How to test which port MySQL is running on and whether it can be connected to?

Question

To find a listener on a port, do this:

netstat -tln

You should see a line that looks like this if mysql is indeed listening on that port.

tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306              0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN

Port 3306 is MySql’s default port.

To connect, you just have to use whatever client you require, such as the basic mysql client.

mysql -h localhost -u user database

Or a url that is interpreted by your library code.