External database access

[jonki]

I have a question concerning accessing a database on a different server and using their info in my website.

I have a client who wants to use my service but does not want to double up his work. Luckily he and I both use MySQL and PHP.

I want to access his data but I am not sure sure if he would be keen to let me have total access to his database.

Is there a way in which I could totally automate this proccess without being able to corrupt his database so that he would feel totally secure with my proposal?

I was thinking of perhaps a cron-job to update a second database on his server which I had total acccess to. The downside of this is that the cronjob would have to run every half an hour to make the changes to his database appear quickly on mine.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot.

[sfullman]

as long as your computers are set up, you can access his db remotely, just do:

mysql_connect("nsWhatever.thatserver.com","username", "password");

he'll need to give you permission:

GRANT [privileges] on targetDb.* to username@'%' identified by 'reeelysecret'

and you should be able to connect.

You may find a bit of latency which may or may not be tolerable.

Sam

[jonki]

I really appreciate your help.