How to access remote server with local phpMyAdmin client?

Question

Just add below lines to your /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php file in the bottom:

$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'HostName:port'; //provide hostname and port if other than default
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'userName';   //user name for your remote server
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'Password';  //password
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';       // keep it as config

You will get Current Server: drop down with both 127.0.0.1 and one what you have provided with $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] can switch between the servers.

More Details: http://sforsuresh.in/access-remote-mysql-server-using-local-phpmyadmin/

It can be done, but you need to change the phpMyAdmin configuration, read this post: http://www.danielmois.com/article/Manage_remote_databases_from_localhost_with_phpMyAdmin

If for any reason the link dies, you can use the following steps:

• Find phpMyAdmin's configuration file, called config.inc.php
• Find the $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] variable, and set it to the IP or hostname of your remote server
• Find the $cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] variable, and set it to the remote mysql port. Usually this is 3306
• Find the $cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] and $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] variables and set these to your username and password for the remote server

Without proper server configuration, the connection may be slower than a local connection for example, it's would probably be slightly faster to use IP addresses instead of host names to avoid the server having to look up the IP address from the hostname.

In addition, remember that your remote database's username and password is stored in plain text when you connect like this, so you should take steps to ensure that no one can access this config file. Alternatively, you can leave the username and password variables empty to be prompted to enter them each time you log in, which is a lot more secure.

It is certainly possible to access a remote MySQL server from a local instance of phpMyAdmin, as the other answers have pointed out. And for that to work, you have to configure the remote server's MySQL server to accept remote connections, and allow traffic through the firewall for the port number that MySQL is listening to. I prefer a slightly different solution involving SSH Tunnelling.

The following command will set up an SSH tunnel which will forward all requests made to port 3307 from your local machine to port 3306 on the remote machine:

ssh -NL 3307:localhost:3306 root@REMOTE_HOST

When prompted, you should enter the password for the root user on the remote machine. This will open the tunnel. If you want to run this in the background, you'll need to add the -f argument, and set up Passwordless SSH between your local machine and the remote machine.

After you've got the SSH tunnel working, you can add the remote server to the servers list in your local phpMyAdmin by modifying the /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php file. Add the following to the end of the file:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose']       = 'Remote Server 1'; // Change this to whatever you like.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host']          = '127.0.0.1';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port']          = '3307';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type']  = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension']     = 'mysqli';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress']      = FALSE;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type']     = 'cookie';
$i++;

I wrote a more in-depth blog post about exactly this, in case you need additional help.

Follow this blog post. You can do it very easily. https://wadsashika.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/manage-remote-mysql-database-locally-using-phpmyadmin/

The file config.inc.php contains the configuration settings for your phpMyAdmin installation. It uses an array to store sets of config options for every server it can connect to and by default there is only one, your own machine, or localhost. In order to connect to another server, you would have to add another set of config options to the config array. You have to edit this configuration file.

First open config.inc.php file held in phpMyAdmin folder. In wamp server, you can find it in wamp\apps\phpmyadmin folder. Then add following part to that file.

$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host']          = 'hostname/Ip Adress';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port']          = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket']        = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type']  = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension']     = 'mysql';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress']      = FALSE;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type']     = 'config';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user']          = 'username';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password']      = 'password';

Let’s see what is the meaning of this variables.

$i++ :- Incrementing variable for each server
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] :- Server host name or IP adress
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘port’] :- MySQL port (Leave a blank for default port. Default MySQL port is 3306)
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘socket’] :- Path to the socket (Leave a blank for default socket)
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] :- How to connect to MySQL server (‘tcp’ or ‘socket’)
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘extension’] :- php MySQL extension to use (‘mysql’ or ‘msqli’)
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘compress’] :- Use compressed protocol for the MySQL connection (requires PHP >= 4.3.0)
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] :- Method of Authentication
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘username’] :- Username to the MySQL database in remote server
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] :- Password to the MySQL database int he remote server

After adding this configuration part, restart you server and now your phpMyAdmin home page will change and it will show a field to select the server.

Now you can select you server and access your remote database by entering username and password for that database.

As stated in answer c.hill answer, if you want a secure solution I would advise to open an SSH tunnel to your server.

Here is the way to do it for Windows users:

1. Download Plink and Putty from the Putty website and place the files in the folder of your choice (In my example C:\Putty)

2. Open the Windows console and cd to Plink folder: cd C:\Putty

3. Open the SSH tunnel and redirect to the port 3307:

   plink -L 3307:localhost:3306 username@server_ip -i path_to_your_private_key.ppk

Where:

• 3307 is the local port you want to redirect to
• localhost is the address of the MySQL DB on the remote server (localhost by default)
• 3306 is the port use for PhpMyAdmin on the remote server (3306 by default)

Finally you can setup PhpMyAdmin:

4. Add the remote server to your local PhpMyAdmin configuration by adding the following line at the end of config.inc.php

Lines to add:

$i++;   
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose']          = 'Remote Dev server';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host']             = 'localhost';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port']             = '3307';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type']     = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension']        = 'mysqli';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress']         = FALSE;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type']        = 'cookie';

5. You should be able to connect now at http://127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin

If you do not want to open the console each time you need to connect to your remote server, just create a batch file (by saving the 2 command lines in a .bat file).