Force MySQL to Connect by TCP Instead of a Unix Socket

Programs such as ‘mysql’ and ‘mysqldump’, that use MySQL client library have the support of MySQL connection to server with the help of many transport protocols, such as TCP/IP, Unix socket file, named pipe, shared memory, and so on.

With respect to a given connection, if the transport protocol is not specified, it is determined as a separate task.

Example

Connections to localhost will result in a socket file connection on Unix and Unix-like systems, and a TCP/IP connection to 127.0.0.1 otherwise. If the protocol has to be specified in particular, it is done using the --protocol command option.

The below table shows the values permitted for --protocol and also tells the platforms where each of these values are applicable. It is to be noted that the values are not case-sensitive.

TCP/IP transport supports connections to local or remote MySQL servers too. Socket-file, namedpipe, and shared-memory transports only support connections to local MySQL servers. It is to be noted that named-pipe transport does allow for remote connections, but this ability hasn’t been implemented in MySQL as of now.

Transport Protocol – Not Specified

If the transport protocol hasn’t been specified, then localhost is interpreted as −

• On Unix and Unix-like systems, a connection to the localhost results in a socket-file connection.

• On other systems, a connection to the localhost results in a TCP/IP connection to 127.0.0.1.

Transport Protocol – Specified

If the transport protocol is specified, then the localhost is interpreted based on that specific protocol.