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phpMyAdmin

Setting up phpMyAdmin on Arch Linux involves installing the package, configuring the necessary PHP extensions, and correctly configuring the Apache web server to access the application.

This guide assumes you have a functional LAMP stack (Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, and PHP) already installed on your Arch Linux system.

1. Install phpMyAdmin and Required PHP Modules

Use the pacman package manager to install the phpMyAdmin package along with essential PHP extensions required for database connectivity and functionality.

sudo pacman -S phpmyadmin php-apache php-mysqli php-gd php-intl php-json php-mbstring
  • phpmyadmin: The core application files.
  • php-apache: The PHP module for the Apache web server (mod_php).
  • php-mysqli: Essential for connecting PHP to MariaDB/MySQL.
  • The other modules are required for various features like image manipulation (php-gd), internationalization (php-intl), and multi-byte string support (php-mbstring).

2. Configure PHP Modules

You need to ensure the required extensions are enabled in your main PHP configuration file.

  1. Open the PHP configuration file (usually located at /etc/php/php.ini): 
    sudo nano /etc/php/php.ini
  2. Search for the following lines and uncomment them by removing the semicolon (;) at the beginning: 
    ;extension=mysqli
;extension=iconv
;extension=mbstring
;extension=gd
    They should look like this after editing: 
    extension=mysqli
extension=iconv
extension=mbstring
extension=gd
  3. Save the file and exit the editor.

3. Configure Apache for phpMyAdmin

Apache needs an alias configuration to know where the phpMyAdmin files are located on the filesystem (/usr/share/webapps/phpMyAdmin) and what URL alias to use (e.g., /phpmyadmin).

  1. Create a new Apache configuration file for phpMyAdmin: 
    sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/extra/phpmyadmin.conf
  2. Add the following content to the new file: 
    Alias /phpmyadmin "/usr/share/webapps/phpMyAdmin"

<Directory "/usr/share/webapps/phpMyAdmin">
    DirectoryIndex index.php
    AllowOverride All
    Options FollowSymlinks
    Require all granted
</Directory>
  3. Include this new configuration file in Apache's main configuration. Open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf: 
    sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
  4. Scroll to the very end of the file and add this line: 
    # phpMyAdmin configuration
Include conf/extra/phpmyadmin.conf

4. Finalize Configuration and Restart Services

  1. Restart Apache to load the new configuration: 
    sudo systemctl restart httpd
  2. If the PHP-FPM service is running (instead of mod_php), restart it as well, although the php-apache package suggests you are using mod_php. 
    # sudo systemctl restart php-fpm  # (Optional, only if using PHP-FPM)

5. Access phpMyAdmin

Open your web browser and navigate to your server's address followed by the alias:

http://localhost/phpmyadmin (if on the same machine) or http://your_server_ip/phpmyadmin

You should see the phpMyAdmin login screen. Log in using your MariaDB/MySQL root user or another privileged database user.