To get around cases where uploads are completely disabled by a web server's PHP configuration or where upload limits are too small, phpMyAdmin can read upload files from a special directory located on the web server's file system. This mechanism is applicable for SQL and CSV imports.

We first specify the directory name of our choice in the $cfg['UploadDir'] parameter; for example,'./upload'. We can also use the %u string, as described in Chapter 7, to represent the user's name.

Now, let's go back to the Import sub-page and see what happens:

This error message is expected, as the directory does not exist. It is supposed to have been created inside the current phpMyAdmin installation directory. The message might also indicate that the directory exists, but can't be read by the web server. (In PHP safe mode, the owner of the directory and the owner of the phpMyAdmin-installed scripts must be the same.)

Using an SFTP or FTP client, we create the necessary directory...