Connecting through PHP to a MySQL user with less privileges

Question

Maybe I am missing something, I am misunderstanding something about MySQL-PHP connections... I can't figure. I know it will be a lot to read but I can't put this in less words... Sorry!

The problem is: I am using XAMPP; I created in Phpmyadmin a 'user' with less privileges than user "root" (only INSERT and UPDATE) and then I am connecting in php file with this new user to MySQL. After connecting and selecting a specific db ('test'), I am using a DELETE query just to see what it does, and it actually deletes the row from a table I specify even though I expected it won't be able to do this since the user I used to connect to the db has only insert and update privileges. What am I missing?

In phpmyadmin, in 'mysql' db - 'user' table, my low privileges 'user' appears and it has the exact privileges i granted it and they are global! Still, if I connect to another db with this 'user' and try to use delete query, it will say access denied. So it acts like an "admin" with only one DB ('test') but has limited privileges on all others.

Here's a screen shot from tab 'Users'. The limited user is at the bottom ('user') - http://gyazo.com/1ed0218982a4b80eb2927cee78e2a46c

Answer 1

The likely solution is that, for whatever reason, your application is connecting as a different user. Instead of the DELETE query, try running STATUS ;` and look carefully at the output. Amongst other things, you should see a line like

Current user:           user@localhost

If it's anything else, then your script is not connecting as the user you think it is and you have to check your application for why that is happening. If that really says user@localhost, the next step is to log in to phpMyAdmin as that user (just use 'user' as the username in the login field). Once you're connected, look on the right hand side of the main page for the user and host you're connected as.

A less likely solution is that you've added additional database-level permissions for the user@localhost account -- to check that, click through the "Edit privileges" link then go to the Database tab at the top and see if there's anything odd appearing there.

Here is a user that has global INSERT and UPDATE privileges, plus full control over the sakila databsase: