Admin Pack

A PHP toolkit designed specifically for programmers to quickly create a nice-looking, custom-built, secure administrative web interface. Choose from a MIT or LGPL license. Proven to cut development time by at least 50% over traditional frameworks and template engines. But it isn't a CMS nor a framework or a template engine. Admin Pack is very different. Give it a go to power your next PHP-based administrative backend.

Be sure to check out Admin Pack with Extras. It is Admin Pack plus some extra options with Javascript components (e.g. a convenient visual date picker widget) in a slightly beefier package.

Features

• Quick-n-dirty custom administrative interface builder. Live demo
• The default templates look nice enough. Gets the job done.
• Integrated CSRF/XSRF defenses.
• Supports custom logos/favicon.
• Very lightweight (~180KB).
• Has a liberal open source license. MIT or LGPL, your choice.
• Designed for relatively painless integration into your project.
• Sits on GitHub for all of that pull request and issue tracker goodness to easily submit changes and ideas respectively.

Getting Started

Download or clone the latest software release. Transfer the files to a web server. Open up admin.php in your favorite text editor. Find this code:

	// $bb_randpage is used in combination with a user token to prevent hackers from sending malicious URLs.
	// [Put random content into the string.  Try www.random.org.]
	// https://www.random.org/integers/?num=100&min=0&max=255&col=10&base=16&format=plain&rnd=new
	$bb_randpage = "[Random content goes here]";
	$bb_rootname = "Tool Name";

	// [Put your login management, permissions to access this page, and any obvious initialization logic here.]
	// [If you want, you can make any error messages look nice using the BB_GeneratePage() call.]
	// [$bb_usertoken should be a string that uniquely identifies the user without directly identifying them.  For example, a session ID.]
	$bb_usertoken = "";


	BB_ProcessPageToken("action");

And integrate a login system. If you do not have a login system, try CubicleSoft Single Sign-On Server/Client.

There are three global variables that need to be defined:

• $bb_randpage - Set to a randomly generated string of characters. The more random, the better.
• $bb_rootname - A string containing the global name of the tool and is also used as part of the title of each page.
• $bb_usertoken - A string containing a secret session ID that uniquely identifies the user without directly identifying them.

Example:

	// Force SSL.
	if (!BB_IsSSLRequest())
	{
		header("Location: " . BB_GetFullRequestURLBase("https"));
		exit();
	}

	// $bb_randpage is used in combination with a user token to prevent hackers from sending malicious URLs.
	$bb_randpage = "33f724f3724f2679614855896571bc8c9406355f";
	$bb_rootname = "RSS Feed Manager";

	require_once "../login/required.php";
	if (!$user->admin)
	{
		echo "You must be an admin.";

		exit();
	}

	$bb_usertoken = $user->secretid;

	BB_ProcessPageToken("action");

Example SSO Server/Client integration:

	// Force SSL.
	if (!BB_IsSSLRequest())
	{
		header("Location: " . BB_GetFullRequestURLBase("https"));
		exit();
	}

	// $bb_randpage is used in combination with a user token to prevent hackers from sending malicious URLs.
	$bb_randpage = "33f724f3724f2679614855896571bc8c9406355f";
	$bb_rootname = "RSS Feed Manager";

	require_once "client/config.php";
	require_once SSO_CLIENT_ROOT_PATH . "/index.php";

	$sso_client = new SSO_Client;
	$sso_client->Init(array("sso_impersonate", "sso_remote_id"));

	$extra = array();
	if (isset($_REQUEST["sso_impersonate"]) && is_string($_REQUEST["sso_impersonate"]))  $extra["sso_impersonate"] = $_REQUEST["sso_impersonate"];
	if (!$sso_client->LoggedIn())  $sso_client->Login("", "You must login to use this system.", $extra);

	// Send the browser cookies.
	$sso_client->SaveUserInfo();

	// Test permissions for the user.
	if (!$sso_client->IsSiteAdmin() && !SSO_HasTag("rss_manager"))  SSO_Login("", "insufficient_permissions");

	// Get the internal token for use with XSRF defenses.
	$bb_usertoken = $sso_client->GetSecretToken();

	BB_ProcessPageToken("action");

Next, set up the menu of options. The default menu is the one found in the demo.

Finally, start writing code for each admin interface action. The source code found in 'admin.php' demonstrates many common patterns that can simply be copied, pasted, and adjusted for each action.

Under the Hood

Admin Pack uses FlexForms, which makes it easy to extend Admin Pack with custom functionality (see support/view_print_layout.php). For example, FlexForms Modules contains several official extensions (e.g. charts, HTML editor, character/word counter).

Admin Pack has its origins in Barebones CMS, which is where the "bb_" prefixes come from. Admin Pack is its own product.

More Information

• Page Basics - Convenient global functions included with Admin Pack.
• Creating Flexible Relational Databases - Alternative approach to relational database design that works well with Admin Pack.
• CSDB Data Access Layer - A set of classes for cross-database SQL.
• FlexForms Modules - Additional functionality for Admin Pack.