pysql connection to cloud server database times out

[Pedroski55]

Like bowlofred said, this is not really a Python problem, but without this, pymysql will not work from a remote machine.

Just in case anyone else has this problem, a solution:

This way is probably not so secure, with 3306 open, but a) I only have homework b) you still need the user name and password. There is a more secure way using mysql rsa key encryption I read.

ssh to your cloud server.

First, open port 3306 on the cloud server.

sudo ufw allow 3306
sudo ufw enable

Check if you like:

sudo ufw status

When you create a user on mysql as root, it looks something like this, also when you do it via ssh on the server:

CREATE USER 'peter'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON some_db.* TO 'peter'@'localhost';

If you want remote access, you need to change the user data (or make a new, remote user):

RENAME USER 'peter'@'localhost' TO 'peter'@'%';
GRANT ALL ON somedb.* TO 'peter'@'%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

% here apparently represents any ip

Then on the also via ssh on the server (Ubuntu uses nano mostly, there are other editors):

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

find the line that has

bind-address = 127.0.0.1

change this to

bind-address = 0.0.0.0

ctrl X to quit nano, nano asks if you want to save, press y, then enter to save in the same place you opened /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

Then (on the server):

sudo systemctl restart mysql

After that, my Python data collector using pymysql worked fine from the Idle shell.