Even if we are entitled to only one database by the system administrator, we can still use all the advanced features of phpMyAdmin. In this setup, we will use our existing database to store the metadata tables.

We need to modify a local copy of the scripts/create_tables.sql file to populate our database with all the needed tables. They will have the prefix pma_ to make them easily recognizable. We need to remove the following lines:

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `phpmyadmin`
  DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin;
USE phpmyadmin;

This is done because we won't be using a phpmyadmin database but our own. Next, we should open our own database in phpMyAdmin. We are now ready to execute the script. There are two ways of doing this:

After the creation, the navigation panel shows us the special pma_ tables along with our normal tables.

It is now time to adjust all the configuration storage related parameters in config.inc.php. This can be done easily with the setup script as seen in this chapter, or by pasting the appropriate lines from the config.sample.inc.php file. The database is our own and the table names are the ones that have just been created:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb']            = 'mydatabase';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable']    = 'pma_bookmark';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation']         = 'pma_relation';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info']       = 'pma_table_info';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords']     = 'pma_table_coords';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages']        = 'pma_pdf_pages';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info']      = 'pma_column_info';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['history']          = 'pma_history';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking']         = 'pma_tracking';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords']  = 'pma_designer_coords';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['userconfig']       = 'pma_userconfig';

The pmadb and each table have a specific function as listed next:

Between each phpMyAdmin version, the infrastructure may be enhanced—the changes are explained in Documentation.html. This is why phpMyAdmin has various checks to ascertain the structure of the tables. If we know we are using the latest structure, $cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose_check'] can be set to FALSE to avoid checks, thereby slightly increasing phpMyAdmin's speed.

In this setup, we will have a distinct database—pmadb—to store the metadata tables. Our control user will have specific rights to this database. Each user will work with his/her login name and password which will be used to access his/her databases. However, whenever phpMyAdmin itself accesses pmadb to obtain some metadata, it will use the control user's privileges.

We first ensure that the control user pma has been created and that its definition in config.inc.php is appropriate. We then copy scripts/create_tables.sql to our local workstation and edit it. We replace the following lines:

-- GRANT SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE ON `phpmyadmin`.* TO
--  'pma'@localhost;

with these, removing the comment characters (double-dash):

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE ON `phpmyadmin`.* TO
  'pma'@localhost;

We then execute this script by importing it (refer to Chapter 7). The net effect is to create the phpmyadmin database, assign proper rights to user pma, and populate the database with all the necessary tables.

The last step is to adjust all the parameters in config.inc.php that relate to relational features. Please refer to the Installing for a single user section, except for the database name in the pmadb parameter, which will be as shown in the following code snippet:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] = 'phpmyadmin';

The installation is now complete. We will test the features in the coming sections and chapters. We can do a quick check by logging out of phpMyAdmin, then logging in and displaying the home page; the warning message should be gone.