How do I connect to my MySQL or PostgreSQL database from outside?

By default, your MySQL and PostgreSQL databases only accept connections coming from your own hosting. A connection from your computer, from a BI tool or from another server is refused, whatever the password. This is deliberate: a database open to the whole Internet is one of the fastest ways to lose your data.

To connect from outside, you declare the IP address you will connect from. It takes about a minute, and the same list covers both MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Declaring your IP address

1. In cPanel, under Databases, open Remote Database Access.
2. In Add Access Host, enter the public IP address of the machine that will connect.
3. Add a comment (office, my laptop, Metabase server) so you can recognise it later.
4. Click Add Host.

Access opens within seconds. Nothing else to configure and nothing to ask us for.

An entry you did not add? The list often already contains one or two addresses. They are your server's own, put there by cPanel so that the sites it hosts can reach their databases. That is normal and there is nothing to worry about. Leave them alone: removing them can break your own sites.

Which IP address? The public one, not the 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x your machine sees. Open hodi.host/ip from the machine that will be connecting: the page shows the public address it presents to the Internet, in IPv4 and IPv6.

A word of warning about home and office connections: most are on a dynamic IP that changes from time to time, sometimes at every reboot of your router. The day your connection stops working for no apparent reason, check your IP first: it has probably changed, and you simply need to declare the new one.

You can declare a range with the % wildcard, for example 203.0.113.% for a whole class C. Keep it as narrow as possible: every address in the range you declare can reach your databases.

Connecting to MySQL

cPanel prefixes database and user names with your account name. A database you created as mydb is really called myaccount_mydb, and this full name is what you have to enter.

From a terminal:

mysql -h run1.hodi.host -P 3306 -u myaccount_myuser -p myaccount_mydb

Connecting to PostgreSQL: encryption is required

This is the point that catches everyone out, so here it is up front: PostgreSQL only accepts remote connections encrypted with TLS. A client that connects in clear text is refused even when your IP address is correctly declared and your password is right.

The error looks like this, and the giveaway is at the very end of the line:

FATAL: no pg_hba.conf entry for host "203.0.113.10", user "myaccount_myuser",
database "myaccount_mydb", no encryption

no encryption means your client did not negotiate TLS. Turn it on and the connection goes through.

Always connect using the server hostname, the one ending in .hodi.host. Never an IP address, and never your own domain name. Our certificate is issued for that server name, so verify-full, the mode that actually checks you are talking to the right server, only works when your client connects by it. You will find it in cPanel, in the Server Information panel.

With psql:

psql "host=run1.hodi.host port=5432 dbname=myaccount_mydb user=myaccount_myuser sslmode=verify-full"

In a graphical client (DBeaver, pgAdmin, TablePlus, DataGrip), there is an SSL tab in the connection settings: tick Use SSL and choose require or verify-full.

From your code:

Node.js (pg)   ssl: { rejectUnauthorized: true }
Python         psycopg.connect(..., sslmode="verify-full")
PHP (PDO)      "pgsql:host=...;dbname=...;sslmode=verify-full"

One last thing worth knowing: your PostgreSQL user only ever reaches the databases of your own account, and only those it has been granted in cPanel.

When you do not need any of this

An application hosted with us talks to its database locally, through localhost. It needs no remote access, and giving it some would only widen the surface for nothing.

Likewise, to import a dump, run a query or inspect a table now and then, phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin are available directly in cPanel with nothing to configure.

Remote access is for what those cannot do: your database client on your machine, a BI or reporting tool, a migration, an external application.

Good practice

• Give database users a long and unique password, different from your cPanel password.
• Declare one fixed IP rather than a broad range whenever you can.
• Remove the hosts you no longer use. The list is easy to forget, and an old entry stays valid.
• Never put your database credentials in code sent to the browser.

If it does not work

Still stuck? Open a ticket with the exact error message and the IP address you are connecting from, and we will look at it with you.

Updated on: 07/09/2026