Ad said:
the box on which mysql is staged accepts connections only from
localhost. I couldn't get mysql to connect directly using the mysql gem.
Sounds like ssh tunneling is what you want.
To demonstrate using the command-line ssh, type the following on the
'client' host:
ssh -L12345:127.0.0.1:3306 remote.host.com
While this ssh session is open, point any Mysql client (such as the Ruby
mysql client) at localhost:12345, and the connection will be redirected
down the ssh tunnel and connect to the mysql server at the other end.
The connection at the other end will originate from the ssh daemon, so
is "local" as far as the mysql server is concerned.
The advantage of this approach is you have full native SQL access,
rather than having to mess around with sending command lines, and so
higher layers will run on top of this too (like ActiveRecord)
Once you have this working to your satisfaction, you may wish to improve
this by using Net::SSH to set up the tunnel from within Ruby as well.
I've not done this, but I believe it's possible. Read the docs, and ask
if you can't work it out.