Note: This article was originally published in 2014. Some steps, commands, or software versions may have changed. Check the current WordPress documentation for the latest information.

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn have wordpress communicate with mysql via socket. WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system (CMS), powering over 40% of all websites on the internet.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • WordPress installation (self-hosted)
  • Administrator access to WordPress dashboard
  • FTP/SFTP or file manager access to server files

How to: Have (http://wordpress.org “WordPress”) communicate with (http://www.mysql.com “MySQL”) via (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_socket “Network socket”)

As I keep looking into how to improve the performance of website one of the recurrent points mentioned is to use Linux sockets where possible. I really don’t have much experience and I can see how avoiding the TCP stack might help but I figured at least it couldn’t hurt. If you are able to establish a socket connection to MySQL you might also be in the camp of those interested in having WordPress connect to MySQL via a Linux socket connection vs using an IP Address. I searched but it seems there are not that many people doing this, so I thought I would share it so you can also give it a try to your site if you want.

The standard way to connect to a host is:

servername:/route/to/mysql.sock

by default this might look like this for many people:

localhost:/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock so your wp-config.php file would look like this:

/** MySQL hostname */ define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost:/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock’);

Summary

You’ve successfully learned have wordpress communicate with mysql via socket. If you run into any issues, double-check the prerequisites and ensure your WordPress environment is properly configured.