How to connect to a database on a remote server - mysql

Question

I have a server, my-website.com, on a shared hodting plan. I created a database on the server. From the webadmin, the db details are :
From phpMyAdmin :
Server: localhost:3306
Database server
Server: Localhost via UNIX socket
Server type: Percona Server
Server version: 5.6.39-83.1 - Percona Server (GPL), Release 83.1, Revision da5a1c2923f
Protocol version: 10
User: user#localhost
Server charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)
I try to connect to it via node :
const express = require('express')
const mysql = require('mysql')
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 5000
const app = express();
app.use(express.json());
const courses = [];
/** DB **/
app.get('/api/db_connect', function (req, res) {
var myConStatus = "undef conn";
var con = mysql.createConnection({
host: "191.181.181.81", // FAKE
Port: "3306",
user: "user#localhost",
database: "user_test_db",
password: "password123"
});
con.connect(function (err) {
myConStatus = "Connecting to db";
if (err) {
myConStatus = "ERR Conn";
throw err;
}
myConStatus = "Success Connection";
});
var sql = "CREATE TABLE customers (name VARCHAR(255), address VARCHAR(255))";
con.query(sql, function (err, result) {
myConStatus = "Creating table";
if (err) {
myConStatus = "ERR DB TABLE CREATE";
throw err;
}
myConStatus = "Table created";
});
res.send(myConStatus);
});
/** END DB **/
This is never successful and no table gets created.
What am I missing?

Answer 1

Not sure if I understand fully, but mySQL can be configured for connections from local processes or from remote. If you are trying to connect remotely to a server that is configured for local it will not connect.
You did not say if you got connections errors or not.
You can configure connections for standard TCP/IP or ssh TCP/IP as opposed to local socket/pipe - which maybe you have done.
See here https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/LATEST/howtos/enabling_tcp.html and this quote
"Most of the Linux distributions do not enable by default to accept
TCP/IP connections from outside in their MySQL or Percona Server
packages"
If this is off the mark - just comment me and I will delete.