Edit phpMyAdmin’s config.inc.php and
add or update LoginCookieValidity the value as follows:
$cfg[‘LoginCookieValidity’] = 3600 * 9; // 9 hours
Update: (2009-12-07)
If the variable above doesn’t work for you maybe you can do this
/* Authentication type */
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'your-root-pwd';
Note/Warning/Security Concern:
Do this only on your local/development machine and not on production server !!!
In my case the file was in:
/usr/share/phpMyAdmin