Installing and upgrading phpMyAdmin on a VPS using ssh

[Taher]

Hello all

I am trying to install phpMyAdmin using ssh (I use putty to connect to my Virtual Private server from my windows home computer)

I have managed to download the latest phpMyAdmin from sourceforge and I have renamed it to phpMyAdmin.tar.gz

Now I don't know how to install it. I have tried "apt-get install phpMyAdmin.tar.gz" but that gives me:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package phpMyAdmin.tar.gz

So I assume I should not use apt-get

I also tried "pear install phpMyAdmin.tar.gz" but receive the following error:

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parsePackageName(): invalid package name "phpMyAdmin.tar.gz" in "phpMyAdmin.tar.gz"
could not extract the package.xml file from "phpMyAdmin.tar.gz"
Cannot initialize 'phpMyAdmin.tar.gz', invalid or missing package file
Package "phpMyAdmin.tar.gz" is not valid
install failed

I'm heading of to bed now so I won't be able to answer follow-up questions until tomorrow.

/Taher

[Absent Minded]

tar.gz files are compressed archives and need to be extracted. once extracted typically there is a file inside that will give you instructions of how to install things.

[Taher]

Thank you Absent Minded.
When reading the installation guide it said that I need to have php5.2 or later. The VPS I am using comes with php5.0 so I need to upgrade that as well. Perhaps it is better if I describe my goal and perhaps the kind people of this forum can guide my way forward.

Goal: Having Magento installed on my updated and secure VPS.

Steps on the way: (as I understand it)

• 1. Upgrade PHP from 5.0 to the latest stable version
  2. Upgrade mySQL to the latest stable version
  3. Install latest version of phpMyAdmin
  4. Install latest version of Magento

Backgrond: The VPS I am using has an administrative Panel called Parallels Power Panel. According to the information about installed applications it says that my installed version of mySQL is "MySQL for Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 EZ Template" and that my version of PHP is "PHP for Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 EZ Template". The VPS comes with 1-click (or other simplified installtion) installation options for mySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin and Magento from the Power Panel. However I have noticed that the applications installed are all old and some of them even missing critical upgrades. This is part of why I want to install fresh application, but also because I want to lear how to do that.

Most information that I have found about working with Debian is for people installing it on their own home computer or for people who know what they are doing. If you know of any good place to learn more about working(installing, uninstalling and upgrading) with a already installed debian OS on a remote server I would be more than happy to read, or buy that book!

In the mean time... Any and all help is apreciated!

Now I do not know if the steps I mentioned above are the best steps forward so don't be afraid to let me know if there are better ways of achieving what I am trying to achieve!

Questions

• 1. How do I verify which version of PHP and mySQL that I am running?
  2. How do I know if the latest versions of PHP and mySQL and phpMyAdmin wotk together?
  3. How do I upgrade PHP to the latest stable version?
  4. How do I upgrde mySQL to the latest stable version?
  5. How do I check which web-server I have?

A more general question. What is Pear?

BR
/Taher

[Absent Minded]

okay, the first thing i would do is ssh in to the VPS and check that the /etc/apt/sources.list file has valid sources to get updates from. One of those lines "should" be labeled security updates. Then from the command line i would run apt-get update to refresh the source list. When that is done run aptitude and select to install all available updates. Once you have gotten that far let us know where you stand. of course feel free to ask questions at any time as well as doing some searching in your faviorate search engine.

[bluesdog]

You can use a small php script to find out a lot of information about your apache/php/sql site.

type the following in a plain text editor, and name it info.php

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<?php phpinfo(); ?>

upload it to your server root, and call it in your browser

Example,

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http://yourservername/info.php

As Absent-Minded suggests, most of what you want to do can by done via ssh, including editing scripts via nano, updates, package installs etc. Note that if you're running any program via ssh, closing the shell will terminate whatever process you're running in it, unless you append an & disown at the end of the command. For example, if you type in a shell

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aptitude update & disown

you may then close the shell before the process finishes, and the process will continue until it completes.

ssh is extremely powerful and useful

Welcome to Debian

[Taher]

sources.list gives med the following:

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deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-security lenny/updates main contrib non-free

I had already run "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade"
Nothing happens when I try typing "aptitude" but I assume that apt-get upgrade does the actual upgrades, It sure looked like it =)

I went a step further and ran "apt-get install php5"
No error messages and everything seemed to have gone well.

Then I ran "apt-get install phpMyAdmin"
A 'screen' pops up asking me which web-server I use. I didn't select anyone of them so I assume I will have to uninstall phpMyAdmin and reinstall it now that I actually know which server it is I am using.
The phpinfo() vas very useful and I will definetly revisit that to learn more! Thanx.

I am going to try and fix so that phpMyAdmin gets the correct web server selected. There is however the issue of where the files I install end up.

Here are the steps I am planning on taking during the day.

• Reinstalling phpMyAdmin with correct web server.
  Finding phpMyAdmin installed files and move them to a sub-folder in the www-root.
  If the above works I will get and install Magento.

Two questions though
Is it dangerous to leave the info.php file in the www-root? Is this the kind of information that ill-doers would like to know to exploit possible security problems?

I will come back with my progress as soon as I have made any =)

[Taher]

running

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# apt-get --purge remove phpMyAdmin

let me know that there are three other packages that are no longer needed (which seems correct as 3 additional packages where installed when I installed phpMyAdmin)
apt-get also gave me the suggestion to run

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apt-get autoremove

so I did and it removed the three orphaned packages.

running

apt-get install phpMyAdmin

and choosing Apache2 this time to be reconfigured.

I receive this line and I am worried that it will cause a problem later.

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Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using [My servers IP] for ServerName

This is correct as I don't want people to access the site until I have it up and running. Will this cause problems when I get a more proper domain-name?

After some looking I found the phpMyAdmin files located in /usr/share/phpmyadmin
Should I move the whole folder to the www-root?
I tried doing that and then I directed my browser there. Firefox wants to download the index-file. I don't understand why?!

So to the best of my knowledge my current situation is that I have php5 correctly installed and I have phpMyAdmin installed but not in the correct place.

This means that I am almost here! =)

What I am currently working on is figuring out if I should move the phpmyadmin folder to www-root or if I should have some form of link from www-root to phpmyadmin instead.

I have no understanding of any security issues with either solution or how to implement them so tips and best practice is apreciated even if I succeed with it =)

[Absent Minded]

you shouldn't have to copy the phpmyadmin files to your root web directory. you should be able to access phpmyadmin just by going to http://youripaddress/phpmyadmin

[Taher]

When I direct my browser to server/phpmyadmin/ I get to download a file. The file that is downloaded is the index.php-file. This makes me assume that something is wrong with my php-configuration.

However when I go to server/info.php it loads a correct html page with a lot of information loaded by phpinfo(). This would suggest that php is working (properly?)

I don't know how to continue with me error detection from here. =/

/Taher

[Absent Minded]

have you restarted apachie2 since your install of phpmyadmin?

[Taher]

nope

Now I have googled it and come to the conclusion that I should run

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apache2ctl graceful

This returned the following:
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using IP for ServerName

When going to server/phpmyadmin/ I'm still asked to download the index.php instead of actually seeing the html it should generate.

when just going to server/ the index.html loads properly.

[Absent Minded]

this is very bizzare behavior. what web browser are you using? Would you be willing to pm me the IP so I can verify that it is your apache config? I have read that in certain cases that apache has to be told what to serve up as a web page. I haven't had this experience on any of my web servers though.

[Taher]

I have sent you private message with my ip.

I'm using firefox and I have tried internet explorer as well.

[Absent Minded]

once the directory is back in place try running dpkg-reconfigure phpmyadmin and see if that will fix things.

[Absent Minded]

once the directory is back in place try running dpkg-reconfigure phpmyadmin and see if that will fix things.

come to think of it you may want to use dpkg-reconfigure php5 as well as it "should" have been what setup apache to use php.

[Taher]

Where is in place? Is it usr/share?

[Absent Minded]

according to my home server, yes that is correct

[Absent Minded]

okay, i see you have things back in place and they are working on my end.

[Taher]

I just your PM

The file exists where it should be
I have moved back the phpmyadmin directory to /usr/share/
I have now run dpkg-reconfigure phpmyadmin and php5
I have restarted the apache2 server using apache2ctl graceful

when I go to server/phpmyadmin I am still asked to download the index.php file (in firefox) but it works in internet explorer! go figure =/

When I go to http://server/phpmyadmin/index.php using firefox it works.. This would indicate that my firefox won't open index.php per default anymore so that should be a setting in firefox that I must have changed in the process somewhere..

Now I can move forward with my installation of Magento..

Many thanks!
Perhaps we should change the topic name so that people can find this thread in the future?!

[Absent Minded]

you are welcome. i am glad it is working now on your end. To change the topic heading you just edit your first post.