MySQL Wire Protocol

Overview

New in v9.0.2 "Project ZENITH": Absolute DB implements the MySQL wire protocol, allowing any MySQL client to connect on port 3306. This is a clean-room implementation — no MySQL code, no MariaDB libraries, no external dependencies.

The MySQL wire protocol runs alongside the PostgreSQL wire protocol (port 5433), REST API (port 8080), gRPC (port 9090), and other protocols. Enable or disable it independently via the Adaptive Protocol Manager.

Compatible Clients

Verified compatible with the following MySQL clients and drivers:

Connection Examples

# MySQL CLI
mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3306 -u myuser -p

# MySQL Workbench: Host=127.0.0.1, Port=3306, User=myuser

import mysql.connector
conn = mysql.connector.connect(
    host='127.0.0.1', port=3306,
    user='myuser', password='secret',
    database='mydb'
)
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10')
rows = cursor.fetchall()

// Node.js with mysql2
const mysql = require('mysql2/promise');
const conn = await mysql.createConnection({
  host: '127.0.0.1', port: 3306,
  user: 'myuser', password: 'secret',
  database: 'mydb'
});
const [rows] = await conn.execute('SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10');

// JDBC (mysql-connector-j)
String url = "jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1:3306/mydb";
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, "myuser", "secret");
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10");

// go-sql-driver/mysql
import "database/sql"
import _ "github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql"

db, _ := sql.Open("mysql", "myuser:secret@tcp(127.0.0.1:3306)/mydb")
rows, _ := db.Query("SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10")

Protocol Details

Authentication

Absolute DB supports the following MySQL authentication methods:

Supported SQL Commands

All standard SQL runs through the unified Absolute DB SQL engine. MySQL-specific compatibility commands are also handled:

SET NAMES & Character Sets

Absolute DB stores all text as UTF-8 internally. SET NAMES commands are accepted for MySQL client compatibility but do not change internal encoding. This ensures applications that issue SET NAMES utf8mb4 on connect (including WordPress, Laravel, Rails, Django) work without modification.

Enabling MySQL Protocol

# Enable at startup
absdb-server --proto pg_wire,rest,mysql

# Or use protocol presets
absdb-server --preset enterprise    # enables all protocols

# Runtime enable/disable
adb_admin --protocol enable mysql
adb_admin --protocol disable mysql

# Configuration file (/etc/absdb/absdb.conf)
[protocols]
pg_wire = on
rest    = on
mysql   = on

cPanel Integration

The MySQL wire protocol enables the cPanel / WHMCS Surgical Swap — replacing MariaDB on a cPanel host with Absolute DB. Since Absolute DB speaks MySQL wire protocol on port 3306, all cPanel-managed sites (WordPress, Joomla, PrestaShop, etc.) connect without any code or configuration changes.

See the cPanel Swap Guide for full instructions.