The Ultimate Connection Guide

Database systems course - Tel Aviv University

Important Stuff

TAU's MySQL name/port: mysqlsrv.cs.tau.ac.il

Sakila schema username/password: sakila/sakila

Database connecting in general

In order to connect to a database you have mainly two options:

1. Connecting to a MySQL Database you have installed on your home computer
2. Connect to the MySQL Database already installed in TAU Computer Sciences Labs.

You can connect to both databases using various database clients, such as MySQL (command line) and MySQL Workbench, that can be installed on your home computer as well.

In the next sections we will describe some of the connection options with the various tools. For these descriptions we will be using the following details:

Connection option	User	Password	Host	Port	Comments (don’t forget to…)
From home client to home database	Your user	Your password	Localhost (default)	3306 (default)	1. Install MySQL database 2. Install MySQL workbench
Connect from home client to TAU database	Your TAU user	Your TAU password	Localhost	3305 (defined by ssh)	1. Download Putty 2. Create TAU database account 3. Build SSH tunnel
Connect from TAU lab to TAU database	Your TAU user	Your TAU password	mysqlsrv.cs.tau.ac.il	3306 (default)	1. Create TAU database account

Creating TAU database account

Each user can open her own account (schema). Just follow the instructions in the following link:

http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/system/faq/development/databases/mysql1

Note that the initial password will be sent to you by mail. To change it:

- Run the MySQL app:
http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/system/faq/development/databases/mysql2
(the database name is the username…)

- Change the password:
http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/system/faq/development/databases/mysql3

Download links

Download MySQL:

http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

Download MySQL Workbench:

http://www.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/

Download Putty:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Setting up an SSH Tunnel

The idea behind creating a tunnel is that your client would ‘think’ that the server is at localhost:3305, but the tunnel established from your machine (localhost) to nova.cs.tau.ac.il would redirect the requests to mysqlsrv.cs.tau.ac.il:3306

How to do that?

Run the latest version of Putty (note that old versions might not connect, so download the latest - this was done with 0.60) .

Set it to point to Nova (nova.cs.tau.ac.il on port 22) by ssh

We now define the tunnel:

Select “Connection à SSH à Tunnels” from the category tree.

Enter the following:
Source port: 3305 (or something else you want..)
Destination: mysqlsrv.cs.tau.ac.il:3306

Now hit the “Add” button. Your screen should look something like this:

Now let’s just save the settings.. Go back to “Session” category, and your preferred name (in the picture “TAU - MySQL Tunneling”) and click save.

That’s it! Don’t forget to actual connect to nova by entering your unix username and password..

The following image is for using MySQL Workbench with the tunnel: