I recently installed a Linux LAMP server on an old desktop computer of mine following these instructions. I also installed phpmyadmin.

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ph...rver-for-free/


I uploaded a php page to the server to test the connection with the mySQL DS but I keep getting can't connect from the script. This is what I have for the php script:

$host = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "my root password";

mysql_connect($host, $username, $password) or die("Can't connect");
echo "Connected to MySQL<br/>";

You need to get more info than just the "can't connect" from your own script, search the logs for apache, php & mysql.
One useful way is to open a few terminals and use "tail -f" on logs, like "tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log" in one terminal, "tail -f /var/log/mysql.err" on second and so on (this on my Debian Lenny) while trying to connect.
You will then catch log messages in real-time.

A few other things to check:
Is mysql server running?
Can you log in to mysql in terminal with that password, can you access the database?

---
Edit:
I'm not very familiar with php, just wonder if you can have a blank before the value when assigning a variable?

Do you have php-mysql innstalled?

Run something like this
$host = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "my root password";
mysql_connect($host, $username, $password) or die(mysql_error());

And tell us what error you got.

Ok the error I am getting now says Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES). I also get that error in the apache log files and when trying to login to mysql through the terminal.

Did you create a root user password for mysql? Check the link below here at LQ. If you use the Search function on the top right of the page, you should be able to see numerous other posts here as this is a common problem.

http://wwww.linuxquestions.org/quest...rd-yes-900690/

1 members found this post helpful.

Hey yancek thanks for the input, I checked out that thread and ran some of the querys and there are passwords listed for mysql root users. But I am still getting the Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES) error when I am trying to connect to mysql through a php page.

Are you running the PHP on the same server as the MySQL database? I presume so since you used 'localhost'. Can you post the output of 'select user, host, password from mysql.user;'?

I use mysql_connect with a fourth parameter, the database to connect to - give that a shot too.

Are you running the PHP on the same server as the MySQL database? I presume so since you used 'localhost'. Can you post the output of 'select user, host, password from mysql.user;'?

I use mysql_connect with a fourth parameter, the database to connect to - give that a shot too.

Are you running the PHP on the same server as the MySQL database? I presume so since you used 'localhost'. Can you post the output of 'select user, host, password from mysql.user;'?

I use mysql_connect with a fourth parameter, the database to connect to - give that a shot too. <--- Oops, nevermind this, I was thinking of mysqli

But it sounds like you're having connectivity issues locally - have you set the root password?

This is what I get from selecting from mysql.user:

+------------------+------------+-------------------------------------------+
| USER | HOST | PASSWORD |
+------------------+------------+-------------------------------------------+
| root | localhost | *Encrypted password |
| root | web-server | *Encrypted password |
| root | 127.0.0.1 | *Encrypted password |
| debian-sys-maint | localhost | *Encrypted password |
| phpmyadmin | localhost | *Encrypted password |
| root | % | *Encrypted password |
+------------------+------------+-------------------------------------------+

I able to access the database through the terminal and through phpmyadmin but not the PHP scripts.

try resetting mysql root password:

where 'some_pass' is the password you want to use

If your accessing outside the box change the following