Laravel fails to connect to other database servers - php

Question

I have been using Laravel for a while but mostly on a single database server.
Now, my client has got atleast 5 database from multiple database servers in the same network.
I am able to confirm the communication in between servers using ping through ssh and also using the
mysqli_connect to check the database connections.
However, when I use laravel through its database.php (mysql configs) like :
// This setup is working fine (using localhost)
'mysql' => array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'host' => 'localhost',
'database' => 'dbname',
'username' => 'user',
'password' => 'password',
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
),
// Other DB (which is failing to connect) but i can confrim the connection using a file outside
// the laravel app through mysqli
'other_db_connection' => array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'host' => '192.168.33.241',
'database' => 'dbname',
'username' => 'username',
'password' => 'password',
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
),
'another_db_connection' => array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'host' => '192.168.33.211',
'database' => 'dbname',
'username' => 'username',
'password' => 'password',
'charset' => 'utf8',
'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
'prefix' => '',
),
and using the new PDO
// This connectiion functions with no problem
$conn1 = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=dbname;port=3306','username','password');
if($conn1) {
echo 'connected';
}
// But this returns an error
$conn = new PDO('mysql:host=192.168.33.241;dbname=dname;port=3306','username','password');
if($conn) {
echo 'connected';
}
// Also, i have no problems using the DB:: or even the model as long as the host is the localhost
it fails to connect, both the PDO and the laravel default DB feature only works if the host is the localhost.
For some reason it throws back an error like this if i use the other servers ip, which is where i would like to communicate with:
SQLSTATE[HY000] [2003] Can't connect to MySQL server on '192.168.33.241' (13)
SQLSTATE[HY000] [2003] Can't connect to MySQL server on '192.168.33.211' (13)
When i try using the server ip or the main domain name to connect.
Am I missing something? Why is it that I can connect only on the local db server which is localhost
and not to any other database servers? But I can connect to them with no problem if I use say an index.php file from outside the laravel application and use the mysqli_connect to make queries and make connections?
Thanks for all your help.

Answer 1

You can access all the connections you have specified within database.php with:
$user = DB::connection('other_db_connection')
You don't need to setup new PDO connections or similar, will work like above for you