Simple PHP Admin Panel (Free Download)

Welcome to a tutorial on how to create a simple PHP admin panel. Since you are reading this, I will assume that you are interested in “powering up” your existing project and want to build an administrative component to it. So here is a sharing of my own – All done in pure HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP. No third-party frameworks. Read on!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Source code on GitHub Gist

Just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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TUTORIAL VIDEO

 

PART 1) USER DATABASE

-- (A) USERS TABLE
CREATE TABLE `users` (
  `user_id` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `user_email` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `user_name` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `user_password` varchar(255) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4;

ALTER TABLE `users`
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (`user_id`),
  ADD UNIQUE KEY `user_email` (`user_email`),
  ADD KEY `user_name` (`user_name`);

ALTER TABLE `users`
  MODIFY `user_id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, AUTO_INCREMENT=1;

-- (B) DEFAULT USER
-- EMAIL: JOY@DOE.COM | PASSWORD: 123456
INSERT INTO `users` (`user_id`, `user_email`, `user_name`, `user_password`) VALUES
(1, 'joy@doe.com', 'Joy Doe', '$2y$10$vZJy7y4uqQQTRN3zdi2RE.5ZJJzGEEPnzEjFXm4nEOx023XQ2Qe..');

First, let us begin by dealing with the obvious – A database to hold the admin users.

• user_id Primary key and auto-increment.
• user_email User email, unique to prevent duplicates.
• user_name User name.
• user_password The user’s password.

 

 

PART 2) PHP ADMIN LIBRARY

<?php
class Admin {
  // (A) CONSTRUCTOR - CONNECT TO DATABASE
  private $pdo = null;
  private $stmt = null;
  public $error = "";
  function __construct () {
    $this->pdo = new PDO(
      "mysql:host=".DB_HOST.";dbname=".DB_NAME.";charset=".DB_CHARSET,
      DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, [
      PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
      PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE => PDO::FETCH_ASSOC
    ]);
  }

  // (B) DESTRUCTOR - CLOSE CONNECTION
  function __destruct () {
    if ($this->stmt !== null) { $this->stmt = null; }
    if ($this->pdo !== null) { $this->pdo = null; }
  }

  // (C) HELPER FUNCTION - RUN SQL QUERY
  function query ($sql, $data=null) : void {
    $this->stmt = $this->pdo->prepare($sql);
    $this->stmt->execute($data);
  }

  // (D) GET USER BY ID OR EMAIL
  function get ($id) {
    $this->query(sprintf("SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE `%s`=?",
      is_numeric($id) ? "user_id" : "user_email"
    ), [$id]);
    return $this->stmt->fetch();
  }

  // (E) SAVE USER
  function save ($name, $email, $password, $id=null) {
    // (E1) SQL & DATA
    $sql = $id==null
      ? "INSERT INTO `users` (`user_name`, `user_email`, `user_password`) VALUES (?,?,?)"
      : "UPDATE `users` SET `user_name`=?, `user_email`=?, `user_password`=? WHERE `user_id`=?" ;
    $data = [$name, $email, password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT)];
    if ($id!=null) { $data[] = $id; }

    // (E2) RUN SQL
    $this->query($sql, $data);
    return true;
  }

  // (F) VERIFICATION
  function verify ($email, $password) {
    // (F1) GET USER
    $user = $this->get($email);
    $pass = is_array($user);

    // (F2) CHECK PASSWORD
    if ($pass) { $pass = password_verify($password, $user["user_password"]); }

    // (F3) REGISTER MEMBER INTO SESSION
    if ($pass) {
      foreach ($user as $k=>$v) { $_SESSION["admin"][$k] = $v; }
      unset($_SESSION["admin"]["user_password"]);
    }

    // (F4) RESULT
    if (!$pass) { $this->error = "Invalid email/password"; }
    return $pass;
  }
}

// (G) DATABASE SETTINGS - CHANGE TO YOUR OWN
define("DB_HOST", "localhost");
define("DB_NAME", "test");
define("DB_CHARSET", "utf8mb4");
define("DB_USER", "root");
define("DB_PASSWORD", "");

// (H) START!
session_start();
$_ADM = new Admin();

This PHP core and database library is here to help you guys develop a little faster. It may look confusing at first, but keep calm and look closely.

• (A, B, H) When $_ADM = new Admin() is created, the constructor will connect to the database. The destructor closes the connection.
• (C) query() A helper function to execute an SQL query.
• (D to F) The actual admin functions.
  • get() Get user by ID or email.
  • save() Add or update a user.
  • verify() Verify the given email and password. Register the user into $_SESSION["admin"].
• (G) The database settings, remember to change them to your own.
• (H) Start the “engine”.

 

 

PART 3) LOGIN PAGE

<?php
// (A) LOAD LIBRARY
require "2-lib-admin.php";
 
// (B) CHECK LOGIN CREDENTIALS
if (count($_POST)!=0) {
  $_ADM->verify($_POST["email"], $_POST["password"]);
}
 
// (C) REDIRECT IF SIGNED IN
if (isset($_SESSION["admin"])) {
  header("Location: 5-protected.php");
  exit();
} ?>
 
<!-- (D) LOGIN FORM -->
<?php
if ($_ADM->error!="") { echo "<div class='error'>".$_ADM->error."</div>"; }
?>
<form method="post">
  <h1>ADMIN LOGIN</h1>
  <label>Email</label>
  <input type="email" name="email" required>
  <label>Password</label>
  <input type="password" name="password" required>
  <input type="submit" value="Login">
</form>

It will be easier to study this login page from the bottom up.

• (D) A good old HTML login form.
• (A & B) On submission, we use the library to process the login request.
• (C) On successful login, we redirect the user to the “main admin page”; Any users who are already signed in will also be redirected.

 

PART 4) ADMIN HTML TEMPLATE

4A) TOP HALF

<?php
// (A) LOAD LIBRARY
require "2-lib-admin.php";

// (B) LOGOUT
if (isset($_POST["logout"])) { unset($_SESSION["admin"]); }

// (C) REDIRECT IF NOT SIGNED IN
if (!isset($_SESSION["admin"])) {
  header("Location: 3a-login.php");
  exit();
} ?>

<!-- (D) SIDEBAR -->
<div id="pgside">
  <!-- (D1) BRANDING OR USER -->
  <form id="pguser" method="post" onclick="if(confirm('Sign Off?')){this.submit();}">
    <input type="hidden" name="logout" value="1">
    <img src="potato.png" id="pguserimg">
    <div class="txt">
      <div id="pgusername"><?=$_SESSION["admin"]["user_name"]?></div>
      <div id="pguseracct">account | logoff</div>
    </div>
  </form>

  <!-- (D2) MENU ITEMS -->
  <a href="#" class="current">
    <i class="ico">&#9733;</i>
    <i class="txt">Section A</i>
  </a>
  <a href="#">
    <i class="ico">&#9728;</i>
    <i class="txt">Section B</i>
  </a>
  <a href="#">
    <i class="ico">&#9737;</i>
    <i class="txt">Section C</i>
  </a>
</div>
 
<!-- (E) MAIN -->
<main id="pgmain">

 

 

4B) BOTTOM HALF

</main>

 

4C) A QUICK WALKTHROUGH

Once again, this looks complicated. But look closely, there are only 2 main sections:

• (D) <div id="pgside"> The sidebar.
  • (D1) <form id="pguser"> The current user and hidden form for logout.
  • (D2) Insert your menu items here.
• (E) <main id="pgmain"> Main content area.

As for how the logout works, it is very similar to the login page:

• (B) When <form id="pguser"> is submitted, this will clear out $_SESSION["admin"].
• (C) The user will be redirected back to the login page; All users that are not signed in will be redirected to the login page.

 

PART 5) PROTECTED ADMIN PAGES

<?php require "4a-top.php"; ?>
Your dashboard here.
<?php require "4b-bottom.php"; ?>

That’s about it for everything, to create a protected admin page:

• Simply require "4a-top.php" at the top, and require "4b-bottom.php" at the bottom.
• Sandwich your contents in between.

 

 

 

SLIGHTLY BETTER SECURITY

This admin panel is made for simplicity and does not have the best security… I will recommend doing the following at the very least:

• Create a new lib folder.
• For Apache users, create a lib/.htaccess file with one line – Deny from all. Users can no longer access the files in lib/ through http://, but PHP can still read them.
• IIS and NGINX users – Create your own “translated .htaccess“.
• Move 2-lib-admin.php, 4a-top.php, 4b-bottom.php into lib.
• Of course, update the file paths in your scripts accordingly.
• Remember to delete 1-users.sql.

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• CSRF Token Protection – Code Boxx
• PHP User Role Management – Code Boxx
• PHP Encrypt Decrypt Verify Password – Code Boxx
• Very Simple Pure HTML CSS Admin Panel – Code Boxx