How to recover a lost MySQL root password

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Do you want to recover the MySQL root password. its by no means, easy. But its quite simple if you follow the procedure. You will have to follow this step-by-step processes.

1. Step 1: Stop the MySQL server process.
2. Step 2: Start the MySQL (mysqld) server/daemon process with the –skip-grant-tables option so that it will not prompt for a password.
3. Step 3: Connect to the MySQL server as the root user.
4. Step 4: Set a new root password.
5. Step 5: Exit and restart the MySQL server.

Here are the commands you need to type for each step (log in as the root user):

Step 1 : Stop the MySQL service:

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop

Output:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.

Step 2: Start the MySQL server w/o password:

# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

Output:

[1] 5988

Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql

mysqld_safe[6025]: started

Step 3: Connect to the MySQL server using the MySQL client:

# mysql -u root

Output:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.

Your MySQL connection id is 1 to server version: 4.1.15-Debian_1-log

Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the buffer.

mysql>

Step 4: Set a new MySQL root user password:

mysql> use mysql;

mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD(“NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD”) where User=’root’;

mysql> flush privileges;

mysql> quit

Step 5: Stop the MySQL server:

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop

Output:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld

STOPPING server from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

mysqld_safe[6186]: ended

[1]+ Done mysqld_safe –skip-grant-tables

Now Start the MySQL server and test it:

# /etc/init.d/mysql start

# mysql -u root -p

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