Load Times Under 2s: PHPMyAdmin & Redis

Installing PHPMyAdmin

Next, we need to install phpmyadmin. The easiest way I have found to do this is to simply clone the phpmyadmin git repository. It makes for easy updating too; you can simply run “git pull origin master” to get the latest version with the required security updates without having to wait for the package within the repositories.
cd /var/www/html/; git clone https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin.git; cd /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/; composer install;

Configuring PHPMyAdmin

Now we need to set up some configurations to make PHPMyAdmin a bit faster. These will set up some tables that store settings and allow for encrypted sessions.

First, we copy the sample config to the primary config:
cp /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/config.sample.inc.php /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php;

Next we need to edit it
nano /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php;

Set the Blowfish secret line to a random series of characters. This allows for encrypted sessions, and prevents some warning messages. The line should look like:
Blowfish Secret: [[Random Characters]]

Below that, we need to add a line for the temporary storage directory. This should just be ‘/tmp/’
$cfg['TempDir'] = '/tmp/';

Next, uncomment the server control settings, and set the values. You will also need to create a PHPMyAdmin user (called “pma”) so the phpmyadmin system can access your temporary tables. We will need the pma password later, so keep it handy.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlhost'] = 'localhost'; $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlport'] = '3306'; $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] = 'pma'; $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] = '[[pma User Password]]';

Next, uncomment (remove the ‘//’ in front of) all of the $cfg storage and database tables immediately below the control user settings.

Now, we need to create our phpmyadmin database, load it with the SQL settings, and create our pma user. For this, we will need your root password that you used when you set up your MySQL database. Replace the root MySQL password with your own root MySQL password, and replace your pma password with your own pma user password.
mysql -uroot -p"[[Root MySQL Password]]" -e "CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS phpmyadmin;"; mysql -uroot -p"[[Root MySQL Password]]" < /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/sql/create_tables.sql; mysql -uroot -p"[[Root MySQL Password]]" -e "CREATE USER 'pma'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '[[pma User Password]]';"; mysql -uroot -p"[[Root MySQL Password]]" -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON phpmyadmin.* TO 'pma'@'localhost';";

Finally, set the folder’s permissions and restart the apache service:
chown -Rf apache:apache /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/; chmod -Rf 755 /var/www/html/phpmyadmin/; systemctl restart httpd;

At this point, if you go to http://[[Your IP Address]]/phpmyadmin , you should be able to see the phpmyadmin account, and log in with your root account and password. When you log in, you shouldn’t see any errors about a “blowfish secret” key, and you should be able to see the “phpmyadmin” table.

If you see an error that the blowfish secret key is too short, add some more characters to the blowfish secret value.

Installing Redis

Now we need to install redis. Redis is as “in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache and message broker.” In other words, it stores the results of your database queries in memory. This greatly speeds up your website if you’re making the same database calls again and again (such as when using a WordPress site).
yum install -y redis; sudo systemctl start redis;

To check if redis is working, run the following code. If successful, it should return a “PONG”
redis-cli ping;

If Redis is working, we need to enable it on startup:
sudo systemctl enable redis;

Now we need to install and enable the PHP extension for Redis. This will allow us to use Redis directly with PHP, making our sites faster when used.
cd /tmp/; git clone https://github.com/phpredis/phpredis.git; cd /tmp/phpredis/;

We need to ensure that the /usr/include/php , /usr/lib64/php/build , and /usr/bin/php-config files are all linked up properly. If you’re using PHP7.1, these are the commands I used to link the files.
ln -sf /opt/remi/php71/root/usr/include/php/ /usr/include/php; ln -sf /opt/remi/php71/root/usr/lib64/php/build/ /usr/lib64/php/build; ln -sf /opt/remi/php71/root/usr/bin/php-config /usr/bin/php-config;

If you are using a different version or configuration, search for “php/build”, or the other files, using:
find / -iname "php" | grep -F "/bin/php" find / -iname "build" | grep -F "/php/build" find / -iname "php-config" | grep -F "/bin/php-config"

When you have the links set up, run:
phpize; ./configure; make; make install;

Next, link the redis.so file to the php/modules/ folder
ln -sf /opt/remi/php71/root/usr/lib64/php/modules/redis.so /usr/lib64/php/modules/redis.so;

Or, if you aren’t using PHP7.1, you can search for it by running:
find / -iname "redis.so" | grep -F "/php/modules/redis.so"

We also need to create a .ini file for the Redis module. To do this, open the file…
nano /etc/php.d/redis.ini

… and copy the following into it:
extension=redis.so

Finally, restart Apache:
systemctl restart httpd;

You can check if the php Redis module is loaded by running:
php -m | grep -i "redis"

Automatic Installation?

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