Thinking Sphinx configuration fails - cannot connect to mysql through socket, despite socket existing!

Question

Setting up a new Rails stack in Ubuntu, including Sphinx.

When I run rake ts:conf, I get "Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysql.sock' (2)"

This socket file does exist.

Why this is on serverfault: I'm pretty sure this is one of those edge questions that could reasonably go on SF or SO, and I'm wondering if I somehow messed up the sphinx install by relying on the default configuration.

Answer 1

It turns out that part of my app was looking for /mysql.sock, and part for /mysqld.sock. I wound up just symlinking one to the other.