I have mysql & phpMyAdmin installed, and I am able to setup databases for my customers.

My question is this...

Once I create a database for a customer, how do they access it?

Should they have access to a control panel?

If yes, then where would it be located?

Appreciate any & all help.

Steve

They can access it through shell:

mysql -u username -p -d dbname

Ok, but customers are asking for access to a control panel.

What is that? Do they need that to modify/setup their databases?

Is it safe to give them shell access?

Thanks for the help.

Steve

More than likely, the control panel they are asking about is the gui interface provided by companies that host through Alabanza. Their clients can access the control panel, and then the gui phpMyAdmin interface.

You can give your clients ODBC access to the databases, just make sure that you don't give them too many privileges.

they can simply install phpMyAdmin themselves...
Instead of putting the root password in their config file
They put the Username, Password and database you
assigned them.

lol you would do it like this it's in the help files

I'm an ISP. Can I setup one central copy of phpMyAdmin or do I need to install it for each customer?
Since version 2.0.3, you can setup a central copy of phpMyAdmin for all your users. The development of this feature was kindly sponsored by NetCologne GmbH.
This requires a properly setup MySQL user management and phpMyAdmin's advanced authentication. phpMyAdmin performs these steps, when authenticating a user:

Select all entries from the mysql.user table where the username/password matches the challenging user. If no rows are returned, the authentication has failed. Otherwise, phpMyAdmin continues with step 2.
If the user's global Select_Priv is "N" (ie the user is not allowed to access all databases), phpMyAdmin searches the mysql.db table for entries with Select_Priv = "Y" belonging to the user. If no entries are found, the authentication has failed. Otherwise, phpMyAdmin shows all databases the user is allowed to view.
If the user's global Select_Priv is "Y", all databases in the system are shown.

This means that you need to add a user to the mysql database as following:
INSERT INTO user (Host, User, Password, Select_priv, Insert_priv, Update_priv, Delete_priv, Create_priv, Drop_priv, Reload_priv, Shutdown_priv, Process_priv, File_priv, Grant_priv, References_priv, Index_priv, Alter_priv) VALUES ('localhost', 'foo', PASSWORD('bar'), 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N')
INSERT INTO db (Host, Db, User, Select_priv, Insert_priv, Update_priv, Delete_priv, Create_priv, Drop_priv, Grant_priv, References_priv, Index_priv, Alter_priv) VALUES ('localhost', 'foo_db', 'foo', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', '', '', '', '')
Then only the "foo_db" database will be displayed to user "foo".