mysql, localhost, and ssh work-around

5 Jun 2008

I use ssh to tunnel all the time, especially to get around brain-dead firewalls.

But this doesn’t work easily for mysql – if you tunnel a port from localhost (eg localhost:3306) to the target db, mysql client tools will see ‘localhost’ and try to connect via the local socket. Very broken – there’s bugs lodged here and here about this (and lots of chest beating and wailing, too).

Solution: tunnel ssh via an intermediate machine. For example:

intermediate$ ssh -o GatewayPorts=yes -L 3306:targetdb:3306 targetdb
localhost$ mysql -h intermediate -P 3306

GatewayPorts – dangerous yes – but so is life.

Update

The problem seems to have been fixed; either that or I was having a very blond moment last time I tried using – – protocol.

localhost$ mysql --version
localhost$ mysql  Ver 14.12 Distrib 5.0.51a, for debian-linux-gnu (i486) using readline 5.2
localhost$ ssh -fN -L3306:targetdb:3306 targetdb
localhost$ mysql --protocol=tcp -hlocalhost -uroot
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 14788104
Server version: 4.0.21-Max-log
Type 'help;' or 'h' for help. Type 'c' to clear the buffer.
mysql>

Update 2

However graphical tools like OpenOffice Base, GMySqlCC and MySQL Query Browser either don’t obey the – – protocol=tcp flag or don’t have a place to set it, and therefore try to connect via the local socket file when connecting to localhost. Aarghhhhh..

Update 3

Using 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost works for OpenOffice – yay.

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