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 a tidier user interface, high performance, better support, and rapid development and enhances security, user experience, performance, and more. For more about Adminer, please see its homepage.

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. After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots… 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…

Install MariaDB Database Server

Since we’re going to be managing MariaDB databases via Adminer, run the commands below to install the MariaDB database server on Ubuntu. After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the MariaDB service always to start up when the server boots… Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Run these on Ubuntu 18.10 and 18.04 LTS 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… 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… type the root password when prompted… If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed…

Install PHP Script

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: Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2 Then run the commands below to install After installing the above PHP-required modules, go and download PHP’s latest version. You can get it from the link below: https://www.adminer.org/en/#download At the time of this writing, the latest version was 4.7.4. If you find a newer version from the link above, replace the download link below with that so you can always get the latest. 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 admin http://example.com/adminer.php You should see the Adminer login page. You won’t be able to log on with the MariaDB root account. When you attempt to log on using the MariaDB root account it will fail… That’s because MariaDB and MySQL have switched 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 passwords… So, you won’t be able to connect via Adminer… When you attempt to log in, you see the error “#1698 – Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’” To fix that, run the commands below: That should get you into the database server. After that, run the commands below to disable plugin authentication for the root user Restart and run the commands below to set a new password. Now try again to log on… this time it should work! Congratulations! You have successfully installed Adminer with Apache2, MariaDB, and PHP 7.2 support. You may also like the post below: