Use the shell program mysql to connect remotely to the MariaDB server. Or use the free MySQL Workbench GUI. Steps involved are:

Command-line: Install the mysql client for your system. Follow the instructions for installing the MySQL server and utilities, but do not turn on or run the MySQL server or server deamon.

• Mac:
  • download at https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/, and select Mac OS X.
  • download at https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/osx-installation-pkg.html
• Windows:
  • download at https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/, and select Microsoft Windows.
  • instructions at https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysql-installer.html

GUI: This installs only a front-end GUI for use. Download at https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/ and follow the usual installation steps to install the GUI application.

Both methods: ensure that the certificate ('cert') files given to you by the RCS staff have been downloaded and are placed in an accessible location. For the following examples, we'll place the cert file in a folder called 'mariadb_certs' in our home folder.

Terminal:

Open or start your terminal session. To connect to the MariaDB server, use a command similar to :

mysql -u username -p -h mariadbhost --ssl-ca=/path/to/file/ca-cert.pem

Each of these options does the following:

-u username: use your MariaDB account name here

-p: nothing needed. This indicates that you need to supply a password

-h mariadbhost: substitute the hostname of the MariaDB server given to you by the RCS staff

--ssl-cert: indicates you wish to supply a cert file for encrypting the communication via SSL. Include the appropriate path format for your machine.

Two examples are (but don't use these as they will not work):

Mac: mysql -u jharvard -p -h mariadb.hbs.edu --ssl-ca=/Users/jharvard/mariadb_certs/ca-cert.pem

Windows: mysql -u jharvard -p -h mariadb.hbs.edu --ssl-ca=C:\Users\jharvard\mariadb_certs\ca-cert.pem