Using Docker to run phpMyAdmin on local or remote databases
I have found that I use phpMyAdmin more than I want to admit to anyone for MySQL, MariaDB or AWS Aurora development iteration. The team working on phpMyAdmin does such a great job with the tool. However, it is somewhat of a pain to run it locally or on a network near your database. You have to setup a server, have PHP working 100%, etc. Docker makes this infinitely easier. You can run phpMyAdmin on a local (or even remote) database. All you need to know is the hostname; let Docker and this image do the rest.
Initialize the container(s)
We will use these example databases:
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db21 at db21.cluster.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com
d44 at 10.0.0.44
Here is how I do the first example:
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docker run --name db21 -d -e PMA_HOST=db21.cluster.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com -p 8021:80 phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
Notice how I change the PMA_HOST, the name of the container and the port it is used; this way I know that if I want to manage db21 via phpMyAdmin I simply browse to http://localhost:8021
The second example:
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docker run --name db44 -d -e PMA_HOST=10.0.0.44 -p 8044:80 phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
Again, I change the PMA_HOST, the name of the container and the port it is used; this way I know that if I want to manage d44 via phpMyAdmin I simply browse to http://localhost:8044
When you run this the first time docker will need to pull down the latest image of phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin. This may take a bit; but after the container is pulled down starting, stopping, and reloading the container is straight forward:
Stopping the container(s)
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docker stop db21
docker stop d44
docker stop [name_of_your_db_container]
Starting (or Restarting) the container(s)
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docker start db21
docker start d44
docker start [name_of_your_db_container]
NOTE: this is essentially my summary of this docker article: https://hub.docker.com/r/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/