In order to run the tests you need a working mysql server running with permissions to create and delete tables. The connection information is taken from the following environment variables which you can set to control this behaviour: dbname: ENV{DBD_MYSQL_DBNAME}, or default to 'test' user: ENV{DBD_MYSQL_USER}, or default to '' password: ENV{DBD_MYSQL_PASSWD}, or default to '' table: ENV{DBD_MYSQL_TABLE}, or default to 'tbcdbitest'