Connect to remote database when deployed on Vercel - mysql

Question

In my NextJS Vercel app, I am unable to successfully connect to my remote MySQL database which is located on GoDaddy, after following Vercel's official tutorial.
I expect the api pages to return JSON data that resulted from the database query. Instead I am getting
I tried changing the username, but for some reason, the 4 environment variables that I have - MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_DATABASE, MYSQL_HOST, and MYSQL_PASSWORD - never update on the live site! I changed in Production, Preview, and even Development, and they stay the same in the above link’s object.
Everything works fine on my localhost because my home IP address is whitelisted in cPanel. But Vercel has dynamic IPs so I can't do this on the live site. It also works fine if I host on GoDaddy, but I need to host on Vercel.
Here’s my source code for the db.js file which connects to the database
lib/db.js
const mysql = require('serverless-mysql');
const db = mysql({
config: {
host: process.env.MYSQL_HOST,
database: process.env.MYSQL_DATABASE,
user: process.env.MYSQL_USER,
password: process.env.MYSQL_PASSWORD,
}
})
exports.query = async query => {
try {
const results = await db.query(query);
await db.end();
return results
} catch (error) {
return {
error
}
}
}
pages/api/columns/index.js
const db = require('../../../lib/db')
const escape = require('sql-template-strings')
/**
* Queries the database to return the newspaper's columns
* #param {IncomingMessage} _req The request object (unused)
* #param {ServerResponse} res The response object
*/
module.exports = async (_req, res) => {
const columns = await db.query(escape`SELECT * FROM columns ORDER BY id`);
res.status(200).json({ columns })
}
I expect this result, which appears locally:

Answer 1

Connecting to a remote database only works with Cloud hosting (e.g. Microsoft Azure, AWS). Because I am using a Hosting service, this won't work.
In Remote MySQL, whitelist %.%.%.%. Because Vercel's IPs are dynamic, this will allow a consistent connection between Vercel and the database. It is also a security risk, but I have a password protection.