Guys, I am not quiet sure what is happening but every time i try to connect to a remote host it refers back to localhost. $pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=171.16.23.44;dbname=test', 'user','password'); ERROR: Access denied for user 'user'@'localhost' (using password: YES) in /var/www/html/text.php Any clue as to WHY it keeps referring back to localhost when i clearly set the host parameter to another server. I checked the /etc/hosts records to see if there was a referral for that domain back to it's self there is NOT.