Support for IP-based MySQL connections

[IGLOU-EU]

Summary

Currently, the software relies on socket-based connections to MySQL, which poses challenges for users who need to connect using IP addresses. This feature request aims to add support for IP-based MySQL connections, providing users with more flexibility in their database connectivity options.

Motivation

Users often encounter situations where they need to connect to a MySQL database using an IP address instead of a socket. This could be due to network configurations or security policies within their organization. By adding support for IP-based connections, the software will become more versatile and better accommodate the diverse needs of its users.

I propose to implement this feature by extending the database connection module to include an option for specifying IP addresses instead of socket connections.

Additional context

No response

[MAGICCC]

Sounds like you want to you use an external MySQL server, if yes this may a dupe of #5395 #1774 #190 #456

[lebouquetin]

Hello @MAGICCC . I'm also interested in this feature .

I did read the 4 issues you linked and I can imagine your feeling about "re-explaining the same things over and over".

Nevertheless, I have a different point which may be of interest. Allowing the code to use an external database does not implies you have to support it - you can be explicit about this. At the end, you can even not document it in "user space documentation".

We want to support it on our side:

With @IGLOU-EU (and the french company algoo I drive), we would be happy to help on support and development of the stack.

Actually, we are running https://www.galae.net/en which is based on a customized version of mailcow. We would be very happy to upstream our code and developments and to help on support & maintainance.

Let me know what you think, you and the mailcow core team.

[lebouquetin]

Another option would be to make the entire source code parametric about mysql socket and to keep hard coded file socket in the main config.

This way, maintaining an IP-based-mysql-config-ready fork of mailcow would be easy (currently, this is not easy because of the multiple patches to keep applied).