Using PHPMyAdmin to administer Amazon RDS

Question

I can't get PHPMyAdmin to connect to my Amazon RDS instance. I've granted permissions for my IP address to the DB Security Group which has access to this database I'm trying to access. Here's what I'm working with...

    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] = $dbname;
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] = 'pma_bookmark';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation'] = 'pma_relation';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info'] = 'pma_table_info';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] = 'pma_table_coords';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages'] = 'pma_pdf_pages';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info'] = 'pma_column_info';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] = 'pma_history';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords'] = 'pma_designer_coords';

    /* Uncomment the following to enable logging in to passwordless accounts,
     * after taking note of the associated security risks. */
    // $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPassword'] = TRUE;

    /* Advance to next server for rest of config */
    $i++;
}

    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';  //is this correct?
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'MASTER-USER';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'MASTER-USER-PASSWORD';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['hide_db'] = '(mysql|information_schema|phpmyadmin)';
    /* Server parameters */
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'MY-DB.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['connection_type'] = 'socket';
    $cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = PORT;

I'm not sure if my configuration is correct.

I'm getting this error:

#2013 - Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 110

Does anyone have any advice?

Answer 1

I found most of the answers in this question lack explanation. To add RDS server in phpMyAdmin installed in EC2, you can first login to your EC2 via SSH. Then, issue the following command to edit the Config file of phpMyAdmin (use vi, nano or any other favorite text editing tool):

sudo vi /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php # Amazon Linux
sudo vi /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php # Ubuntu Linux

Find the following lines in config.inc.php:

/*
 * End of servers configuration
 */

Append the following lines above the "End of servers configuration" line:

$i++;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'xxxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = '3306';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose'] = 'YOUR_SERVER_NAME';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysql';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = TRUE;

which YOUR_SERVER_NAME is the name being displayed in phpMyAdmin login page's selection box. If you remove this line, the whole RDS hostname will be displayed in the selection box (which is too long, obviously). Remember to save the config.inc.php.

There are several other config settings, which you can find the details in the official documentation.

---

Note: The other answer suggests auto login with preset username & password in Config file:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type']     = 'config';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user']          = '__FILL_IN_DETAILS__';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password']      = '__FILL_IN_DETAILS__';

which is extremely dangerous if your phpMyAdmin is exposed to public. You don't want to show your database schema to everyone, do you? If you really want to use automatic login, make sure your phpMyAdmin is accessible via specific IPs only.