Setup

Instead of manually editing config.inc.php, you can use the setup script: http://your_server/path_to_your/phpmyadmin/setup/ (pma 2.x: http://your_server/path_to_your/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php ).

First you must manually create a folder config in the phpMyAdmin directory. This is a security measure. On a Linux/Unix system you can use the following commands:

cd phpMyAdmin
mkdir config                        # create directory for saving
chmod o+rw config                   # give it world writable permissions

If you wish to edit an existing configuration, copy it over first:

cp config.inc.php config/           # copy current configuration for editing
chmod o+w config/config.inc.php     # give it world writable permissions

On other platforms, simply create the folder and ensure that your web server has read and write access to it. FAQ 1.26 can help with this.

Next, open http://localhost/phpmyadmin/setup/ in your browser. Note that changes are not saved to disk until explicitly choose Save from the Configuration area of the screen. Normally the script saves the new config.inc.php to the config/ directory, but if the webserver does not have the proper permissions you may see the error "Cannot load or save configuration." Ensure that the config/ directory exists and has the proper permissions - or use the Download link to save the config file locally and upload (via FTP or some similar means) to the proper location.

Once the file has been saved, it must be moved out of the config/ directory and the permissions must be reset, again as a security measure:

mv config/config.inc.php .         # move file to current directory
chmod o-rw config.inc.php          # remove world read and write permissions

Now the file is ready to be used. You can choose to review or edit the file with your favorite editor, if you prefer to set some advanced options which the setup script does not provide.

For some reason openSuse doesn't supply the setup script. As a workaround you can create your configuration file on the demo server http://pma.cihar.com/STABLE/setup/ and use the download button when finished.