How can I use SSH to connect to my mysql server remotely?
SSH connects on port xxxx, so do I need to forward ports in the putty connection?

Try this:

and take a look to this GREAT tutorial: http://support.suso.com/supki/SSH_Tu...ort_Forwarding

Hope this helps!

I connect through putty and I set up a port forward of 3306 and connect through SSH.
However, whn I go to workbench on my client and try to connect it gives me the error that it is not allowed to connect.
I do not have 3306 open on the server but I didn;t think that was necessray when connecting through SSH as it tunnels it through the ssh port.

But SSH access to your linuxbox works, isn't it?

You didn't say what the error message is, so I will assume that you are 'seeing' MySQL, but it is saying that the username / password are incorrect. One of the difficulties in connecting to MySQL remotely is that it identifies you as user@domain. If your users table is only setup for user@localhost, user@domain will be denied. Upon reading the thread, my initial thought was that the SSH tunnel would take care of this fact and you would appear as user@domain.that.you.ssh.into, but this may not be the case. I would suggest that you check to the MySQL logs and see if it is showing connections from user@your-local-domain. If it does, you will need to either put a wildcard in your user's ID or create a local and remote ID.