Chapter 5. Connection Dialog

Table of Contents

5.1. Connection Dialog
5.2. Configure-service Mode

5.1. Connection Dialog

Once MySQL Administrator has been started, it displays a connection dialog box. Specify the MySQL server you would like to connect to, the necessary credentials, and both the host and port. You may also specify a number of other options, if required.

As an alternative to connecting to a running MySQL server, you can run MySQL Administrator in configure -service mode.

Figure 5.1. Connection dialog

Connection dialog

Note that MySQL Administrator will not work with MySQL servers prior to version 4.0. If you try to connect to an older server, an error message will appear, telling you that this is not possible.

If the server connection is successfully established, all of the values filled in the fields of the connection dialog will be saved for future connections (see the section that describes how MySQL Administrator stores connection information). The Password field, however, will always be empty: For security reasons, the password is not stored along with the other options, unless you explicitly specify otherwise in the General Options section of the Options dialog.

You can change any of the values in the connection profiles by overwriting the existing values with new ones. Similarly, if you select another connection profile, you can change any of its values. When you click the OK button after changing a profile's values, the changes are stored permanently if a successful connection to the MySQL server is established. However, the preferred method for changing a profile is to click the ... button next to the Connection drop-down box. That brings up an Options dialog window that has a Connections section for modifying connection profiles. You can find the values you can set in the Connection dialog window in the description of the Connections section of the Options dialog (see Options dialog).

5.2. Configure-service Mode

Normally, you will use MySQL Administrator to connect to a running MySQL server. This is done by starting the program and specifying in the Connection dialog which server to connect to.

Alternatively, you can run MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode. This is useful in the following cases:

  • When you want to start a MySQL server from within MySQL Administrator. Obviously, you cannot connect to a server that is not running, so you will have to use the configure-service mode to start that server. Note that, at the moment, you can only start servers on the same machine where MySQL Administrator is running (that is on the local host).

  • When you have multiple servers running on your machine. When running in normal mode on Windows, MySQL Administrator only allows you to configure the Windows service that is listed first in the Windows services management. This means that if you have more than one Windows service, you can only configure the first one of those, no matter which server you connect to. If you want to configure a service other than the first service, you will have to run MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode.

To start MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode, hold down the CTRL key in the Connection dialog. The Cancel button will toggle to Skip when that key is pressed.

Figure 5.2. Switching to configure-service mode

Switching to configure-service mode

Clicking on the Skip button will skip the normal mode, thus starting MySQL Administrator in configure-service mode.

Figure 5.3. Configure-service mode

Configure-service mode

Under Installed Services in the sidebar, you can select the service that you wish to configure, or the server that you want to stop or start. In configure-service mode, not all sidebar options are available:

  • The Service Control section allows you to start and stop a MySQL server, and to configure the Windows service managing that server.

  • The Startup Variables section allows you to set variables for server startup.

Both of those sections are described in what follows.