The TutsPlus.com site has a new tutorial posted showing you how to upgrade your Linux server to run PHP 7.0, the latest major release of the PHP language.

PHP 7 was released last December. Once you've tested your code locally to run on it, it's time to upgrade your production server. Generally, I found that most of my sites run well on it.

However, I suspect that not many sites have upgraded yet. It's often safer and easier to stay on older releases. [...] But PHP 7 has now been out for nearly a year.

In today's episode, I'll walk you through my recommended approach to upgrading to PHP 7 on Ubuntu 14.x and resolving problems with PHPMyAdmin, which a lot of early upgraders ran into.

He starts by helping you identify any customizations that you might have related to PHP 5, specifically related to configuration options. He then provides the commands to remove PHP 5 packages from the system and add in the "ondrej/php" PPA for apt-get as the source for the PHP 7 packages. After a quick apt-get cleanup, he includes the commands to install the "php7" packages, enable a few extra modules and getting phpMyAdmin back up and in working order.

The NetTuts.com site has a new tutorial showing you how to get PHPMyAdmin and WordPress up and working together. They show how it can be used to aid in a low level kind of administration of the WordPress data not available through the WordPress interface.

PHPMyAdmin - or PMA - is an excellent free, open source web-based database client which can be used to interact more easily with MySQL and WordPress databases. I'll describe how to install it, secure it and some common scenarios with which it can assist you in WordPress administration.

They walk you through all the steps you'll need to get it up and running (and playing nicely together):

• Installing PHPMyAdmin
• Install apache2-utils to use htaccess/htpasswd
• Change the Apache configuration's AllowOverride setting
• Creating the database for the WordPress installation
• Backing up the database

There's also some other helpful topics like doing a site migration, reset your administrator password and doing search and replace cross multiple records (posts).

The NetTuts.com site has a tutorial posted today walking you through the installation and configuration of one of the most popular and well-known PHP database tools, phpMyAdmin. In this tutorial they wlk you through installing the tool (via packages) and working with a sample database.

PHPMyAdmin (PMA) is an excellent free, open source web-based database client which can be used to interact more easily with MySQL and application databases. I'll describe how to install it, secure it and some common scenarios with which it can assist you in database administration. [...] In addition to offering a visual GUI for database operations, I also appreciate being able to run command line SQL operations via my browser without having to log in to the server via SSH. For example, some WiFi connections and mobile hotspots regularly terminate persistent SSH sessions, making database tasks problematic.

They use the apt-get package manager to get the tool installed on their Apache web server instance. They also show you how to secure it via a web server level configuration item via a htpasswd setup. Then the post gets into the usage of the tool - creating a database, adding users, backing up databases, editing data and testing queries right from within the tool.

On the SitePoint PHP blog there's a new post introducing you to some of the extra features in the popular phpMyAdmin tool, how to enable them and their use.

PhpMyAdmin is one of the most used tools when it comes to managing your databases. By default, PhpMyAdmin does a great job. However, it comes with a lot of handy extra extensions which can be easily activated. In this article, we will activate these extensions and see what they can do for us.

Among the extra features he talks about are things like:

• Bookmarking
• Clickable links for relations
• Exporting relation information to PDF
• Adding comments to column names
• Viewing a history of queries run through the tool
• Working with users and groups

There's lots more he covers too, so be sure to check out the rest of the post for more details and screenshots of the UI changes that come with them.

Jonathan Simon (of Google) send in a note about a video walkthrough of the Google Cloud SQL product and how to get started using it from a basic PHP script.

Google Cloud SQL is a service that allows you to create, configure, and use relational databases that live in Google's cloud. It is a fully-managed service that maintains, manages, and administers your databases, allowing you to focus on your applications and services. By offering the capabilities of a familiar MySQL database, the service enables you to easily move your data, applications, and services in and out of the cloud. This enables high data portability and helps you achieve faster time-to-market because you can quickly leverage your existing database.

Most of the video is about the setup and creation of a new database in the cloud service, but closer to the end (starting at about 7:20) they walk you through the PHP side. The connection is just a simple mysql_connect (mysqli anyone?) to the remote Google host with the user/pass you set up before. They also show a bit about database management with a phpMyAdmin instance.

As Ars Technica reports, there was a recent exploit found on the SourceForce website's installation of phpMyAdmin that allowed an attacker to POST anything to the site to be executed.

Developers of phpMyAdmin warned users they may be running a malicious version of the open-source software package after discovering backdoor code was snuck into a package being distributed over the widely used SourceForge repository. The backdoor contains code that allows remote attackers to take control of the underlying server running the modified phpMyAdmin, which is a Web-based tool for managing MySQL databases. The PHP script is found in a file named server_sync.php, and it reads PHP code embedded in standard POST Web requests and then executes it. T

The backdoor was somehow snuck into the code of phpMyAdmin on one of the mirrors and distributed to those downloading version 3.5.2.2. They think that the only downloads that were tainted with this issue were on the "cdnetworks" mirror site. You can find out more about the issue in this advisory - be sure you check your installation for a "server_sync.php" file and remove it if it exists.

Lorna Mitchell has a new post today spotlighting a handy feature of the phpMyAdmin tool - the visual designer view. It allows you to build (and see) the relationships between your MySQL-based application's elements.

I'm happier at the command line, but needed some graphical representation of information and easy ways to export example queries for the book I'm working on. I noticed that phpMyAdmin now has a Designer tab, which shows relationships between tables and allows you to define them.

She includes two screenshots of the process of setting up a foreign key on two tables. You can find lots more articles related to the designer view here.

In this new article on PHPBuilder.com today, they share ten handy tips that you might not have known you could do with the phpMyAdmin tool.

Despite approaching its 12th birthday, phpMyAdmin is still under active development, with at least one significant version released every year since the project's inception. In fact even after almost a decade of use I still marvel over discovering features which I had no idea existed. In this article I thought I'd highlight 10 useful phpMyAdmin features which may have escaped you during your daily interaction with this fantastic utility.

Making the list of their ten tips are things like:

• Manage User Privileges
• Change the Theme
• Monitor Server Status
• Create PDF Relational Diagrams
• Use Your Native Language

On the SitePoint PHP blog, there's a new post offering your three more lightweight database management solutions than the typical phpMyAdmin install.

For much of the time, developers just want to check some data, alter a few records, or back up the database. The phpMyAdmin and MonoQL zipped distributions range from 2MB to 7MB, and they’re overkill for most day-to-day administration. You’re using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. Here are three lightweight MySQL administration alternatives you should consider. They’re all PHP-based, open source, and great for quick database tasks.

The three that made their short list are:

• SQL Buddy
• Adminer
• PHP Mini Admin

Others suggested in the comments include Chive and DBKiss.

Jay Allen has found what he calls the world's smallest MySQL admin script and has posted about it to his CodingThis.com blog - Adminer.

I’ve spent years using phpMyAdmin (much to my chagrin). And I’ve recently warmed up to MySQL Workbench. But it wasn’t until this week that I stumbled across Adminer, a single-file PHP application for MySQL administration. It’s hard not to be impressed by Adminer, which is both devilishly simple and elegantly designed. The file downloads as adminer-2.3.2.php; save it as index.php in a folder named adminer, then navigate to http://servername.com/adminer/. Supply the name of your MySQL server (adding a colon if it’s hosted on a non-standard port), your username, and password, and you’re off!

He includes a few screenshots of the interface to create tables and manage them. If you've used the phpMyAdmin interface, you'll find a lot of things that are familiar in Adminer. If you're interesting in grabbing the latest source, you can pull it from SourceForge.