ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)

If you end-up with the error ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2), it means 2 things.

1. You don't have permissions to access the directory /var/lib/mysql/. Check the permission there and change the ownership mysql if it is not. For that do the following

#chown -R mysql.mysql /var/lib/mysql

Then, restart mysql

#/etc/init.d/mysql restart

2. If the permissions are correct, the /tmp/mysql.sock may not be existing. If so do the following.

#/etc/init.d/mysql stop

Then touch a file mysql.sock

#touch /tmp/mysql.sock

Then start the mysql server.

#/etc/init.d/mysql start

 This should fix the issue.....