User management

User management is the process of controlling which users are allowed to connect to the MySQL server and what permissions they have on each database. phpMyAdmin does not handle user management, rather it passes the username and password on to MySQL, which then determines whether a user is permitted to perform a particular action. Within phpMyAdmin, administrators have full control over creating users, viewing and editing privileges for existing users, and removing users.

Within phpMyAdmin, user management is controlled via the Users link from the main page. Users can be created, edited, and removed.

Creating a new user

To create a new user, click the Add a new user link near the bottom of the Users page (you must be a “superuser”, e.g., user “root”). Use the textboxes and drop-downs to configure the user to your particular needs. You can then select whether to create a database for that user and grant specific global privileges. Once you’ve created the user (by clicking Go), you can define that user’s permissions on a specific database (don’t grant global privileges in that case). In general, users do not need any global privileges (other than USAGE), only permissions for their specific database.

Editing an existing user

To edit an existing user, simply click the pencil icon to the right of that user in the Users page. You can then edit their global- and database-specific privileges, change their password, or even copy those privileges to a new user.

Deleting a user

From the Users page, check the checkbox for the user you wish to remove, select whether or not to also remove any databases of the same name (if they exist), and click Go.

Assigning privileges to user for a specific database

Users are assigned to databases by editing the user record (from the User accounts link on the home page). If you are creating a user specifically for a given table you will have to create the user first (with no global privileges) and then go back and edit that user to add the table and privileges for the individual table.

Configurable menus and user groups

By enabling $cfg['Servers'][$i]['usergroups'] and $cfg['Servers'][$i]['usergroups'] you can customize what users will see in the phpMyAdmin navigation.

Warning

This feature only limits what a user sees, he is still able to use all the functions. So this can not be considered as a security limitation. Should you want to limit what users can do, use MySQL privileges to achieve that.

With this feature enabled, the User accounts management interface gains a second tab for managing User groups, where you can define what each group will view (see image below) and you can then assign each user to one of these groups. Users will be presented with a simplified user interface, which might be useful for inexperienced users who could be overwhelmed by all the features phpMyAdmin provides.