diff --git a/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/intranet-main.tt b/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/intranet-main.tt
index 38658ddba0..e1fe25ed0e 100644
--- a/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/intranet-main.tt
+++ b/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/intranet-main.tt
@@ -16,7 +16,14 @@
    <div id="bd" role="main">
     <div id="yui-main">
     <div class="yui-b"><div class="yui-g">
+    [% IF adminWarning %]
+        <div id="adminwarning"i class="alert">
+            <p>Warning: you're logged-in with the admin login. This a a bad idea, and you are likely to encounter problems.</p>
+            <p>You should <a href="/cgi-bin/koha/members/memberentry.pl?op=add">create a patron</a> and give it superlibrarian permissions.</p>
+        </div>
+    [% END %]
     <div class="yui-u first">
+
             <div id="area-list-left">
                 <ul class="biglinks-list">
                     [% IF ( CAN_user_circulate ) %]
diff --git a/mainpage.pl b/mainpage.pl
index f834985cfe..78daf3887d 100755
--- a/mainpage.pl
+++ b/mainpage.pl
@@ -60,4 +60,11 @@ $template->param(
     pendingsuggestions => $pendingsuggestions
 );
 
+#
+# warn user if he is using mysql/admin login
+#
+unless ($loggedinuser) {
+    $template->param(adminWarning => 1);
+}
+
 output_html_with_http_headers $query, $cookie, $template->output;