see:
https://www.zen-cart.com/content.php...o-our-database
the problem is almost definitely in your configure.php file.
i'm not sure how dreamhost does their vps. but on their shared server, they separate the db server from the web server. so frequently in the configure.php, you have a value other than localhost for DB_SERVER. i would examine very closely the following constants:
Code:
define('DB_TYPE', 'mysql'); // always 'mysql'
define('DB_PREFIX', ''); // prefix for database table names -- preferred to be left empty
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8'); // 'utf8' or 'latin1' are most common
define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost'); // address of your db server
define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'username');
define('DB_SERVER_PASSWORD', 'password');
define('DB_DATABASE', 'db_name');
if you can connect outside of ZC, there is no reason why you should not be able to connect within ZC.
good luck.