Connecting to a MySQL server requires a username and password. You can also specify the name of the host where the server is running. If you don't specify connection parameters explicitly, mysql assumes default values. For example, if you specify no hostname, mysql typically assumes the server is running on the local host.

The following example shows how to use the mysql program to connect to the server and issue a GRANT statement that sets up a user account with privileges for accessing a database named mydb. The arguments to mysql include -h localhost to connect to the MySQL server running on the local host, -p to tell mysql to prompt for a password, and -u root to connect as the MySQL root user.