SQL Buddy is one of the easiest web-based admin tools you will ever find. Not only does it make the process of creating and editing MySQL databases easy, it is also incredibly easy to install. Let’s see just how easy this is to manage.

What you need

You will, of course, need a working installation of MySQL. You will also have to have your MySQL admin user and password handy. As far as dependencies, you will need to have the following installed:

• PHP >= 4.3
• MySQL >= 4

Of course, if you already have the MySQL server up and running you might only need the PHP piece installed. You can install the PHP dependency easily from your Add/Remove Software tool. Search for “php” (no quotes) and install the version recommended for your distribution and release.

You will also need to download the SQL Buddy file. You can find that from the SQL Buddy main page. This file will be a .zip file. Save that file into your web server’s document root (on a Ubuntu machine that would be /var/www).

Installation

Figure 1

You will be shocked to know there really is no installation. All you need to do is unzip the sqlbuddy_XXX.zip (Where XXX is the release number) within your web server document root and then point your browser to http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/sqlbuddy. Where ADDRESS_TO_SERVER is the actual address of your MySQL server. When you do this you will be prompted for the MySQL admin credentials. Enter the credentials and, upon successful authentication, you will find yourself on the SQL Buddy main page (see Figure 1).

Figure 2

Once you are in you will find the interface very simple to use. Here you can create new databases by entering a name for the database, selecting the correct charset (Very important), and hitting Submit. Once you do that you will find yourself at a new screen. This new screen (Figure 2) allows you to edit the database and create tables for the database.

You do need to pay close attention to the creation of tables for your database. Make sure you add the correct fields for the the table or you will get an SQL error and the table will not be saved.

After you successfully enter the data for your tables, click Submit and your table will be added to the new Database (and the database will be successfully saved).

Final thoughts

If you have been searching for an easy method to manage your MySQL databases, search no more…SQL Buddy will have you easily creating and managing databases on your MySQL server.

Naturally, what is nice about phpldapadmin is that it allows you to manage your LDAP server from anywhere you have access to a browser (so long as your LDAP server can be reached form anywhere. In this article I am going to show you how to install, configure, and begin to use the phpldapadmin tool.

Installation

Before you install phpLDAPAdmin (also known as PLA), you will need to have your LDAP server up and running. Once that is achieved you can then proceed with your installation of this management tool. You will also need to have a web server installed and running (it is a web-based tool after all).  If you do not already have php5-ldap installed, install that package now.

The first step for installation is to download the source from Sourceforge. You can install from a pre-compiled binary, but I recommend you do the installation from source.

Once you have the .tgz file downloaded move that file to your web servers’ document root. In Fedora this will be /var/www/html and in Ubuntu this will be /var/www. The next step is to unpack the tar file and then rename the newly created directory. You will need administrative privileges for these tasks. Follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Change to your document root.
3. Su to root (if using Fedora or a Fedora-like distribution).
4. Issue the command tar xvfz phpldapadmin-XXX.tgz (If using a Ubuntu-like distribution you will have to add sudo to the beginning of that command) Where XXX is the release number.
5. Rename the directory with the command mv phpldapadmin-XXX phpldapadmin (If using Ubuntu-like distribution you will have to add sudo to the beginning of that command) Where XXX is the release number.
6. Change into the phpldapadmin/config and rename the config file with the command mv config.php.sample config.php (If using Ubuntu-like distribution you will have to add sudo to the beginning of that command).

Now it’s time to fire up your web browser and head to your installation. Point your browser to http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/phpldapadmin/ and you will see a page similar to that in Figure 1.

The first thing you need to do is click on the Login link (in the left navigation tree). The credentials you need will be those that were created to administer your LDAP server. But don’t think you can just log in with a username of “admin” and a password. You have to use the standard format of LDAP. So a typical administrator login username will look like cn=admin,dc=wallen,dc=local.

Once you have logged in, the main page will look like that shown in Figure 2. Expand the navigation tree on the left nav and you can see where you can start creating new entries.

Final thoughts

You are now ready to rock your LDAP server from anywhere you can access a web browser. The phpLDAPAdmin tool makes LDAP as easy as phpMyAdmin makes MySQL. This is one of the best LDAP admin tools you will find.

One of the simplest installation is on a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) server. Before you go on, however, I will highly suggest you install PhpMyAdmin so the database creation is simple. For more information take a look at my Install PhpMyAdmin for easy MySQL Administration article. Once you have PhpMyAdmin installed you will want to create a database for your installation. You can name the database whatever you want, just make sure you remember the name. With your LAMP server up and running you have the most difficult aspect of the installation out of the way. All that is left is the actual installation of Drupal.

Your first step is to download the latest release of Drupal from the Drupal download page. Once you have that file downloaded move it to your web servers’ document root. You will need root access to undertake these steps so you will with su to root or use sudo.

Unpack the Drupal file. This will most likely be done with the tar xvzf drupal-XXX.tar.gz command (Where XXX is the actual realease number). This will create a new directory called drupal-XXX (Where XXX is the release number). Now, I always change the name of this directory for simplicity. I will either rename this directory to main or something easy to remember. You can also move the entire contents of the directory into the document root. The only issue this can cause is if you are installing multiple sites on the same server. For that reason I tend to keep the Drupal install in its very own directory.

Once you have this file unpacked and the directory renamed, the fun begins. Fire up your browser and point it to http://path/to/installation/ (Where path/to/installation is the entire path to the Drupal installation. For example http://192.168.1.10/main/.) This will automatically start up the installation process.

Step 1

The first step in the installation is to select your language. The default will be English. If you need to install Drupal in another language select the obvious link. Once you click the appropriate link you will be taken to the next step.

Step 2

Step 2 requires that you change the name of the default.settings.php to settings.php. This file will be found in the /var/www/html/main/sites/default/ directory (This will depend upon your installation of course.) You also need to change the permissions of this file so it is writable by the web server. You can do this with the command chmod g+w settings.php. One last step is to create the directory sites/default/files with the command (from within your web servers’ document root) mkdir sites/default/files. You may get another error when you click try again. If you do this is a permissions error. Enter the command chmod -R g+w sites/default/files which should solve the problem.

Step 3

Now it is time to set up your database. Remember the database you created with PhpMyAdmin? This is where that information goes.

Once you fill out this information click Save and Continue to move on. You’re almost done.

Step 4

Just a couple more steps. Now you can remove write permissions on the settings.php file (chmod o-w settings.php) and enter the configuration information for your site. The information you need to provide is self explanitory. Once you have finished save the information and you’re done. You will be greeted with the “Installation Complete” page!

Installation Complete

Final Thoughts

You can now log in with your administrator name (you will have created that in the site configuration page above) and start building your site. Drupal is an outstanding Content Management System you will quickly come to depend upon for many of your website rollouts.

In this article you will learn how to install and configure the phpMyAdmin MySQL tool.

The first step is to download phpMyAdmin. You can get this tool from the phpMyAdmin download page. Once you have this downloaded you will need to move the file into the document root of your web server (you will need to have root or sudo access to do this and the setup) Most likely this will be either /var/www/html or /var/www. Once you have this file in the proper locaton it is time to take care of business.

The first thing to do is to unpack the file. The unpacking command will depend upon what file format you download. Let’s use the .gz file for an example. With the file phpMyAdmin-3.1.1-english.tar.gz in place issue the command:

tar xvzf phpMyAdmin-3.11-english.tar.gz

The resulting directory will be phpMyAdmin. I highly recommend changing the name of that directory to something easier to navigate and remember. I generally just change the directory with the command mv phpMyAdmin phpmyadmin.

Now that the directory is correct move into the directory. There is one file in particular you must have which is the config.inc.php file. You will notice there is a file called config.sample.inc.php. Some documentation instructs to change the name of config.sample.inc.php to config.inc.php and make your changes from within that file. It is my opinion that method can become confusing with all of the extra options included. Instead create the new config file with the following contents (depending upon your setup):

<?php
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ''; /* YOU MUST FILL IN THIS FOR COOKIE AUTH! */
/*
* Servers configuration
*/
$i = 0;
/*
* First server
*/
$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'ROOT_PASSWORD';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysqli';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPasswordRoot'] = true;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['nopassword'] = true;
?>


There are a few pieces to note. First make sure you use the actual root mysql password where you see ROOT_PASSWORD. Also, if you want to prompted each time for your login information change ‘config’ to ‘cookie’ in the ‘auth_type’ line.

Once you have that configuration file in place you should be able to log into your phpmyadmin system. To do this you will enter http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/phpmyadmin/ in your browser (where ADDRESS_TO_SERVER is the IP Address or URL that points to the server.

If, for some reason, this configuration file does not work for you give the web-based setup script a try. To run this point your browser to http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/phpmyadmin/setup to start the graphical setup process.

After you are logged in it should be pretty obvious how to create a new database. You simple enter thename you want to give the database and click the Create button.

You’re done! You now have a phpmyadmin install ready to serve you.