Little script for command-line SSH tunnel to MySQL

my.safety

# Create this file and save in your home directory
# chmod 600 ~/my.safety (won't protect it from root, but better than nothing)

[client]
user=$USER
password=$PASSWD

# put your actual MySQL username and password in place of $USER and $PASSWD above.

mysql-tunnel.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Tunnel via qa.iadops to OAO MySQL server host
# (Note -f forces the ssh command into the background, where we run a sleep command on the remote.
# In this way, the tunnel is destroyed after we log out of mysql)

# Edit $USER below to your actual username on the ssh server 
# (for which you might be editing the name as well - I use qa).
# NB: Copy a key file to the SSH host first!


ssh -f -N -L 3306:e0a31f99e1599c2b6e3fa335f48d5fdf5b2ac052.rackspaceclouddb.com:3306 \
$USER@qa.iadops.com sleep 60; \
mysql --defaults-extra-file=~/my.safety -P 3306 -h 127.0.0.1 
# Launch mysql client with user and password passed via --defaults-extra-file setting