title: Why can't I create my database using "rake db:create"?
body: <p>I've recently started reading up on Rails and while getting my development environment ready on Windows, I kept running into problems. So I opted to just work on the server space I have with asmallorange.com.</p>
  
  <p>Everything went smoothly until I tried created my database.</p>
  
  <p>When running </p>
  
  <pre><code>rake db:create
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get a response saying that it could not create a database. There is no relevant error with the response and there's no errors in the log files. My PuTTY session looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[~]# cd alist
  [~/alist]# rake db:create
  (in /home/jonnie/alist)
  Couldn't create database for {"socket"=&gt;"/var/lib/mysql/mysqld.sock", "reconnect"=&gt;false, "encoding"=&gt;"utf8", "username"=&gt;"admin", "adapter"=&gt;"mysql", "password"=&gt;"************", "database"=&gt;"alist_development", "pool"=&gt;5}, charset: utf8, collation: utf8_general_ci (if you set the charset manually, make sure you have a matching collation)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And my database.yml file looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>development:
    adapter: mysql
    encoding: utf8
    reconnect: false
    database: alist_development
    pool: 5
    username: admin
    password: ************
    socket: /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.sock
  
  test:
    adapter: mysql
    encoding: utf8
    reconnect: false
    database: alist_test
    pool: 5
    username: admin
    password: ************
    socket: /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.sock
  
  production:
    adapter: mysql
    encoding: utf8
    reconnect: false
    database: alist_production
    pool: 5
    username: admin
    password: ************
    socket: /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.sock
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm pretty stuck at this point, and I haven't been able to find an answer anywhere else. Anyone know what's up? Is there something I'm doing wrong or should I contact my host with the problem?</p>