Help Centre / Developer Tools

Manage Your Database

Updated 6 October 2026

Every website here has its own MySQL database. Most of the time WordPress is the only thing that needs to touch it. When you do need to look inside, fix a serialised option, export a table or import a dump, the Database tab gives you a database manager without leaving anything running afterwards.

What You Get

A session of Adminer, a single-page database manager, opened on your own website’s address for one hour and signed in with your website’s own database login. You can browse tables, edit rows, run SQL, and import or export. When the hour is up, or when you press End Session, the page stops answering.

There is no permanent phpMyAdmin on Oxyforge, on purpose. A database manager that is always on is one of the most attacked things on any host. Ours only exists while you are using it.

Your Database Login

The top of the Database tab shows the login your website itself uses: host, database name, username, and a Reveal button for the password. These are the values in your site’s wp-config.php, so if that file is ever damaged you can put the right ones back over SFTP.

Generate New Password gives the database user a fresh password. It changes the password on the database only: your website stops working until you put the new value into DB_PASSWORD in wp-config.php over SFTP, and the button says so and asks you to type CONFIRM before it does anything. Use it if you think the password has leaked, or if wp-config.php is so broken that you would rather start from a known value.

The database can only be reached from inside Oxyforge: from your site, from WP-CLI and from the manager below. There is no remote MySQL access from your own computer.

Step 1: Take A Backup

Changes made in the database manager are live the moment you save them. There is no undo. Open the Backups tab and take a backup first; it takes a minute and gives you a way back. See how backups work.

Step 2: Open A Session

Open the website in the members area, go to the Database tab and press Open Database Manager. After a few seconds you get:

Step 3: Work, Then End The Session

Sign in with your database username and password, do what you came to do, and press End Session on the Database tab when you are finished. If you forget, the session closes itself an hour after it opened.

Things Worth Knowing

• One session per website at a time. Opening a second one ends the first.
• Exports count toward bandwidth like any other download, and imports count toward storage.
• Only the live site’s database. A staging copy has its own database, which the manager does not reach yet.
• Search and replace URLs is better done with WP-CLI, which understands serialised data; a plain SQL replace can corrupt it.
• Your WordPress tables are the ones starting with wp_ (or the prefix your site uses). Do not drop tables you do not recognise; plugins keep their data in their own tables.