How to Create a Database and Database User in ISPConfig

This guide shows you how to create a MySQL database and a database user in the ISPConfig control panel, link the two together, and then use the details in your website code or open the database in phpMyAdmin. It is written for Noiz clients managing their own hosting account through ISPConfig. Note that a database user is not the same as your ISPConfig login: it is a separate username and password that your website software uses to read and write data. ISPConfig keeps databases and database users in two separate forms so that one database user can be reused across several databases, which means you create the user first and then attach it when you create the database.

Last reviewed: 27 July 2026, against ISPConfig 3.3.1p1. This guide is written for Noiz hosting and is kept current against ISPConfig. It complements, and does not replace, the official ISPConfig documentation linked below.

Official Documentation Reference

• How to Add a Website, MySQL Database and Users in ISPConfig (HowtoForge): a current step-by-step guide covering the Database Users and Databases forms, maintained by the ISPConfig developers' documentation site.
• ISPConfig 3 Documentation: the official online documentation for the current ISPConfig interface.
• ISPConfig Documentation overview: the index of all official ISPConfig documentation, including the full manual.

Prerequisites

• You can log in to the ISPConfig control panel.
• A website already exists on your account, because every database is assigned to a site. If you have not created one yet, follow How to Create a Website in ISPConfig first.
• A hosting plan that includes databases. If your plan carries no database allowance at all, the Databases section does not appear in the Sites menu.

Step 1: Create the Database User

The database user must exist before you create the database, otherwise it will not appear in the drop-down list on the database form.

1. Log in to the ISPConfig control panel.
2. Click the Sites module in the top navigation.
3. In the left menu, under Databases, click Database Users. A list of any existing database users on your account appears.
4. Click the Add new user button.

Fill in the form as follows, then click Save:

• Client: this field sits at the top of the form but appears only on administrator and reseller logins. If you see it, leave it at the preset value for your account.
• Database user: enter a short name for the user, using only letters and numbers, for example wpuser. Avoid underscores. ISPConfig automatically adds an account prefix in front of whatever you type; the greyed-out text next to the field shows the prefix, for example c1. So if you type wpuser, the real username becomes c1wpuser, and that full name is what you will later use in your website configuration. The finished username cannot exceed 32 characters once the prefix is counted, so keep the part you type short.
• Database password: type a strong password, or click the Generate Password button beside the field to have ISPConfig create one for you. The Password strength indicator shows how strong your choice is. Record the password somewhere safe now; ISPConfig does not display it again later.
• Repeat Password: enter the same password again. A confirmation line appears below the field once the two entries match.

The user now appears in the Database Users list. At this point it exists only inside ISPConfig; it becomes a working MySQL login once you attach it to a database in the next step.

Step 2: Create the Database and Link the User

1. Still in the Sites module, in the left menu under Databases, click Databases.
2. Click the Add new Database button. The database form opens on the Database tab.

Complete the fields described below, then click Save. On a shared hosting account you may not see every field mentioned here: options such as the Server selection are usually preset by Noiz, and anything you do not see has already been configured for you.

Site

In the Site field, select the website this database belongs to, for example yourdomain.com. The drop-down opens on - Select Site - and the form refuses to save until a real site is chosen. This is what ties the database to a website for ownership and quota accounting.

Type

Leave the Type field set to MySQL. This is the standard database type used by software such as WordPress and Joomla.

Backup interval

The Backup interval drop-down decides whether ISPConfig takes its own scheduled dump of this database, and how often. The choices are No backup, Daily, Weekly and Monthly, and a new database starts on No backup. The setting belongs to the database record itself, so choose an interval here if you want the panel to hold a restorable copy of the data.

Database name

Enter a short, descriptive name using only letters and numbers, for example wordpress. As with the database user, ISPConfig adds your account prefix automatically, so typing wordpress with a prefix of c1 produces the real database name c1wordpress. The field accepts letters, numbers and the underscore, and the finished name must be between 2 and 64 characters once the prefix is counted. Choose it carefully: on a client login the database name cannot be edited after the database has been created. The full prefixed name is what your website configuration must use.

Database quota

Database quota is the largest size in megabytes this database is allowed to reach, and -1 means unlimited. MySQL has no true hard quota, so the figure is enforced by monitoring rather than by refusing writes: passing it raises an over-quota notification instead of an immediate failure. The total across all your databases is capped by the allowance on your plan, and asking for more than the plan has left makes the form report the remaining figure and clamp your entry to it. Leave the value as it arrives unless you deliberately want to cap one database.

Database user

In the Database user drop-down, select the user you created in Step 1, for example c1wpuser. This grants the user full access to the database. The optional Read-only database user drop-down lets you attach a second user that can only read data, which most sites do not need; leave it on None unless you have a specific reason.

Database charset

The Database charset (MySQL) drop-down offers DB-Default, Latin 1, UTF-8 and UTF8MB4. DB-Default hands the decision to the database server's own default and suits almost every install. Pick UTF8MB4 only when the software you are installing asks for it by name, which it will if it needs to store emoji and other four-byte characters. Decide before you save, because ISPConfig does not allow the charset to be changed once the database exists; switching later means creating a second database and importing the data into it.

Remote Access

Leave the Remote Access checkbox unticked. Your website runs on the same server as the database and connects locally, so remote access is not needed and leaving it off is safer. If you ever need to connect from an external tool, tick the box and enter the connecting machine's IP address in the Remote Access IPs field. The field label spells out the rule: separate several addresses with commas, and a blank field allows connections from any host, which is the one outcome to avoid.

Active

Leave the Active checkbox ticked so the database is enabled as soon as it is created.

Save and Use the Database in Your Website

1. Click Save. You return to the database list, where the new database now appears.
2. Watch for the small red change indicator near the top of the panel. It shows that ISPConfig is still creating the database and user on the server in the background. This normally takes under a minute; the database is ready once the indicator disappears.

Your website software connects with four pieces of information. Using the examples above, they would be:

• Database host: localhost
• Database name: c1wordpress (the full prefixed name)
• Database username: c1wpuser (the full prefixed name)
• Database password: the password you set in Step 1

For example, in a WordPress wp-config.php file the same details look like this (replace the example values with your own):

define( 'DB_NAME', 'c1wordpress' );
define( 'DB_USER', 'c1wpuser' );
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'your-database-password' );
define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );

Open the Database in phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a browser-based tool for working with a database directly: browsing tables, running queries, and importing or exporting .sql backup files.

1. In the Sites module, under Databases, click Databases to open the database list.
2. In the row for your database, click the phpMyAdmin icon. A new browser tab opens with the phpMyAdmin login page.
3. Log in with the full database username, for example c1wpuser, and the database password. Your ISPConfig panel login will not work here; phpMyAdmin only accepts database users.

Once logged in you will see only the databases your user is linked to. Select your database in the left column to browse its tables.

Troubleshooting

• The Database user drop-down offers nothing but "Select database user": the database user has not been created yet, and the form will not save without one. Cancel the database form, create the user under Database Users as described in Step 1, then reopen the database form.
• phpMyAdmin rejects the username and password: make sure you are using the full prefixed username, for example c1wpuser rather than wpuser, together with the database password rather than your panel password. Also confirm the user is linked to at least one database and that the red change indicator has cleared; a user that is not attached to any database cannot log in.
• The website shows a database connection error: check all four connection values character by character. The host should be localhost, and both the database name and username must include the account prefix. If the details are correct, edit the database in ISPConfig and confirm the Active checkbox is ticked.
• ISPConfig reports that the maximum number of databases is reached: the Add new Database and Add new user buttons stay on screen when your allowance is used up, so the limit shows itself as an error the moment you click one. Delete a database or user you no longer need, or open a support ticket to have the allowance raised. If the Databases section is missing from the Sites menu altogether, your plan carries no database allowance at all.
• An external database tool cannot connect: remote connections are blocked unless Remote Access is enabled on the database and the connecting machine's IP address is listed in Remote Access IPs. For occasional tasks, phpMyAdmin is usually the simpler option.

If you get stuck at any point, open a support ticket with the Noiz support team and include the database name, the database username, the website it belongs to, and the exact error message or symptom. Never include the database password in a ticket.