Lab 5.0 - Phpmyadmin & Content Management Systems

Lab 5.0 - PHPMyAdmin & Content Management Systems

CISC3140, Fall 2011

A. PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin is an open source tool written in PHP which lets you administer MySQL databases from a browser. PHPMyAdmin is free and can be downloaded from:

1. Enter the following URL in your browser

When prompted, enter your username and password. You should see a screen that looks something like this:

2. Click on your database (from the list in the left column).Now the screen should look something like this:

3. Explore the interface!

Click on “Browse” to view the contents of your tables.

Click on “SQL” to enter SQL commands.

Click on “Structure” to view and/or edit the structure of tables.

The system is meant to be fairly self-explanatory.

4. Try the following using PHPMyAdmin

a)create a table

b)insert data into a table

c)export/import data from/to a table

B. Content Management Systems

A content management system or CMS is a handy type of front-end to a web site that (typically) uses a

PHP-based administration interface and provides an easy way for multiple people to administer a web site. Thereare different types of CMS’s, tailored to different types of functionalities:

•“CMS Made Simple” ( is a general-purpose CMS.

•“WordPress” ( is a CMS designed for blogging, but people have used it a lot asa general-purpose CMS.

•Mambo ( is a more intricate CMS which can do lots of fancy things.

•Zen Cart ( is designed to support e-commerce sites.

All of these CMSs are free and are designed to work on “LAMP” machines. Most of them interface to a MySQLdatabase. The database is used to store the web site content and some of the configurable aspects.

In this lab, you will learn how to install WordPress.

Note that most packages come with some type of “read me” file. This could be called README orreadme.html, or some variation thereof. Usually, once you unpack the .tar.gz file that you have downloaded, you should go into that package’s directory and type ls (at the prompt) to see a list of the filesin the package. Look for a “read me” file and ... read it!

Installing WordPress

I have already downloaded the WordPress package and put it on Robinson, so you don’t need to download it.

1. Log onto Robinson (146.245.250.215)

2. Go to your public_html directory and copy the file that I downloaded:

$ cdpublic_html

$ cp /home/mmeyer/public_html/download/wordpress-3.1.tar.gz .

3. Unpack the WordPress package by entering the following command:

$ tar xzvf wordpress-3.1.tar.gz

4. Now the contents of the package will be in a directory called public_html/wordpress

5. WordPress comes with easy installation instructions. You can look at those by entering the following in yourbrowser

your username here]/wordpress/readme.html

Note:

•MAKE SURE THAT YOU DO NOT CHECK the “allow my blog to appear in search engines” box.

6. Now you can explore WordPress. Try creating users. Try customizing the Blog. Try creating a new page. Thisinstallation is all yours. For you to explore and play with. Don’t worry about messing it up. You can fix it

or re-install it.

Installing a new theme

1. Download a theme.

2. Unzip the file and copy the theme folder to WordPress themes folder

wordpress/wp-content/themes/

3. Activate the theme within your WordPress admin Panel

Click on Appearance then Themes