Error connecting remote MySQL db

Hi,

I have a little problem: i have an OpenSimulator grid running on a server, and Joomla running on another server (on a commercial web hosting service). The OpenSimulator is running a MySQL server, which is publicly accessible, for the OS Grid. Now i installed jOpenSim on my Joomla website and i'm trying to connect it to my OS Grid on the other server. The problem is that i'm not able to connect jOpenSim to my OS Grid, because it is not able to connect to MySQL server (MariaDB on a linux host). I checked MySQL connectivity, and it seems to be all OK. On jOpenSim configuration username, password, hostname, db name and port are all right.
In jOpenSim and/or Joomla configuration, in addition to my Grid database connection data, i am missing something else?

Thank you for your time

Hi antlampas

There are usually 2 to 3 important things that many times get missed when connecting from another server:

1. in your opensim database server you also need an additional user with the host of your joomla server.
So if you e.g. have a user named opensim@localhost, you also need opensim@host-of-your-joomla so it gets access to the database

2. many times the mysql port (usually 3306) is not accessible from outside by firewall rules, which is usually actually a good idea. But in this case you might need a custom firewall rule for the IP of your joomla server to be able to connect.

3. from mysql side, settings like "bind-address = 127.0.0.1" or "skip-networking" in your my.cnf also avoid connections from outside

Hope this helps
Greetz
FoTo50

Thank you for the reply.

Ok, i checked all these points, and set everything following your suggestions.
Now i can reach my database from external hosts (i know this is insecure, but i need to do this way for now...), but jOpenSim still cannot connect to my database.
Going on with my search, at the end i found that the problem doesn't depend on jOpenSim configuration nor my database configuration, but on my web hosting service, who is denying all connection on external databases... so, i solved simply changing my web hosting service.

Thank you

Hi antlampas

Denying remote access to MySQL is for sure basically no bad idea. It avoids many security issues towards your data, that are otherwise hard to handle in a manageable frame.

Good providers though offer a possibility to handle port openings for certain services to certain IP addresses. In that case the security management keeps comprehensible I think.

Greetz
FoTo50

Opening MySQL to remote hosts it's undoubtedly a bad idea. I had to do this way because, at this time, i cannot install Joomla in the same machine where OpenSimlator is installed.
Lucky, the machine is for testing purpose only, in a testing environment, so this security issue is not so critical.

Greets,
antlampas