the problem
    You could try running: rpm -Va –nofiles –nodigest
    I have tried all the packages lists.But same issue.Tried to install the seperate packages also same issue.
    Please help me to resolve the issue.
    - Rahul K. Reply to Rahul
      March 20, 2018 at 4:22 pm
      Use unzip command to extract archive. I have corrected command in tutorial.