Is this even possible to use the server as a DB only server and use my windows dedicated server through 1and1 as an appllication / webserver running php / IIS, I've been searching online and enabled port 3306 in the firewall, commented out the skip-networking in my.cnf and restarted but I still can't seem to connect remotely,

Is this something that should be done? can it be done?

is there a walkthrough somewhere online , I found a thread on this site but after following the steps I still can't connect, can someone point me in the right direction

Are you able to connect to the machine remotely. FOr example ssh to your user-account? Remember to disable root login, before you permit ssh to listen on external ip.

Yes I can login to the machine through ssh, and execute mysql statements from there, Is there a way to use ssh to send the queries in from php?

Hi there,

You should be able to do this.

The 1and1 machine you have set up as a mySQL server needs to have the correct info in the mysql database. ie: grant access to ip.ad.dr.ess using userid identified by password ... to add an entry to the correct table. Sorry I don't remember if this is the exact syntax. Look up the proper way to use the grant access command in the mySQL docs.

Then from your windows machine, in php you can connect using the ip address of the mySQL server as the host(http:_slash_slash_ip.ad.dr.ess), specify the database name, the userid and password.

Hope this helps!

regards,
billc