myqsl dummy needs help

[Mike Wright]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 16 February 2009, Robert L Cochran wrote:
>> All the heavier-weight database engines have their own user accounts, so
>> they can grant or restrict permissions to various databases and tables
>> based on who the user is. MySQL does this. Even though mysql has a root
>> user that user is totally separate from the OS root account. You can
>> also have a mysql user account named mickey even though your host box
>> does not have such a user. So think only in terms of the defined MySQL
>> users.
>>
>> You need to reset the MySQL root user password.
>>
>> There may be no password to start with. I wonder what happens if you
>> just press enter when prompted for the password. If there is no
>> password, then you can set one using mysqladmin. When you first start
>> the mysqld server using 'service start mysqld' the syntax of the command
>> is explained to you right on the terminal window.
>>
>> One more point. If you want to assign a password to a user on a specific
>> host machine, such as 'mickey'@'mickeymouse.m1.org' then I believe that
>> at the time someone attempts to log in with that username the actual
>> machine name must resolve correctly on dns to 'mickeymouse.m1.org' or
>> the user 'mickey' must have a password defined for the localhost machine
>> ('mickey'@'localhost').
>>
>> To do reset the root password correctly, you can find copious details on
>> the MySQL knowledgebase. Go to www.mysql.com and search off their
>> knowledgebase. There is a method described for changing the password for
>> the root user, but it is fairly complicated. I've used it successfully
>> once or twice before when I made a mess of my own mysql root password.
> 
> I have now done that procedure twice, setting a different passwd the last time 
> in case mysql has a password length limit less that the size of my root pw.
> 
> It didn't help, I'm still getting exactly the same error.  How can I nuke it 
> all & start from a truly scratch install?

Hi Gene,

Before you do that I have an idea.

I don't install MySql very often but I seem to recall an alert given 
upon installation advising the use of mysqladmin to set the initial root 
password.  On a clean install the password is the empty string (return).

"mysqladmin password 'secretcode'"

After that you use the GRANT command to control access to the rdb.

Hope I'm not all wet here.  Sometimes my CRS gets in the way ;)

Mike Wright