mysql> use typo3;
mysql> update be_users set password='bacb98acf97e0b6112b1d1b650b84971' where username = 'admin';


This resets the admin user password to “joh316″.

Download the latest stable version from the phpMyAdmin web site, and extract it to a location of your choice. I prefer to keep the installation outside of the web root and use an apache alias to reference it.

[root@app3 ~]# cd /var/www
[root@app3 ~]# wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/phpmyadmin/phpMyAdmin-2.11.5.2-all-languages-utf-8-only.tar.gz
[root@app3 ~]# tar xzf phpMyAdmin-2.11.5.2-all-languages-utf-8-only.tar.gz

Now that’s a lengthy directory name! Let’s create a link to that directory with a more friendly name.

[root@app3 ~]# ln -s phpMyAdmin-2.11.5.2-all-languages-utf-8-only phpMyAdmin


SELinux may generate a number of errors regarding this new directory that will be referenced by the apache web server. Let’s correct the security context of the entire phpMyAdmin directory structure.

[root@app3 ~]# chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_content_t \
> phpMyAdmin-2.11.5.2-all-languages-utf-8-only


Configure the phpMyAdmin installation to use http authentication. We’ll make sure it is secure by forcing SSL encryption using apache directives in a later step.

[root@app3 ~]# cd phpMyAdmin
[root@app3 ~]# cp config.sample.inc.php config.inc.php
[root@app3 ~]# vi config.inc.php


Change the line:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';
to:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';

Now we need to configure the apache web server. To keep things modular, create a file phpmyadmin.conf in /etc/httpd/conf.d. Any configuration directives in this file will automatically be loaded into the main apache configuration when the daemon is restarted.

[root@app3 ~]# vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf


The phpmyadmin.conf file should contain the following directives. Just modify the paths to suit your installation.

Alias /phpmyadmin /var/www/phpMyAdmin
<Directory "/var/www/phpMyAdmin">
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    SSLRequireSSL
</Directory>

Restart apache and see if your installation works.

[root@app3 ~]# service httpd restart


If there are problems, check your logs. It is possible that SELinux may be complaining about something.

The following steps can be executed as a non privileged user on the server, however, the username and password you use with the commands needs to be a database user that has r/w privileges within MySQL (think “sa” account for Microsoft SQL Server).

1. Export the database to a SQL file.

[user@host]$ mysqldump --opt --user=dbuser \
--password database > dumpfile.sql

2. Edit the dump file and put these lines at the beginning:

SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;

3. Put these lines at the end:

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
COMMIT;
SET AUTOCOMMIT = 1;

4. Import the database SQL file into MySQL. This will overwrite the contents of the current database.

[user@host]$ mysql --user=dbuser \
--password database < dumpfile.sql

Click here for a good shell script that automates the backup of MySQL databases. Version 2.5 is available here for download.

Update:
A much better way to secure your installation of MySQL is to run the mysql_secure_installation command. This prompts you to set or change the root password, remove guest access and test databases, etc.