Set Passwords

• Set passwords before using MySQL for production purposes.

• To assign passwords to the anonymous accounts, connect to the server as root and then use either SET PASSWORD or UPDATE.
  • Encrypt the password using the PASSWORD() function.
  • To use SET PASSWORD, do this:

    mysql -u root
    

    SET PASSWORD FOR ''@'localhost' = PASSWORD('newpw');
    

    SET PASSWORD FOR ''@'hostname' = PASSWORD('newpw');

  • Where hostname is the name of the server host.

• To obtain the name of the server host issue the following statement before using SET PASSWORD

  SELECT Host, User FROM mysql.user;

• The other way to assign passwords to the anonymous accounts is by using UPDATE to modify the user table directly.

  mysql -u root
  

  UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('newpw') WHERE User = '';
  

  FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

How do I achieve anonymous account removal?

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© 2007 John Michael Pierobon

Notes