title: Connecting to Mysql on AWS Elastic Beanstalk
body: <p>I am relatively new LAMP dev who is trying to learn Linux primarily through AWS. I have a live Elastic Beanstalk instance up and running. I did a yum install of the following packages:</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql55.x86_64 mysql55-bench.x86_64 mysql55-common.x86_64 mysql55-devel.x86_64 mysql55-libs.x86_64 mysql55-server.x86_64 mysql55-test.x86_64 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Which all seemed to install fine ... then typed ...</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql -V 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which gets me </p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.5.20, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>... which confirms mysql is installed ... but then when I type ...</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql -u ec2-user -p
  Enter password: /*leaving blank*/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get ...</p>
  
  <pre><code>ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now the thing is I am ssh-ing into this server with a Security Group key pair I created in AWS Console. So the key is authenticating me (from the .ppk file) when I log into the box as ec2-user. That IS my "root" user as far as I know, there is no password, but I may be mistaken.</p>
  
  <p>So, basically I don't understand the basics of how to begin using MySQL in a linux environment. I've only really used PHPMyAdmin and the MySQL command line from WAMP until now.</p>
  
  <p>Can somebody help me with where I'm getting my wires crossed here?</p>