DBs Tab

The DBs tab, unsurprisingly, empowers you to administer any databases you want to use from the sites handled by roxen server; from creating and grouping up to moving, backing up, browsing and tweaking or dropping databases at your leisure. You will also find some info on the backend MySQL database used internally by Roxen.

Below the main subtab, Databases, you find a list of the registered databases and what sites have what access rights to their contents; N for no rights, R for read and W for both read and write rights. At the far right is indicated whether the database resides in the internal database - the MySQL database shipped with Roxen, or if it's a remote, external database, and finally how big its contents is, altogether.

Database Groups

The databases are grouped together in database groups by category; there's the ones used by Roxen itself for the documentation tab and the local storage (holding all sorts of caches, for example), and then there may be any number of other groups created by modules or yourself as an administrator for your own purposes.

You create a database group of your own by clicking the Create new group button. If you intend to have several databases created or imported right away from a particular MySQL server, you may write a database URL to that server, leaving out the (already filled-in) mysql:// part, for example root@dbhost. This will prompt you with a list of all the databases available at dbhost to import into the group right away, relieving you of some boring work.

The group name won't show up in the main view until you have put some databases in it, either by importing this way, or by creating a new database, assigning it to the group. Be sure to come up with intuitive group names do write good comments of the purpose of your database groups, as a reminder to yourself and the co-administrators of your server, if any; they will most likely be happy you did. :) You may review this comment at any time by clicking on the database group name in the Databases view.

Databases

Each database name on the left on the Databases tab is a clickable that link zooms in on the database in question, showing its database URL, the tables it holds, how many rows they have and the total size of the table's data - you may resort the list by clicking on either column. Clicking on a table reveals a brief list of its fields.

Below the list is a text field where you may write SQL queries of your own, to browse or alter its contents, or perform any other administrative actions your database engine might support via its SQL interface. The query is run right away when you press the Run query button, and its results printed below the text field on the result page. When zooming down on a table you haven't already performed a query on, the query field suggests listing all columns declared as text, integers and similar readable data. Should you select blobs that turn out to be images, Roxen graciously presents them to your browser as image links instead of huge blobs of binary data - try looking at the image cache for GButton in the local database, for instance.

Creating New Databases

At the bottom of the Databases page, you can create or add new databases to the list with the Create new database button. The name you choose for the database will be the name you use as the db attribute of queries using the <emit sql> tag later on, so it's a good idea to use a name that is easy to type and identify the database for the RXML author.

An internal database will be both created (in the bundled internal MySQL database) and added to the view, whereas an external database will just be added - if it didn't exist, an error is reported. When creating an external database, you must fill in a database URL to the database server (e g mysql://root@dbhost/), or to a particular database itself (such as mysql://root@dbhost/customers). The database will be listed below the category of your choice, and when you create internal databases, the category can also decide in what database server the database will be created. Again, you are encouraged to add a helpful comment about the database; it will be shown when browsing the database later on, so here is where you write the reminders you will later wish you had given the effort to write, trying to get reacquainted with the dusty old database from last year. :-)

Database Buttons

When focusing a database, a new array of action buttons is made available:

Make a backup

For internal databases, you may choose to make a backup of its data and structure to be restored manually at a later date in case of the unexpected. All database backups show up under the Database Backups subtab to be restored or deleted at your leisure. Roxen will remember from what database it was backed up, but you may also read them back into some other database if you wish.

Copy or move this database

A copy of the database contents being made somewhere else, either in an internal or external database. If you choose to copy the database, the source database will not be dropped from the database server, but if you move it and it, and the source is is an internal database, it will be purged.

Delete this database

The database is removed from your database view. When deleting an external database, no data is actually touched at the remote database server - this is only done with internal databases.

Delete all tables

Regardless of whether the database is external or internal, this drops all of its tables in one go. As a safety measure, you will have to confirm this dangerous action before it is actually performed.

Change group for this database

If you should decide you wanted to regroup a database, this action comes in handy.

Database Backups

All databases backed-up using the Make a backup button above end up below this subtab, and upon restoring one, you are prompted of what tables you want and what database to read them back to. If you want to read them back to a new database, be sure to create one first. The default choice is the source database it was backed up from.

In the list, organised by database name, you will see the paths to all database backups, when they were made, their name and buttons to restore or delete them. Deleting a backup is performed with no questions asked, so be sure to know what you are up to.

MySQL Status

The last subtab, finally, lists current status info and details on what the bundled MySQL server is up to, version information, active connections and various other useful debugging data.