Strange behavior of mysql_connect in PHP

Question

This is how a connection is created to MySQL server at localhost

$Connection = mysql_connect("localhost","root","");

But MySQL seems ignoring my username and password, even if I create the connection with some nonsense username & password:

$Connection = mysql_connect("localhost","nonsense-username","");

Both cases give me the $Connection as "resource(39) of type (mysql link)". And this only happens when password is blank. Is it a default behaviour of MySQL to accept any username when password is blank?

But it is supposed to have $Connection equal 'false' when such 'nonsense-username' given. Anything wrong?

toon81 · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-22 07:41:41Z

2

I'm going to assume that you've setup the MySQL server on your own computer, without configuring users, permissions or things like that. If that's the case, then the cause might be SQL Safe Mode. If in your php.ini file, sql.safe_mode is set to 1, then PHP will substitute any arguments you pass to mysql_connect() with their defaults. That would certainly explain this behavior. Try looking at phpinfo() to see if that's the case.

answered Oct 22, 2011 at 7:41

toon81

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4 Comments

jondinham Over a year ago

strangely that sql.safe_mode in 'php.ini' is Off

toon81 Over a year ago

My answer doesn't explain your note that this only happens when the password is blank. AFAIK it's not default MySQL behavior to allow any connection when the password is blank. Does this work for any nonsense username you can think of? What about an empty username?

jondinham Over a year ago

yes, as long as the password for user 'root' is blank, mysql accepts any alphanumeric username. mysql is driving me crazy...

toon81 Over a year ago

Why, that's certainly easily checked; just set a root password and see if that fixes things. If you are not the db admin where this site will run, you can count on it that the root password will be set, or you need to change hosing providers. If, on the other hand, you are the db admin where this site will run, it's a good idea to set a root password, and give each database its own user, with privileges just for that database. That way, if there's a security leak, only one database will be compromised. On big sites, db admins will actually create users only for certain tables, or even rows.

Maanas Royy · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-14 08:57:00Z

0

It seems you have not restarted the webserver after install of php-mysql. Please restart the webserver it should work. I spent two hours debugging that and the simple solution was restart

answered May 14, 2013 at 8:57

Maanas Royy

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