Connection to MySQL Server

Question

How am I able to connect to a database even when mysql server is not running?

Earlier I was getting error 2003 regarding can't connect to localhost when i used mysql -h localhost -u root -p'mypassword'

I searched and found relevant answers at Stack OverFlow and I ensured that MySQL service was running, but still the problem persisted.

But then I omitted -h localhost from this command and used instead: mysql -u user -p mysql and entered my password as prompted. Then I was connected to mysql.

In other words I can connect with any database in MySQL server even when it's not running using above commands,But still:

How does all of this is working?

Answer 1

Type in

netstat -tlnp

If you see

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:3306                0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      1711/mysqld

that means mysql is listening on all interfaces and then loopback should work also, like in my case (i used -h localhost).

I'm supposing you have disabled logon on loopback and have like 192.168.1.100:3306 for example.

Regards, Mirko