Reset MySQL or MariaDB Root password
First, stop the database server.
If you use MySQL, type the following command and hit ENTER key.
$ sudo systemctl stop mysql
For MariaDB:
$ sudo systemctl stop mariadb
Next, restart the database server without permission checking using the following command:
$ sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
Here, the --skip-grant-tablesoption allows you to connect without a password and with all privileges. If you start your server with this option, it also enables --skip-networkingoption which is used to prevent the other clients from connecting to the database server. And, the ampersand (&) symbol is used to run the command in background, so you could type the other commands in the following steps. Please be mindful that the above command is dangerous and your database server becomes insecure. You should run this command only for a brief period to reset the password.
Next, login to your MySQL/MariaDB server as root user:
$ mysql
At the mysql> or MariaDB [(none)]> prompt, run the following command to reset the root user password:
UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('NEW-PASSWORD') WHERE User='root';
Replace NEW-PASSWORD in the above command with your own password.
Then, type following commands to exit from the mysql console.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit
Finally, shutdown the running database server that you started earlier with --skip-grant-tablesoption. To do so, run:
$ sudo mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown
You will be asked to enter your mysql/mariadb root user password that you set in the previous step.
Now, start mysql/mariadb service normally using command:
$ sudo systemctl start mysql
For MariaDB:
$ sudo systemctl start mariadb
Verify if the password has really been changed using the following command:
$ mysql -u root -p
And, that’s all for today. More good stuffs to come. Stay tuned!
Cheers!
