From: Colin McKinnon
Date: April 1 1999 3:42pm
Subject: Re: Is there a MySQL for Dummies Book?
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/1281
Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990401164224.007ba430@lonmay>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 17:15 30/03/99 -0600, you wrote:
>I believe that I have successfully installed MySQL -- Monty, thank you
>very much for your help.  
>
>However, after I have started MySQL with the safe_msqld & command I get
>the following message:
>
>mysqladmin:connect to server at 'localhost' failed
>error:Can't connect to local MySQL server(2)'
>Check that mysqld is running and that the
>socket:'var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' exists!
>
>Does anyone have any idea what this means and how I can correct it?
>
>Sorry, to bother everyone with what is probably a simple problem -- I'm
>just trying to get on board with MySQL, because I hate Windows and I am
>concerned about the long term implications of staying in DOS. 
>
>Any help would be appreciated.
<snip>
>> rpm --erase --force mysql
Reading between the lines, I'm guessing you're a UNIX newbie - if not, and
this is all very obvious then apologies for wasting your bandwidth....

Having installed it are you sure it's running? (on linux try: ps aux | grep
mysqld).

If it is, then check the socket is there for local connections (on most
UNIX systems: ls -l /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

If you've installed from the rpm then I don't think you need to run the
install script (which creates the initial security tables - needed before
any login). You should also have a small program which generates some
diagnostic info which is very useful when posting queries (can't remember
what it's called / where it is - and I don't have a server on this site).

HTH

Colin