How to Install and Secure phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 18.04

The phpMyAdmin tool is a free application for managing a MySQL server.  Many users work with Ubuntu Linux because it’s more user-friendly than other Linux distributions. Installing phpMyAdmin is helpful for Ubuntu users, by managing MySQL databases through a user-friendly interface, instead of entering commands into the terminal.

This guide will help you install PhpMyAdmin Ubuntu 18.04, with additional security.

This guide assumes you’re installing to a local system. If you need to set up encryption or security certificates for configuring a remote server, please refer to this guide.

Some Ubuntu 18.04 installations are not configured with the software repositories for phpMyAdmin. To add them, open a terminal window and enter the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository universe

The system should ask for your password – enter it, then make sure it completes successfully. Once completed, refresh the software lists by entering the following:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Allow the process to finish.

In the same terminal window, enter the following:

sudo apt-get install phpMyAdmin

The system should ask for confirmation – press Y then enter, and the system should download and install the software package.

Shortly after you start the installation, the installer will prompt you to choose which web server should be automatically configured.

Select “Apache2” -> Spacebar to choose -> Tab -> Enter

Next, the installer will note that you have to have a database installed and configured before you can use phpMyAdmin.  Select “Yes” -> Enter.

Note:  If you’re an advanced user, you can manually configure the database, but doing so is outside the scope of this guide. You can find more information on dbconfig-common here.

Shortly after, the installer will ask you to provide a password. The installer is creating a default user named “phpMyAdmin” and the password you type here will work as an administrator password for this user.

Type a strong password and hit Enter, then confirm the password and hit Enter again.

Note: Leaving the password field blank will cause the system to generate a random password. You can change or retrieve a random (or lost) password by following this guide.

Mbstring is an extension for PHP. It helps email and .pdf files to work correctly, but it’s not enabled by default.  Enter the following in your terminal to enable mbstring:

sudo phpenmod mbstring

Hit Enter and allow the process to finish.

Restart the Apache server to refresh the changes by entering the following in a terminal:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

By default, MySQL 5.7 and later in Ubuntu, authenticate a root user using auth_socket. This compares the socket username against the name specified in the MySQL user table and is a tightly-secured authentication method. However, this can make it difficult to use phpMyAdmin.

It is possible to change the authentication type, but it’s simpler to create a new administrator account for MySQL.

Log in to the MySQL server as follows:

sudo mysql

This should change the terminal prompt to show mysql>, indicating that you’re logged into the MySQL shell.  Enter the following commands, replacing UserName with a username of your choice, and PassWord with a strong password of your choice:

CREATE USER 'UserName'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'PassWord';

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

Once the operation completes, exit the MySQL shell by entering:

exit

Open up a browser window and enter your server’s domain name or IP address, followed by /phpMyAdmin:

192.168.0.1/phpMyAdmin

www.domain.com/phpMyAdmin

The browser should display a screen welcoming you to phpMyAdmin, with a login field. Enter the username and password you created in Step 5. The browser should load the phpMyAdmin dashboard.

Being easy to use – and free – makes phpMyAdmin a juicy target for hackers. Follow these steps to use Apache’s built-in features to restrict access to the phpMyAdmin directories.

In a terminal window, enter the following command to edit the phpMyAdmin.conf file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpMyAdmin.conf

In the editor, scroll down to the section labeled <Directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin>. You should see the following two lines:

Options FollowSymLinks

DirectoryIndex index.php

Just below these entries, add the following text:

AllowOverride All

Save the file and exit. Then apply the changes by restarting Apache with the following terminal command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

The .htaccess file allows a more detailed configuration of the Apache web server.  Enter the following in the terminal:

sudo nano /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/.htaccess

This will create a new file and open it in a text editor.  In the text editor, enter the following lines:

AuthType Basic

AuthName "Restricted Files"

AuthUserFile /etc/phpMyAdmin/.htpasswd

Require valid-user

Save the file and close.  These commands configure .htaccess to use basic authentication, to secure restricted files only to valid users, and where to find a list of valid users.

This step creates a username and password to access the phpMyAdmin directory.  This will force anyone trying to access the phpMyAdmin directory to enter a username and password.

In the terminal window, enter the following:

sudo htpasswd -c /etc/phpMyAdmin/.htpasswd UserName

Replace UserName with the actual username you want to use to access the phpMyAdmin directory.  The system will prompt you to enter and confirm a password.

If you need to add additional users, use the same command without the –c switch, as follows:

sudo htpasswd  /etc/phpMyAdmin/.htpasswd SecondUser

Go back to your browser window, and open the IP_address/phpMyAdmin. The system should prompt you with a pop-up that asks for credentials, saying “Restricted files.” Enter the username and password you created in Step 7c.

You should now see the phpMyAdmin login screen. Enter your credentials from Step 5, and the system should display the phpMyAdmin user interface.

You should now be able to manage your MySQL database from the phpMyAdmin tool, including managing users, creating databases, and so forth. The phpMyAdmin tool replaces the command-line interface used in this guide with a more intuitive graphical utility, which should simplify your database management tasks.