Every time I reinstall my system software, or set up a new machine, I break phpMyAdmin’s socket connection. Recently, information in this post helped me sort it out.
First, find out where MySQL is putting its socket:
> /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin variables | socket | /tmp/mysql.sock|
And then point phpMyAdmin to it by changing these lines in the config.inc.php file:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] = '/tmp/mysql.sock'; $cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'socket';
You might also (or instead) need to create a link from where MySQL has its socket to the location in which PHP thinks the socket should be:
>sudo ln -h /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock