Connecting to xampp MySQL server using MySQL Workbench

Go to /opt/lampp/etc/ and open my.cnf file.

Find skip-networking and comment it out: #skip-networking

You should be able to connect to your xampp MySQL server on localhost:3306

 

source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16581709/problems-connecting-to-port-3306-mysql-workbench-with-xampp