Question

Hey guys I have an admin page that checks if you are admin before submitting any queries, and contains a header to the index page if you are not admin, but I am worried about protecting the page. I am concerned someone may be able to destroy my database with it. Does anyone have any recommendation into protecting a page like this, if not, should I just manually admin my database through phpmyadmin and delete the page all together?

Example

function isAdmin(){
      return ($this->userlevel == ADMIN_LEVEL ||
              $this->username  == ADMIN_NAME);
   }

 if(!$session->isAdmin()){
         header("Location: ../index.php");
         return;
      }

The admin value is stored in the database and represents ADMIN_LEVEL

Answer 1

It’s rather common for websites to have an administrators section, but you do have to make sure, on every page, before anything is inserted, removed, etc. that the user is an admin, something you are doing.

However, having a page that lets you enter explicit SQL statements and executes them probably isn’t a good idea. You could too easily enter something wrong, and it does leave a MUCH larger security hole, should something go wrong. Larger as in, easier to access system admin-level commands, depending on the setup.

Not to mention the ease of messing something up yourself.

Direct SQL queries is why you have phpMyAdmin. Admin sections are normally intended to be a GUI frontend of your data, just as the website for regular users is, but with a greater range of abilities. Such things as being able to list all users, edit a user’s data through a controlled form, then updating or deleting them with a button.