I have two droplets with lamp installation.I enabled private networking to both instances. I referred links given below and configured them according to mentioned steps. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-ubuntu https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/initial-server-setup-with-ubuntu-12-04 Then I started Mysql service and I have created user and granted it full permission via these commands. CREATE USER 'webadmin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password'; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON * . * TO 'webadmin'@'localhost'; CREATE USER 'webadmin'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password'; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON * . * TO 'webadmin'@'%'; I want to enable remote access to Mysql Server that's why I need to change the bind-address in /etc/mysql/my.cnf file. I have changed to bind-address = 0.0.0.0 Then I restarted mysql service. now I am trying to connect to mysql server from another droplet. mysql -u webadmin -p -h xx.xx.xx.xx I got error 2003(HY000). and also lsof -i -P | grep :3306 command returns nothing. Am I making any mistake??