If you need to install any web software then it's a certainty that you will need to create a mySQL database and you may even have to use phpMyAdmin. Since cPanel is such an easy to use platform, they've made database creation and management exceptionally easy too which is why so many web hosting mySQL companies use them! In this short tutorial we'll run through the basics of creating a mySQL database and using phpMyAdmin to back up your database driven website.

First of all, I'm going to assume that you have web hosting with mySQL capabilities and are on a cPanel server, virtually all hosts will have this. Once you are logged in to your cPanel you need to scroll down until you see the box called “Databases”. There are two ways to create a database, manually or using the Wizard. It's much quicker to do it manually so I'll run through this.

Click on the MySQL Databases icon and the page will ask you to enter the name of the new database you want to create. There are two parts to this, you create a database and then you create and assign a user to that database. The database name can be anything you want and can contain letters and numbers, although I recommend you keep it to something you can remember.

Once you've create the database you need to create a user for that database, which can be done further down the same page where it says MySQL Users – Add New User. The username can be a maximum of 8 characters and can be letters and numbers, and this is standard for all web hosting mySQL companies . The password can contain letters, numbers and symbols, I recommend you use the Password Generator function here because it creates very strong passwords, although remember to copy it down before you close the window! When you click create user it will confirm the details you entered.

The next step is to assign the user you just created to the database we created earlier. You will find this option at the bottom of the Database management page and you will see two drop down boxes, one for the User and one for the Database, select the username you want to add to a particular database and then click Add. You will be asked what privileges you want to give, just select “All”. You will then get a confirmation page telling you that your user has been added to the database. It's important to note at this point the format of the database name and user name because Cpanel adds the hosting username to the front of them, so if your hosting username to login to cPanel is 'account' then cPanel will add “account_[database name / username]” - it's important to remember this when copying the details.

Once you've created the database and installed your website software, you might find that you need to backup your database. This can be done very easily using phpMyAdmin which comes as standard on all web hosting mySQL accounts. From the main cPanel page, locate the phpMyAdmin icon which will be in the “Databases” box. When you click on it you will be taken to a page with a light blue background, in the left hand column you will see a list of all the databases that you have created (the number in brackets is how many tables are in that database). You need to click the database you want to backup and you will be taken to a new page which lists a summary of the table names in the left column and table names with more details in the right column.

In the right hand column you will find a tab near the top of the page called “Export”, click this and you will be given a range of options. You don't need to know what most of these options do, if you just want to take a backup, leave all the settings on the default and click the “Go” button on the bottom right of the page. This will load a new page with lots of code in a text area. Simply select all the code and paste it in to a Notepad file and save it. That's all you need to do, you've backed up your database! Now if you need to restore it at any point you can send this file to a programmer who will know what to do.