ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

Solution 1:

I once had this problem and solved it by installing mysql-server, so make sure that you have installed the mysql-server, not the mysql-client or something else.

That error means the file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock doesn't exists, if you didn't install mysql-server, then the file would not exist. So in that case, install it with

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

But if the mysql-server is already installed and is running, then you need to check the config files.

The config files are:

/etc/my.cnf
/etc/mysql/my.cnf
/var/lib/mysql/my.cnf

In /etc/my.cnf, the socket file config may be /tmp/mysql.sock and in /etc/mysql/my.cnf the socket file config may be /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock. So, remove or rename /etc/mysql/my.cnf, let mysql use /etc/my.cnf, then the problem may solved.

Solution 2:

Try this:

mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3306 -u root -p <database>

Also (to see if it's running):

telnet 127.0.0.1 3306

Probably it is just a misconfiguration in the my.cnf file, in /etc/somewhere (depending on the Linux distribution).

Solution 3:

I am seeing all these answers, but none offer the option to reset the password and no accepted answer. The actual question being he forgot his password, so he needs to reset, not see if it's running or not (installed or not) as most of these answers imply.

To reset the password

Follow these steps (can be helpful if you really forget your password and you can try it anytime, even if you're not in the situation at the moment):

Stop mysql

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop

Or for other distribution versions:

sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld stop

Start MySQL in safe mode
```
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
```
Log into MySQL using root
```
mysql -u root
```
Select the MySQL database to use
```
use mysql;
```

Reset the password

-- MySQL version < 5.7
update user set password=PASSWORD("mynewpassword") where User='root';

-- MySQL 5.7, mysql.user table "password" field -> "authentication_string"

update user set authentication_string=password('mynewpassword') where user='root';

Flush the privileges
```
flush privileges;
```
Restart the server
```
quit
```

Stop and start the server again

Ubuntu and Debian:

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop
...
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start

On CentOS, Fedora, and RHEL:

    sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld stop
    ...
    sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld start

Login with a new password
```
mysql -u root -p
```
Type the new password and enjoy your server again like nothing happened

This was taken from Reset a MySQL root password.

Solution 4:

I tried the following steps:

Log in as super user or use sudo
Open /etc/mysql/my.cnf using gedit
Find bind-address, and change its value to the database server host machine's IP address. For me, it was localhost or 127.0.0.1
Save and close the file.
Come back to terminal and execute sudo service mysql start

And it worked for me.