How to define custom path to MySQL socket file?

Question

I have following config

[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql-socket/mysql.sock
user=mysql
# Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks
symbolic-links=0
innodb_buffer_pool_size=64M
innodb_log_file_size=16M
[mysqld_safe]
log-error=/var/log/shared/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

So, there is a custom path to the socket file /var/lib/mysql-socket/mysql.sock.

MySQL server works but I cannot connect to it.

$ mysql -uroot
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

but needed file is exists.

$ ls /var/lib/mysql-socket/mysql.sock
/var/lib/mysql-socket/mysql.sock

When path to the socket file is /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock it works fine.

• Ahmad Abuhasna: please provide result of ps -ef | grep mysql
• Kirby: I assure you, it works. :) mysql 15 1 0 14:54 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/mysqld

Answer 1

Your error message says it's connecting to the wrong socket:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

You can either specify that in command line:

mysql -S /var/lib/mysql-socket/mysql.sock ...

Or in the my.cnf file under the client section (this can also be in users home directory ~/.my.cnf):

[client]
socket=/var/lib/mysql-socket/mysql.sock

Answer 2

# For explanations see
# http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/server-system-variables.html
[mysqld]
pid-file = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
socket = /mysql/data/mysql/mysql.sock
#datadir = /var/lib/mysql
datadir = /mysql/data/mysql
log-error = /var/log/mysql/error.log
# By default we only accept connections from localhost
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
# Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks
symbolic-links=0
explicit_defaults_for_timestamp = 1
[client]
port=3306
socket=/mysql/data/mysql/mysql.sock

Note:

1. Do not forget to add a [client] section, else you will get an error:

   ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock'

2. Or you could pass a flag to the mysql command as below:

   mysql -u root -p --socket=/absolute/path/of/your/mysql.sock