I am doing a site for a friend using his host, his host allows php but no mysql databases. I wanted to use my news adding script I set up (which I currently have on my host and stores news in a database on my host) to add news to his site. Is it possible to have his site on his host, pull information from the mySQL database on mine?

Sure. There's some kind of security system, but probably just a user account and password in the database engine. With credentials, it will let anybody in, whether that's software running on the same box or in a different machine.

This is the first thing you do when a big site needs to scale - put the database server on one box and the web server on another.

mysql can be set to allow access from other host or just from the same box. look into that a bit

This trick can only be done if your host allows mysql connections from outside and if your friend's host has php configured with mysql support. If both conditions are satisfied go to your mysql admin and add someuser@yourfriends.host, give him privileges to access his database or tables, then try to connect from your friend's host to your mysql using that credentials.

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

Sure. There's some kind of security system, but probably just a user account and password in the database engine. With credentials, it will let anybody in, whether that's software running on the same box or in a different machine.

This is the first thing you do when a big site needs to scale - put the database server on one box and the web server on another.

You know, the standard mysql feature allows to use file sockets for interaction between server and client (in *nix machenis only) and thus not only increase performance but also prevent listening on tcp port at all. Most shared hostings use this feature, so it becomes the matter not only of user and password to connect from remote server.