How to Install phpMyAdmin with Nginx on Ubuntu?

When you try to build a website for production or just start learning web development, you need a server to make your web application accessible from the browser to other users, either to use it or test its functionality.

Nginx is a better choice for a server to serve websites. It is known for its efficiency and capacity to handle large traffic. Nginx can also work as a reverse proxy and load balancer. The pronunciation of the word "Nginx" is like this: engine-x.

phpMyAdmin is a web interface to manage MySQL and MariaDB databases. It allows us to create databases, tables, and users. Do not confuse it with the actual database server, which could be MySQL or MariaDB, and needs to be installed before the web interface.

In this tutorial, we will go through the process and steps required to get phpMyAdmin and Nginx installed and running on Ubuntu.

Prerequisites: Ubuntu server with sudo privileges and internet connection.

Install Nginx

Nginx can be installed on Ubuntu easily. However, if you have Apache already installed on your machine and you want them both to act as servers, this requires some changes in the configuration to avoid conflicts.

To install Nginx, first, update the system

sudo apt update

Next, get the Nginx server using the command

sudo apt install nginx

After the installation is done, we can check the version installed using the command

nginx -v

To check the status of the server, whether it's running or not, use the command

sudo systemctl status nginx

Resolving Port Conflicts with Apache

If you're running Apache alongside Nginx, both servers use port 80 by default, causing conflicts. To fix this, we need to change Apache to use a different port.

Let's change the port for the Apache server from 80 to 8080. Edit the ports configuration file

sudo nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Change the port from 80 to 8080.

Next, edit the virtual host configuration

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Change the VirtualHost directive to

<VirtualHost *:8080>

Finally, restart both servers

sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Now you can access:

• localhost:8080 for Apache server
• localhost for Nginx server

Install Database Server

Before installing phpMyAdmin, you need to install a database server. We'll use MariaDB

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Verify the installation

mariadb --version

Install PHP

phpMyAdmin requires PHP to function. Install PHP and required extensions

sudo apt install php-fpm php-mysql php-json php-curl php-mbstring php-xml php-zip -y

Install phpMyAdmin

Install phpMyAdmin using the package manager

sudo apt install phpmyadmin

During installation, you'll encounter configuration prompts:

1. When asked to choose a web server, select [Yes] to skip (Nginx isn't listed)
2. When asked to use dbconfig-common, select [Yes]
3. Enter a password for the phpMyAdmin database
4. Confirm the password

Configure Nginx for phpMyAdmin

Configure Nginx to serve phpMyAdmin by editing the default site configuration

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Add the following location block inside the server block

location /phpmyadmin {
    root /usr/share/;
    index index.php;
    
    location ~ ^/phpmyadmin/(.+\.php)$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        root /usr/share/;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
    
    location ~* ^/phpmyadmin/(.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html|xml|svg|ttf|woff|woff2|eot))$ {
        root /usr/share/;
    }
}

Note: Replace php8.1-fpm.sock with your PHP version. Check available versions with ls /run/php/.

Test the Nginx configuration

sudo nginx -t

If the test is successful, reload Nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Access phpMyAdmin

Navigate to http://localhost/phpmyadmin in your browser to access the phpMyAdmin interface. Use your MariaDB credentials to log in.

Conclusion

You have successfully installed and configured phpMyAdmin with Nginx on Ubuntu. This setup provides a web-based interface for managing MySQL/MariaDB databases efficiently. Remember to secure your installation by configuring proper authentication and access controls for production environments.