Adminer – A Advanced Web Based Databases Administration Tool for Linux

We always interact with the databases to perform tasks in various way. We may connect directly and execute the tasks using SQL CLI mode or non-DBA user prefer to use GUI tools called phpMyAdmin or phpPgAdmin.

Many of us are aware of phpMyAdmin or phpPgAdmin database management tools. This post will talk about yet another database management tool called Adminer.

What is Adminer

Adminer (Formerly phpMinAdmin) is a fully featured database management tool written in PHP. Adminer is an alternative to phpMyAdmin where we can manage content in MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, PostgreSQL databases effectively.

There are number of web-based database management tools available. We find Adminer is pretty much user friendly. We assumes that you have already installed Apache, PHP and database of your choice.

Adminer Features

1. Basic functions: add/remove/modify databases/tables.
2. Modify database objects (views, triggers, procedures, user permissions, variables, processes etc.)
3. Execute SQL commands from a text field or a file.
4. Import and export databases and tables.
5. Export database, data, structure, views, routines to SQL or CSV.
6. Show processes and kill them.
7. Display users and permissions and change them.
8. Support multi-language.

Prerequisites

1. Apache web server
2. Supports PHP 5 with enabled sessions
3. Database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MongoDB, etc.)

Why use Adminer?

There is no doubt that phpMyAdmin is one of the most popular open source database administration tool for managing the MySQL databases. However, for some reason I think it’s not highly suitable which is the reason, Adminer comes into the picture.

Now, you thinking why Adminer is better alternative to phpMyadmin?. Frankly, saying the list is quite too large and some points may be irrelevant for you. The most important differences are:

1. Tidier user-friendly interface
2. Exceptional support for MySQL features
3. High performance
4. Less size (only 366kB)
5. Highly secured

To know more about detailed features and comparison between them, see comparision page.

Installation of Adminer in Linux

Go the official Adminer site and download the latest source files (i.e version 4.0.2) using below link.

1. http://www.adminer.org/en/#download

Alternatively, you may also grab the latest source package using the following wget command.

[[email protected] ~]# wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/adminer/adminer-4.0.2.zip

Unzip adminer’s zip file, which will create adminer directory with files.

[[email protected] ~]# unzip adminer-4.0.2.zip

Copy ‘adminer-4.0.2‘ directory into DocumentRoot of your web server.

[[email protected] ~]# cp -r adminer-4.0.2 /var/www/html/		[For RedHat based Systems]
[[email protected] ~]# cp -r adminer-4.0.2 /var/www/			[For Debian based Systems]

Finally, open and point to your browser at ‘adminer‘ directory.

http://localhost/adminer-4.02/adminer
OR
http://ip-address/adminer-4.02/adminer

Enter your username and password of your database to login into panel.

Post Login Screen

User Creation

Create Database

Reference Links

Adminer Homepage

Conclusion

Adminer is a very powerful web-based database management tool with rich features. Please try it out and share the experience with us via comments box below.