Setting up the MySQL Database Driver

This seems to be a popular choice, so you want to use it yourself.

<?php
return array(
    'fetch' => PDO::FETCH_CLASS,
    'default' => 'mysql',
    'connections' => array(
        'mysql' => array(
            'driver'    => 'mysql',
            'host'      => 'your-hostname',
            'database'  => 'your-dbname',
            'username'  => 'your-username',
            'password'  => 'your-password',
            'charset'   => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix'    => '',
        ),
    ),
);
?>

On a fresh install, the default configuration is for MySQL.

Here's the important points about the above configuration file.

Line 4

The name mysql can be anything, as long as it matches a key in the connections[] array.

Line 6

Here's the start of the configuration for the connection named mysql.

Line 8

The hostname of your database. Very likely this is localhost.

Line 9

The name of the database. Keep in mind you need to create this database outside Laravel.

Line 10 and 11

Supply the username and password used for accessing your database.

See also

The Installing MySQL recipe.