When should you start to worry about MySQL security? When you start to use the MySQL server over an Internet connection. Why? Because that is when your MySQL server is going to be the most vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, such as alterations and denial of service.

The security issues that we will be discussing here will relate only to the MYSQL Server, but must be taken in the context of securing the entire server host against the above mentioned attacks and others.

Soon you will know just how easy it is to build dynamic web pages using PHP and MySQL. Really, PHP and MySQL is easy to learn, and I hope this tutorial will help you realise that :-)

I'm sure that by the end of this tutorial you will have enough knowledge to build your own database driven website using PHP & MySQL. Of course this tutorial is not perfect. So if you have any critiques, question, problem or suggestion please let me know.

For a fast start just go straight to the fourth section where you can learn how to connect to MySQL using PHP. However, if you haven't installed PHP and MySQL go visit the first section. It explains how to install PHP, MySQL and Apache. And if you are a newcomer in PHP go to the second section to learn the basics of PHP.

Make sure that you are connected to the server, as discussed in the previous section. Doing so does not in itself select any database to work with, but that's okay. At this point, it's more important to find out a little about how to issue queries than to jump right in creating tables, loading data into them, and retrieving data from them. This section describes the basic principles of entering commands, using several queries you can try out to familiarize yourself with how mysql works.

Here's a simple command that asks the server to tell you its version number and the current date. Type it in as shown here following the mysql> prompt and press Enter:

Over the past two parts I have explained what I am planning to do in this tutorial and have shown you how to create a database to use with the tutorial. In this part I will be showing you how to insert some information into your database so that it is more useful.

The first thing you must do before you can do any work at all is to connect to the MySQL database. This is an extremely important step as, if you are not connected, your commands to the database will fail.

Good practice for using databases is to specify the username, password and database name first so that if you change any of them at a later date you will only have to change one line:

A database is a structure that comes in two flavors: a flat database and a relational database. A relational database is much more oriented to the human mind and is often preferred over the gabble-de-gook flat database. MySQL is a relational database.

In a relational structured database there are tables that store data. Each table is made up of columns and rows. A table's columns define what kind of information is going to be stored. You need an individual column for each type of information you wished to store (i.e. Age, Weight, Height).

While columns define what kind of information is going to be stored, a row is the actual data that is stored. Each table row is an entry of that table and contains values for each of the table's columns (i.e. Entry Bob: 65 years old, 165 lbs, and 6'2"). If all this relational database talk is confusing, do not despair, we talk about and show a few table examples in future lessons.