title: PHP test whether remote MySQL server is available
body: <p>I have some websites that uses MySQL. I'm not expert in SQL, so I use simple connection, querys, etc.. Sometimes (is rare but happens) only the database server hangs, or I forgot to turn on my home testing mysql. Until it operational again, the server hangs trying to connect and finally a timeout error happens.</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to add some previous test of database server like this "ping" function:</p>
  
  <pre><code>function pingDomain($domain){
      $starttime = microtime(true);
      $file = fsockopen ($domain, 80, $errno, $errstr, 10);
      $stoptime = microtime(true);
      $status = 0;
  
      if (!$file) {
          $status = -1; // Site is down
      } else {
          fclose($file);
          $status = ($stoptime - $starttime) * 1000;
          $status = floor($status);
      }
  
      return $status;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But didn't work either, php hangs anyway. Any ideas?</p>