How to Reset a Forgotten Root Password

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If you never set a root password for MySQL, then the server will not require a password at all for connecting as root. It is recommended to always set a password for each user. See section 4.2.2 How to Make MySQL Secure Against Crackers.

If you have set a root password, but forgot what it was, you can set a new password with the following procedure:

  1. Take down the mysqld server by sending a kill (not kill -9) to the mysqld server. The pid is stored in a `.pid' file, which is normally in the MySQL database directory:
    shell> kill `cat /mysql-data-directory/hostname.pid`
    

    You must be either the Unix root user or the same user mysqld runs as to do this.

  2. Restart mysqld with the --skip-grant-tables option.
  3. Set a new password with the mysqladmin password command:
    shell> mysqladmin -u root password 'mynewpassword'
    
  4. Now you can either stop mysqld and restart it normally, or just load the privilege tables with:
    shell> mysqladmin -h hostname flush-privileges
    
  5. After this, you should be able to connect using the new password.

Alternatively, you can set the new password using the mysql client:

  1. Take down and restart mysqld with the --skip-grant-tables option as described above.
  2. Connect to the mysqld server with:
    shell> mysql -u root mysql
    
  3. Issue the following commands in the mysql client:
    mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('mynewpassword')
        ->             WHERE User='root';
    mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    
  4. After this, you should be able to connect using the new password.
  5. You can now stop mysqld and restart it normally.