SE Linux and "Can't connect to MySQL server"

I've been setting up a server for the last few days for production. It is to be highly secure, so it is a real pain. Anyway, I ran into this problem where I could not connect to the remote database. It was driving me nuts. (I'm using CentOS by the way, and I was setting up a web server to connect to a remote MySQL database server.)

First, I checked that I was getting network connectivity by doing

telnet 10.0.0.1 3306

from the command line (where 10.0.0.1 is the IP of the database server). And, I got some gobbledygook that had the words "MySQL" in it, so I know that worked and the network was there.

Then, I checked the database's user list, to make sure connections were allowed from the user at my host. I did this by going into MySQL's CLI and entering

SELECT `Host`,`User` FROM mysql.user WHERE 1;

This printed out a list of all the users so I just made sure it and the host were correct. (There are more MySQL troubleshooting tips here.)

Then it finally hit me. What always causes problems for hours on end? SE Linux!! I know it is good for my server, but it sure does drive me nuts sometimes. If you want your web server to be able to connect to a remote DB, you have to give it rights with SE Linux. Run this at the command line:

setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db on

and for good measure:

setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect on

There, all fixed!

Update: HA HA! I've had this problem before and completely forgot about it.