You don't need remote mysql access for hosting, and it's not safe either. All you need are
1. A script to create db for users or using phpmyadmin
2. FTP server, webdav, or script for file access in browser
When you host, users store their website files on your server, and since all files store on your server, they're local to your mysql that runs on your server, so you need to provide remote files access to your server and that's why you need # 2 listed above , and when users want to have db, # 1 comes in handy and you have option here to create db for users yourself or let users access the script to create db for themselves; for starting, recommend option 1 until you're more comfortable to let users create db themselves. Be careful when you let users use phpmyadmin to create db themselves
My servers host more than 50 users and I've never granted remote MySQL access to any user ;-)
Have fun,
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