This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to manage MariaDB | MySQL databases with Adminer database web management tool on Ubuntu
Adminer is a web based database management tool that supports MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Oracle and more.
Like phpMyAdmin, Adminer supports all those features you find with it, but with tidier user interface, high performance, better support and rapid development and enhances security, user experience, performance and more.
If you’re currently using phpMyAdmin and you feel it’s lacking support or features to get you work done, you might want to try Adminer.
You can replace phpMyAdmin with Adminer and benefit from all the features provider by phpMyAdmin and more, including better support for MySQL and other databases.
For more about Adminer, please see its homepage.
When you’re ready to manually install Adminer, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Install Apache2 HTTP Server
Adminer needs a web server to function. A popular open source web server is Apache2. Run the commands below to install it on Ubuntu.
sudo apt update sudo apt install apache2
After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots…
sudo systemctl stop apache2.service sudo systemctl start apache2.service sudo systemctl enable apache2.service
Now that Apache2 is installed…. to test whether the web server is working, open your browser and browse to the URL below…
If you see the page above, then Apache2 is successfully installed…
Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server
Since we’re going to be managing MariaDB databases via Adminer, run the commands below to install MariaDB database server on Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots…
Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mysql.service sudo systemctl start mysql.service sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
Run these on Ubuntu 18.10 and 18.04 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service sudo systemctl start mariadb.service sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
Next, run the commands below to secure the database server with a root password if you were not prompted to do so during the installation…
sudo mysql_secure_installation
When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.
- Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
- Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
- New password: Enter password
- Re-enter new password: Repeat password
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y
Now that MariaDB is installed, to test whether the database server was successfully installed, run the commands below…
sudo mysql -u root -p
type the root password when prompted…
If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed…
Step 3: Install PHP Script
In order to get Adminer working, you’ll need to install PHP and related modules.
However, PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories… To run PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 and previous, you may need to run the commands below:
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2
sudo apt update
Then run the commands below to install
sudo apt-get install php7.2 php-tcpdf php7.2-cgi php7.2-mysqli php-pear php7.2-mbstring php7.2-gettext libapache2-mod-php7.2 php7.2-common php-phpseclib php7.2-mysql
After installing the above PHP required modules, go and download PHP latest version. You can get it from the link below:
At the time of this writing, the latest version was at 4.7.4. If you find a newer version from the link above, replace the download link below to that so you can always get the latest.
cd /var/www/html
sudo wget -O /var/www/html/adminer.php https://github.com/vrana/adminer/releases/download/v4.7.4/adminer-4.7.4.php
After downloading the php package above, there’s no setup or configurations needed. Adminer comes with a single file and that’s all you need.
After that, open your web browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address followed by adminer
You should see Adminer logon page.
You won’t be able to logon with MariaDB root account.
When you attempt to logon using MariaDB root account it will fail… That’s because MariaDB and MySQL have switch their authentication method to auth_socket
The auth_socket plugin authenticates users that connect from the localhost through the Unix socket file… which prevents users from connecting with password… So, you won’t be able to connect via Adminer…
When you attempt to logon, you see the error “#1698 – Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’”
To fix that, run the commands below:
sudo mysql -u root
That should get you into the database server. After that, run the commands below to disable plugin authentication for the root user
use mysql; update user set plugin='' where User="root"; flush privileges; exit
Restart and run the commands below to set a new password.
sudo systemctl restart mariadb.service
Now try again to logon… this time it should work!
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Adminer with Apache2, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 support.
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