# Enable the server to communicate via TCP/IP

Most of the Linux distributions do not enable by default to accept TCP/IP
connections from outside in their MySQL or Percona Server packages.

You can check it with `netstat` on a shell:

```{.bash data-prompt="$"}
$ netstat -lnp | grep mysql
tcp         0        0 0.0.0.0:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2480/mysqld
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 8101 2480/mysqld /tmp/mysql.sock
```

You should check two things:

* there is a line starting with `tcp` (the server is indeed accepting TCP connections)

* the first address (`0.0.0.0:3306` in this example) is different from `127.0.0.1:3306` (the bind address is not localhost’s).

In the first case, the first place to look is the `my.cnf` file. If you
find the option `skip-networking`, comment it out or just delete it. Also
check that *if* the variable `bind_address` is set, then it should not be
set to localhost’s but to the host’s IP. Then restart the MySQL server and
check it again with `netstat`. If the changes had no effect, then
you should look at your distribution’s startup scripts (like `rc.mysqld`).
You should comment out flags like `--skip-networking` and/or change
the `bind-address`.

After you get the server listening to remote TCP connections properly, the
last thing to do is checking that the port (3306 by default) is indeed
open. Check your firewall configurations (`iptables -L`) and that you are
allowing remote hosts on that port (in `/etc/hosts.allow`).

And we’re done! We have a MySQL server running which is able to communicate
with the world through TCP/IP.