Limits for the transfer

When we import, the source file is usually on our client machine and, therefore, must travel to the server via HTTP. This transfer takes time and uses resources that may be limited in the web server's PHP configuration.

Instead of using HTTP, we can upload our file to the server using a protocol such as FTP, as described in the Reading files from a web server upload directory section. This method circumvents the web server's PHP upload limits.

Time limits

First, let us consider the time limit. In config.inc.php, the $cfg['ExecTimeLimit'] configuration directive assigns, by default, a maximum execution time of 300 seconds (five minutes) for any phpMyAdmin script, including the scripts that process data after the file has been uploaded. A value of 0 removes the limit, and in theory, gives us infinite time to complete the import operation. If the PHP server is running in safe mode, modifying $cfg['ExecTimeLimit'] will have no effect. This is because the limits set in php...