phpmyadmin creates the config.inc.php at http://localhost and not the config folder

Question

I have followed the tutorial here to install mysql locally on mac Sierra but the phpmyadmin seems not to care creating the config.inc.php based on the above guide in the config folder which we create within the phpmyadmin folder. Instead it creates it at http://localhost level but it is supposed to be created at http://localhost/~john/phpmyadmin/config and then transferred to the main phpmyadmin folder.

I do not know if it is related, but one thing I noticed while following the steps to install the mysql is the error I got when I issued

mysql -v

which retuned

ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'john'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

Since I have followed every step explained in the mentioned page, I wonder what the problem is with my mac system.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Answer 1

If you run mysql -v you're saying the user should be whoever you're currently logged in as (john) and you're not providing a password.

The doc you linked to says this: /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -v -uroot -p

The '-u' means user (root) and the '-p' means prompt me for a password.

The location of the config file isn't something I can guess with the info provided. Does phpmyadmin recognize the changes to the config file even though it's not where you expected? Did you miss a step that would tell phpmyadmin where you wanted the file to be? Have you read the existing configs to see if they say where they think config files should be? Have you looked at the docs for phpmyadmin?

Wild guess: the document root is the home directory of the apache user and so that's where the phpmyadmin process (running as the apache user) puts files when it has no other instructions. You need to give it instructions.

Update:

Okay, so then phpmyadmin thinks that's where the config file should be. Is your problem actually a problem? If your goal is to understand phpmyadmin and why it's doing what it's done, then read docs, read code, etc... If your goal is a functional MAMP server, so you can concentrate on web development, you might want to accept it and move on.