Download a software tool to manage the Zend Server SQLite databases

Issue

You would like to explore the Zend Server databases, or perform an edit when asked by Zend Support.

Environment

Zend Server for IBM i Zend Server 2020.x or higher running on any supported version of IBM i.

For versions 9.1.x - 2019.x replace all instances of zendphp74 with zendphp7. For versions 6 - 8.5.x replace all instances of zendphp74 with zendsvr6

Resolution

Here are two free SQLite editors that can be used with the Zend Server databases. The first runs on your Windows PC, and can be used if you have a network drive set up to access your IBM i. The second can be used from a web browser.

Note

It is possible to make changes to your database tables that will make them unusable, forcing a recreate of the database or even possibly a clean install of 
Zend Server.  Please use caution and common sense when using these tools.  Also, please make a copy of any .db file for backup before making any changes
to it.  It is best to make the changes while the Zend Server jobs are not running.

DB Browser for SQLite

DB Browser for SQLite (formerly SQLite Database Browser) is a simple SQLite manager that is easy to use and free to download. The windows download can be found here:

https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/sqlitebrowser/releases

To install this in Windows, just download and run the .exe file. To open a database, navigate to the /usr/local/zendphp74/var/db directory and choose one of the files with a .db extension. Before making any changes to any of these files, make a back up copy.

phpLiteAdmin

phpLiteAdmin is a PHP script that provides a SQLite management GUI in a web browser. You can find the download here:

https://code.google.com/p/phpliteadmin/wiki/DownloadLinks

There are some installation instructions here:

https://code.google.com/p/phpliteadmin/wiki/Installation

To use phpLiteAdmin with the Zend Server databases, probably the simplest thing to do is to download the software and unzip it on your PC. The entire software consists of a single phpLiteAdmin.php file. There is an optional configuration file, or you can make your configuration changes right in the phpLiteAdmin.php file.

To configure, find these two lines of code:

//password to gain access
$password = 'admin';

//directory relative to this file to search for databases (if false, 
manually list databases in the $databases variable)
$directory = '.';

Change the password to anything you like. Change the directory to the Zend Server databases directory:

$directory = '/usr/local/zendphp74/var/db';

Save your changes, then upload the phpLiteAdmin.php file (and the configuration file if you used it) to your web site. You can then run the phpLiteAdmin.php script on your website to work with the Zend Server databases. Remember to back up any database files before making any changes.