I have 2 droplets, both with a LAMP stack. Both also have PHPMyAdmin installed, run a PHP application, and have a self-signed SSH certificate that auto redirects to https.

What I would like to do is connect to the MySQL database that’s on Droplet 1 from the app on Droplet 2. I know you can do this by running a mysql server Droplet 1, but both need to run a full PHP app in this case.

Here is what I’ve already done and tried:

• Enabled private networking on both droplets (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-enable-digitalocean-private-networking-on-existing-droplets)
• On Droplet 1 I’ve added port 3306 to the firewall with sudo ufw allow 3306/tcp and sudo service ufw restart
• Both have the same firewall settings applied that are configured in the DO interface. I’ve added ‘All TCP’, 'All ports’ from source 'Droplet 2’
• Outbound rules on the firewall settings are 'ICMP’, 'All TCP’ and 'All UDP’ from 'All ports’ and 'All IPv4’ and 'All IPv6’
• I’ve created a MySQL user through PMA on Droplet 1 with hostname %

My PHP app connection settings
$db['remotedb’] = array(
'dsn’ => “,
'hostname’ => 'PRIVATE IP OF DROPLET HERE’, // in the format xx.xx.xx.xx so not with https:// in front of it
'port’ => 3306,
'username’ => 'user’,
'password’ => 'password’,
'database’ => 'database’,
'dbdriver’ => 'mysqli’,
'dbprefix’ => ”,
'pconnect’ => FALSE,
'dbdebug’ => FALSE,
'cacheon’ => FALSE,
'cachedir’ => “,
'charset’ => 'utf8’,
'dbcollat’ => 'utf8generalci’,
'swappre’ => ”,
'encrypt’ => FALSE,
'compress’ => FALSE,
'stricton’ => FALSE,
'failover’ => array(),
'savequeries’ => TRUE
);

Currently the app op Droplet 2 can not connect to the database that runs on Droplet 1. What am I missing?

A few questions:

1. Do I need to do anything in the /etc/mysql/my.cnf file with bind-address?
2. When creating the user on Droplet one through PMA, did I use the right settings?
3. Any other setting that I’m missing?