The MySQL CLI: Remote Connection and Flags

Connect to a remote MySQL through a local port (e.g. a Cloud SQL proxy tunnel):

mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -P 20001 -u "$USERNAME" -p"$PASSWORD" -D app_production \
  -e "SELECT a.asset_id FROM asset AS a WHERE uploaded_package_id = 100"

Flag	Long form	Meaning
-h	--host	Host to connect to. 127.0.0.1 = the local end of a proxy tunnel, not the cloud DB directly.
-P	--port	TCP port (default 3306). Capital P, lowercase -p is password.
-u	--user	MySQL account username.
-p	--password	Password. No space after -p (-pSECRET); -p alone → interactive prompt.
-D	--database	Default schema, so asset works instead of app_production.asset.
-e	--execute	Run the SQL non-interactively, print the result, exit.

• -p pass with a space is parsed as “prompt for the password, then use pass as the database name.” Always glue it: -p"$PASSWORD".
• A password on the CLI is visible in ps and warns as insecure; for scripts prefer --defaults-extra-file.

From this session: queried prod app_production.asset for uploaded_package_id = 100 via the cloud-sql-proxy tunnel on 127.0.0.1:20001.

-P is port, -p is the glued-on password: those two casings bite most; get them right and you won’t turn your password into a database name.

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References

• MySQL connecting: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/connecting.html
• MySQL command-line options: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/command-line-options.html

Related: back to the remote DB overview; these flags are the five coordinates and the connection URI taken apart. Next: four ways to feed inline SQL.