Can’t connect to MySQL server remotely on Ubuntu

To test a remote MySQL connection in Linux terminal:

mysql -u username -h 192.16.8.1.22 -p

Or via Telnet in WIndows:

telnet 192.16.8.1.22 3306

If you are getting an error when trying to connect to your remote MySQL server

ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on '192.16.8.1.22' (111)

or in Telnet

Connecting To 192.16.8.1.22...Could not open connection to the host, on port 3306: Connect failed

1. Check Firewall

Firstly, if ufw firewall is enabled, ensure you have a rule for MySQL

sudo ufw allow mysql

Restart the service

sudo service ufw restart

2. Check MySQL config

You may need to comment out bind-address in the MySQL config file mysqld.cnf

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

Find the line bind-address  (CTRL + W to search)

...
#
# Instead of skip-networking the default is now to listen only on
# localhost which is more compatible and is not less secure.
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
...

The above line is telling MySQL to only accept local connections. Comment out this line by adding # before it.

Restart the MySQL service for changes to take effect.

sudo service mysql restart

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