Introduction
We’ve all been there. You’ve forgotten the MySQL root password or it has mysteriously changed 🤔. Thankfully there is a way around this using the --skip-grant-tables
option.
Before you begin, if you are having problems logging into phpMyAdmin and getting an error Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’ , but you’re certain your root password is correct, please refer to this article first: Can’t log into phpMyAdmin: mysqli_real_connect(): (HY000/1698): Access denied for user ‘root’@’localhost’
1. Confirm MySQL version
Firstly, you must confirm which version of MySQL on Ubuntu you are running as commands will be different.
mysql -V
If on MySQL version 8, you will see something like:
mysql Ver 8.0.20-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 for Linux on x86_64 ((Ubuntu))
If you are on MySQL version 5, you will see something similar to:
mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.30, for Linux (x86_64) using EditLine wrapper
2. Restart MySQL with skip-grant-table
In order to skip the grant tables and reset the root password, we must first stop the MySQL service. Enter your Linux password if prompted.
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop
Ensure the directory /var/run/mysqld
exists and correct owner set.
sudo mkdir /var/run/mysqld
sudo chown mysql /var/run/mysqld
Now start MySQL with the --skip-grant-tables
option. The &
is required here.
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables&
You should see something similar:
[1] 1283
[email protected]:~$ 2019-02-12T11:15:59.872516Z mysqld_safe Logging to syslog.
2019-02-12T11:15:59.879527Z mysqld_safe Logging to '/var/log/mysql/error.log'.
2019-02-12T11:15:59.922502Z mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
Now press ENTER
to return to the Linux BASH prompt.
3. Change MySQL Root Password
You can now log in to the MySQL root account without a password.
sudo mysql --user=root mysql
Once logged in, you will see the mysql>
prompt.
MySQL 8 – Reset Root Password
For MySQL 8 on Ubuntu, run following commands.
UPDATE mysql.user SET authentication_string=null WHERE User='root';
flush privileges;
Replace your_password_here
with your own. (Generate a strong password here)
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'your_password_here';
Flush privileges again.
flush privileges;
Exit MySQL.
exit
Now skip to Step 4 below.
MySQL 5.7 – Reset Root Password
For MySQL 5.7 on Ubuntu, run this command to change the root password. Replace your_password_here
with your own. (Generate a strong password here)
update user set authentication_string=PASSWORD('your_password_here') where user='root';
Change the auth plugin to mysql_native_password
.
update user set plugin="mysql_native_password" where User='root';
Flush privileges.
flush privileges;
Exit MySQL.
exit
Now skip to Step 4 below.
MySQL 5.6 – Reset Root Password
For MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu, run this command to change the root password. Replace your_password_here
with your own. (Generate a strong password here)
update user set Password=PASSWORD('your_password_here') where user='root';
Change the auth plugin to mysql_native_password
.
update user set plugin="mysql_native_password" where User='root';
Flush privileges.
flush privileges;
Exit MySQL.
exit
Now skip to Step 4 below.
4. Test New Root Password
Make sure all MySQL processes are stopped before starting the service again.
sudo killall -u mysql
If you see a message similar to below, press ENTER
to continue.
2020-05-30T07:23:38.547616Z mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /var/lib/mysql/ubuntu.pid ended
Start MySQL again.
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start
Log in to MySQL again and you should now be prompted for a password.
sudo mysql -p -u root
Enter your MySQL root password. If correct, you should see something like:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 8
Server version: 8.0.20-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 (Ubuntu)
Copyright (c) 2000, 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
mysql>
You’re all done!
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84 replies
THANKS!!
This line
sudo mkdir /var/run/mysqld
saved me hours. Beautiful article.Thank you!!
Very good tutorial, straight forward and worked the first time. The problem is that with each version of mysql they change the rules and none of the old rules work . It can be very frustrating. Even the set of steps listed on the MySQL site itself don’t work. How ridiculous.
This is the best ever tutorial for setting root password for mysql. However i had issues that needed me to reintsall mysql and i used this tutorial https://askubuntu.com/questions/1068270/apparmor-parser-error-for-mysqld
thank you very much! it works
great blog
great!
Great article !! Thank you.
I had a problem to restart Mysql with –skip-grant-tables. I got this error message:
> Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/mysql/mysql.sock’ (38)
Checking the error log I found Mysql could not be started because unknown variable ‘log-syslog=1’:
> [ERROR] [MY-000067] [Server] unknown variable ‘log-syslog=1’.
To solve this edit the file /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld_safe_syslog.cnf and comment the second line:
Thank you so much. I wasted hours reading answers but finally your blog helped me.
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The Best answer i ever got for “How to reset MySQL password”.
Thank You very much!!!
[email protected]:/var/run/mysql$ sudo mysql –user=root mysql
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock’ (2)
To solve this edit the file /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld_safe_syslog.cnf and comment the second line:
Thank you very much!!!
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as of January 29, 2021 with version
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