CodeIgniter: Encrypt communication between app and mysql db on different servers?

Question

Can anyone tell me the best way to encrypt data between a CI application and a MySQL db hosted on separate servers. SSH tunnel? If so, has anyone gotten this working using CI? Code examples and/or links are welcome.

Answer 1

MySQL supports SSL natively. See: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/secure-connections.html

Answer 2

Mysql's native ssl functionality as Daniel said or you can use stunnel . I recently faced the same question [ see here ], and was going to go the route of stunnel. However, I decided instead to encrypt the data via mcrypt locally before sending it over the wire to the database.