Site Administration Tools

Monday I wrote a technical piece about installing LAMP so today I'll talk a little about the type of administrative tools we use on the site. I've always been a big fan of using the tools UNIX gave us. That means strict command line pleasure. It means things are clean on the system and no extra resources are used or security holes opened. But not everybody agrees. Even I find it nice to use a GUI once and awhile so as not to get bogged down with the mechanics of the command line.

MySQL seems to be the toughest to administer with the tools UNIX gurus gave us. Writing SQL statements isn't bad if you're familiar with SQL, but you'll likely feel better with PHPMyAdmin or MySQL Administrator (MySQL Query Browser). The difference is that PHPMyAdmin is web-based and MySQL Administrator is a remote client. To me, the difference is that there's no garbage on the server when you use a remote client to connect to to your server like there is with installing PMA.

Consider the security implications as well. When installing PMA, you open up an avenue for attack via the web. When using MySQL Admin allowing remote connections, you're doing even worse. Therefore, the safest and most efficient option is to tunnel your MySQL Admin connection over SSH to get a localhost connection using a remote tool. I think this method applies for other remote tools as well. Ketchup likes using MySQL-Front. Using a remote tool allows room for preference.

In other areas, it can be handy to have a GUI as well. If you have many servers running on your box (such as mail, Jabber, and Apache/MySQL) it can be handy to increase your proficiency and ability to edit obscure configuration files with greater ease by installing a management tool. I've used Webmin before, and I have mixed feelings. It gives very good control over the multitude of configurations on a Linux box, but I always see it as another security vulnerability.

That's all for now, unfortunately. Next time I post, we'll discuss more about LAMP configurations.