connect (that is, what host, user name, and password to use). Once you know the proper parameters, you should be able to connect like this: 

shell> mysql -h host  -u user  -p Enter password: ******** 

host  and user  represent the host name where your MySQL server is running and the user name of your MySQL account. Substitute appropriate values for your setup. The ********  represents your password; 

enter it when mysql  displays the Enter password:  prompt. 

If that works, you should see some introductory information followed by a mysql>  prompt: 

shell> mysql -h host  -u user  -p Enter password: ******** Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 25338 to server version: 8.0.25-standard Type ’help;’ or ’\h’ for help. Type ’\c’ to clear the buffer. mysql> 

The mysql>  prompt tells you that mysql  is ready for you to enter SQL statements. 

If you are logging in on the same machine that MySQL is running on, you can omit the host, and simply use the following: 

shell> mysql -u user  -p 

If, when you attempt to log in, you get an error message such as ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ’/tmp/mysql.sock’ (2) , it means that the MySQL server daemon (Unix) or service (Windows) is not running. Consult the administrator or see the section of Chapter 2, Installing and Upgrading MySQL  that is appropriate to your operating system. 

For help with other problems often encountered when trying to log in, see Section B.3.2, “Common Errors When Using MySQL Programs” . 

Some MySQL installations permit users to connect as the anonymous (unnamed) user to the server running on the local host. If this is the case on your machine, you should be able to connect to that server by invoking mysql  without any options: 

shell> mysql 

After you have connected successfully, you can disconnect any time by typing QUIT  (or \q ) at the mysql> prompt: 

mysql> QUIT Bye 

On Unix, you can also disconnect by pressing Control+D. 

Most examples in the following sections assume that you are connected to the server. They indicate this by the mysql>  prompt. 

## 3.2 Entering Queries 

Make sure that you are connected to the server, as discussed in the previous section. Doing so does not in itself select any database to work with, but that is okay. At this point, it is more important to find out a little about how to issue queries than to jump right in creating tables, loading data into them, and retrieving data from them. This section describes the basic principles of entering queries, using several queries you can try out to familiarize yourself with how mysql  works. 

