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Nexcess: MySQL & IP Whitelisting for Remote Access

It’s possible to allow MySQL remote connections from any host. Learn how to whitelist MySQL host IP. Grant MySQL remote access with this article.
Client Portal Databases Flexible Cloud Magento MySQL Nexcess
4 min read
  1. Log in to my.nexcess.net 
  2. Navigate to the Control Panel page.
  3. Launch the SiteWorx Control Panel and then submit the IP address to whitelist.

Overview

Are you looking to allow remote connections to your MySQL server? See how you can easily accomplish that task when on a Magento Plan or Flexible Cloud Plan from Nexcess.

If you are on a Magento Plan or Flexible Cloud Plan, you can remotely connect to the MySQL server by allowing an IP address via the IP whitelisting process using the Cloud SiteWorx Control Panel.

Connections to remote databases are an essential requirement for many projects. However, on Nexcess servers, remote connections to MySQL are not allowed due to security risks inherent in servers and applications. Due to this policy, all IP addresses are blocked by default.

The purpose of allowing remote MySQL connections is to enable a computer program to access a database on the server. Remote connections are possible with MySQL Workbench or Adobe Dreamweaver or Navicat clients for the MySQL database platform.

Trying to connect to a remote MySQL database can be frustrating if your MySQL instance is only configured to listen for local connections. Although, this is MySQL’s default setting, to allow a remote connection, you must whitelist the IP address for which you want to define connections. If you are using MySQL over SSH, you do not need to whitelist IP addresses.

Prerequisites

  1. Your my.nexcess.net login credentials, click the  Forgot Password? link on the login page if you cannot locate them.
  2. An existing Nexcess Cloud account using Flexible plan or Magento Plan. See the How to create Nexcess Cloud accounts article for more information.
  3. By default, all IPs are blocked and must be whitelisted. To find out what your IP address is, you can check it by navigating to our IP address checker.

Step by step instructions

  1. To start the IP whitelisting process, log in to my.nexcess.net. 
  2. Next, navigate to the Control Panel page.
  3. Then, click on the Plans option from the menu on the left side of the screen.
  4. Either click the name of your Magento Plan / Flexible Cloud Plan service, or select Plan Dashboard from the menu toggle.
  5. From the dashboard, select Menu > Control Panel.
  6. Click the Launch Control Panel button.
  7. Your browser will redirect you to the SiteWorx Control Panel home page:
  8. From the SiteWorx main menu, click Hosting Features > Firewall Rules.
  9. In the MySQL Whitelist IP Address field, add the IP address to the whitelist or click on the Whitelist My Current IP button to exercise that option. This option fetches your IP address automatically, and if the IP address is correct, click Submit.
  10. If you have multiple IP addresses, repeat the process.
  11. Please be sure to whitelist your IP address for incoming and outgoing traffic.
  12. To delete a MySQL whitelist IP address, you can click on the Delete button or the corresponding entry to remove any IP whitelisting entry.

Congratulations! You have successfully whitelisted your IP address for MySQL remote connections.

Frequently asked questions

The remote access to the MySQL database server is disabled due to security reasons.

 Yes, you can test the remote MySQL connection using MySQL client applications like MySQL Workbench. Otherwise, you can run the following command from a remote machine with a MySQL client:

$ MySQL -u <local database username> -h <database server IP address> -p

If you have a dynamic IP address, the connecting IP address will keep changing periodically, depending on the Internet Service Provider (ISP). To use the Remote MySQL Functionality, you must update the IP address each time it changes. 


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