What is the safe method to shutdown the MySQL server

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword shutdown

# mysql -u root -ptmppassword
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server
through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'

Note: You can also use “/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld stop” to shutdown the server. To start the server, execute “/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql start”