mydbDiffo - online database designer for your own servers

If you are in a hurry...

If you are in a hurry, do the following:

  1. Download mydbdiffo ZIP archive from https://dbdiffo.com/getmydbdiffozip.php.
  2. Unzip the archive into your web application’s folder.
  3. Give write access to the user running the WEB server for the web application’s folder.
  4. Run mydbdiffo.php or index.php with a browser of your choice.

If you are curious about what’s going on here, or ran into an error, continue reading! :)

mydbDiffo and dbDiffo

Before I get into the details of mydbDiffo’s installation, allow me to explain why it was necessary to develop mydbDiffo after dbDiffo.

Both of them are free online database designers, and mydbDiffo is essentially based on dbDiffo’s code. While dbDiffo only enables designing databases and generating SQL scripts, mydbDiffo lets you directly change the database, and immediately run the generated SQL scripts against the database.

This, of course, requires you to install it on your server, but that’s easy enough. I started this article with a basic summary of the installation process. Any further important information will be highlighted in the text.

Please note: mydbDiffo (unlike dbDiffo) only supports MySQL database management systems. For PostgreSQL use pgdbDiffo. (Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2 are not supported.)

System requirements

  1. A WEB server cabable of running PHP scripts. So far mydbDiffo was only tested with PHP 5.6.x, 7.3.x+ and 8.2.x+.>
  2. Write access for the user running the WEB server for the folder where mydbdiffo ZIP archive will be unzipped.
  3. While running on your WEB server, mydbdiffo.php and the other related PHP scripts will NOT establish HTTPS connection with the dbdiffo.com server anymore. Running mydbDiffo requires the ZipArchive class.
  4. Enable mysqli and zip (PHP 8.x+) extensions in the php.ini file.
  5. MySQL v5.6+, MariaDB v10.0+

Installing mydbDiffo

Downloading mydbdiffo ZIP archive

mydbdiffo ZIP archive can be downloaded from the following address.

https://dbdiffo.com/getmydbdiffozip.php

Unzip mydbDiffo ZIP archive to the server

After downloading mydbDiffo ZIP, log in to the server and unzip the files into your web application’s folder.

(If you have more than one web applications you want to run mydbDiffo on, we recommend unzip mydbDiffo ZIP to all web applications’ folders. mydbDiffo integrates with MakeLoveNotCode, which requires a separate installation for every web application.)

Write access for the user running the WEB server

Let’s see an example on how to give write access.

Use the following folder for your web application:

/var/www/www.yourserver.com/yourwebapp

You can give write acccess with the following command:

sudo chmod g+w /var/www/www.yourserver.com/yourwebapp -R

Launching mydbDiffo

Just one more thing to do. Run mydbdiffo.php and log into the database using mydbDiffo’s login window.

Example:

Use the following folder for your web application:

/var/www/www.yourserver.com/yourwebapp

To launch mydbDiffo, enter the following URL into the browser:

https://www.yourserver.com/yourwebapp/mydbdiffo.php

mydbdiffo.php does NOT create and download all necessary files from the dbdiffo.com server anymore. If a newer version was released on dbdiffo.com, the software warns you, but you have to download the ZIP archive and istall it again. When the login window appears, enter the database login information.