The MySQL server listens on a single network socket for TCP/IP connections. This socket is bound to a single address, but it is possible for an address to map onto multiple network interfaces. The default address is 0.0.0.0. To specify an address explicitly, use the --bind-address=addr option at server startup, where addr is an IPv4 or IPv6 address or a host name. (IPv6 addresses are not supported before MySQL 5.5.3.) If addr is a host name, the server resolves the name to an IP address and binds to that address.

The server treats different types of addresses as follows:

If you intend to bind the server to a specific address, be sure that the mysql.user grant table contains an account with administrative privileges that you can use to connect to that address. Otherwise, you will not be able to shut down the server. For example, if you bind the server to ::, you can connect to it using all existing accounts. But if you bind the server to ::1, it accepts connections only on that address. In that case, first make sure that the 'root'@'::1' account is present in the mysql.user table so you can still connect to the server to shut it down.