I would think that I should be able to login to PHPmyAdmin with the database user and pass, but it wont let me for some reason: the only way to log into PHPmyAdmin is to go thru cpanel with the account username and pass. Does anyone know how I can get that to work? Basically, I'd like to allow database access to developers without giving them the entire account cpanel.
You can use a program, called EMS SQL Manager Freeware http://sqlmanager.net/en/products/mysql/manager/download to remotely connect to the database. By the way, its interface is nicer (in my opinion) than PHPMyAdmin's
or use navicat (the lite version is free) If you cannot connect remotely, you will need to go to the remote section in your cpanel's database section and allow your ip to connect, or put a mask to allow any ip to connect just add %.%.%.% and you should then be good to go
just upload a copy of phpmyadmin to somewhere else on your host (obviously outside the root), then setup an alias, then give this link to your clients to use. this way it shouldn't require cpanel authentication.