ssh -N -f -L 3307:localhost:3306 user@myxhost.com
ssh -L 3307:localhost:3306 user@myxhost.com

-f = go to background
-L = local port to remote port binding
-N = no remote command to be executed

test with either of the following:

mysql -P 3307 -u dbuser -h 127.0.0.1 -p
mysql -P 3307 -u dbuser --protocol=TCP -p


tunnel can be closed with ps -ef | grep ssh and then kill the pid

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum40/1010.htm

http://support.suso.com/supki/SSH_Tutorial_for_Linux

for windows:

This is my experience tuning a MySQL server running on Rimuhosting for Drupal.
First I installed a tuning script in /root
wget http://day32.com/MySQL/tuning-primer.sh
chmod 700 tuning-primer.sh
yum install bc
cp /etc/my.cnf /etc/my.cnf.$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")
./tuning-primer.sh
Now add the following values under [mysqld]:
table_cache = 512
query_cache_size = 32M
query_cache_type = 1
max_heap_table_size = 32M
tmp_table_size = 64M
Here is some info: http://drupal.org/node/85768

This are probably not of general interest, just some example queries from a particular database that I wanted to save here as snippets.

--view all category titles from node: n & d, category node: c
$sql="SELECT n.nid, c.title AS cname, d.field_catcache_value AS cat FROM node AS n"
. " JOIN content_type_document AS d ON d.nid=n.nid AND d.vid=n.vid"
. " JOIN node AS c ON c.nid=d.field_category_nid"
. " WHERE n.type = 'document'";

--get the body of the category definition c from a given node n & d
SELECT n.nid, c.title, r.body AS cname FROM node AS n

pre{border:none;background-color:#f4f3d7;padding:1em;-moz-border-radius:10px}

<?php
exec("mysqldump -uDBUSER -pPASSWORD DBNAME > DBNAME.sql");
exec("tar -czvf BACKUP.tar.gz .");
print "Done";

Red Hat / CentOS Installation

yum -y install mysql-server mysql-bench
service mysqld start
# Make sure you have a root user created:
mysqladmin -u root password rootsqlpassword
# Navigate to the right directory:

-create a user (such as backup) with select and lock priviledges for all databases from any host
-set MySQL server configuration to listen on external ports
pw=mybackuppassword
hst=MySQLhost
nice mysqldump -h $hst -u backup -p$pw --compress --add-drop-table --extended-insert -A | gzip -9 >/backups/$hst-$(date +"%Y%m%d").gz

phpMyBackupPro: No simpler backup for MySQL: http://www.linux.com/feature/127811
Tunnel to locally running mysql server using ssh:
http://www.nerdlogger.com/2008/06/tunnel-to-locally-running-mysql-server...
create and setup remote administrator:
first make sure that there are not multiple name@addresses where the user can log in, else every one will have to get permissions separately.
CREATE USER 'andrewfoo'@'192.168.1.%' IDENTIFIED BY 'foomatic';
GRANT ALL ON *.* to 'andrewfoo'@'192.168.1.%' WITH GRANT OPTION;