Learning MySQL

Configuring Access to the MySQL Server

By default, there is no password set for the MySQL server. You must set a root password as soon as possible. The MySQL AB Windows installer automatically prompts you to set one as part of the configuration process. For other cases, make sure you follow our installation instructions to set a root password.

A MySQL client connects to a server differently depending on where the server is running. When the client and server are on the same Linux or Mac OS X system, a local connection is made through a Unix socket file, typically /tmp/mysql.sock or /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock. On a Windows system, the connection is made through the MYSQL named pipe if the server was started with the enable-named-pipe option. In other cases, clients send their requests through a TCP/IP network connection. Using a named pipe can actually be slower than using TCP/IP.

If you intend for your server to be accessed only from the host it is running on, you can disable network access to the server by starting the server with the skip-networking option. For a server running on Windows, remember to enable the enable-named-pipe option at the same time; otherwise you won’t be able to connect to the server.

If you carry out the steps outlined in this chapter, the filesystem access permissions for the MySQL data directory and the server logs should be configured correctly. Keep in mind that users need access to the socket file to connect to the server; if the socket file is in the ...