How To Retrieve or Reset the Root MySQL Password

Retrieve or Reset the Root MySQL Password

MySQL AB was a software company that was founded in 1995. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008; Sun was in turn acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2010.

This is a quick tutorial how to reset your MySQL root password. It does require root access on your server. 

Step #1

Stop MySQL:

service mysql stop

Step #2

Start MySQL in single-user mode, bypassing password authorization, by pasting in the command below (the ampersand is required):

mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

Step #3

Now type "mysql" to connect:

mysql

Step #4

At the mysql prompt, change the root password using the following three commands:

UPDATE mysql.user SET password=password("YourNewStrongPassword") WHERE user='root';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;

Step #4

Now stop MySQL and start it in normal mode:

service mysql stop
service mysql start

Step #5

Verify that you are able to connect to MySQL by entering "mysql".

Step #6

Finally, update the MySQL root password in /etc/.my.cnf to match the new value. You can use vi, vim or nano:

vi /root/.my.cnf

Recovering the Root MySQL Password on a cPanel server

The root MySQL credentials are stored locally in a file that only the root user can access. After you’ve connected to the server as root via SSH, you can view the credentials by running the following command:

cat /root/.my.cnf

That should output a result containing the MySQL password, which will appear similar to the following:

[root@host ~]# cat /root/.my.cnf
[client]
password=#@hackthesec
user=root

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