Last Updated: 2024-11-23

I needed to enter the production DB of a codebase I am maintaining.

I couldn't remember the exact credentials so I used my command-line history to find the command I used last time to enter this database. I remembered it contained some very unmemorable gobbledygook characters and therefore this one seemed to fit:

mysql -h xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx1.chr7pe7iynqr.eu-west-1.rds.amazonaws.com -u xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

After running it, to confirm I was in the right place, I inspected the customers table which I expected to be there. It was. But I saw some other columns, which confused me, so I asked my colleagues about why they were introduction.

After some commotion, it turned out that I had been in the wrong DB. It's very lucky I didn't attempt to do any modifications to this DB!

Lessons

• Always use clear names/aliases for db's, etc., even if it's annoying to set up. The team used gobbledygook names for all their dbs, so these were difficult to distinguish by command line history. It was a coincidence that the other table contained a customers table.
• Double check the docs/env file to ensure you are about to enter the correct DB. Just searching the command-line history like I did was reckless.
• Expect that different databases will have the same, commonly used names for tables - e.g. users