Having trouble connecting to mysql from regular user. When I am root in shell and connect to mysql it allows me to conncect. When I switch to regular user, I can not and give me this error:

reg_user:~ > mysql -u root -p temp
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

I have set my socket file to be /tmp/mysql.sock in the /etc/my.cnf file in both the [client] and [mysqld] sections. Also when I do a 'ps aux | grep mysql' I see that it is passed to the mysqld safe command as '/tmp/mysql.sock'.

I don't understand why when a regular user trying to connect it tries to use /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock and when connecting via root user, it uses /tmp/mysql.sock.

Any suggestions?

What are the permissions for the directory and socket that MySQL is using? I'd expect 0755 for /var/lib/mysql and 0777 for /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock (although I'm using /var/run not /var/lib) - the directory and the socket are owned by mysql:mysql on my boxes.

Thanks....the problem was that /etc/my.cnf did not have global read permissions. Fixed it and everything is ok.

Congrats - that's good news

One problem is in your command.
This should be either:
reg_user:~ > mysql -u root -ptemp

or

reg_user:~ > mysql -u root -p
temp

Also check if there are other my.cnf files, such as /etc/my.conf ~/reg_user/.my.cnf /root/.my.cnf or /mysql/datadir/my.cnf.