Change the MySQL root password

To change the MySQL “root” login password, follow these steps:

• Access your server via SSH as the “root” user

• Once you are on your server, the first step is to stop the MySQL service. To do this, simply run the following command:

  # /etc/init.d/mysql stop

• Wait until the service has stopped completely, and then you can run the following command to start MySQL without authentication: 

  # mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

• Once the service has started, you can access the MySQL server as root without using a password with the command:

  # mysql -uroot mysql

• Once you have logged in, enter the following command to change the password:

  UPDATE user SET password=PASSWORD("nuevacontraseña") WHERE user="root"; 
  FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

  The PASSWORD() function was removed in MySQL 8.0, and in MySQL 5.7+ the method uses ALTER USER:

  ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'nuevacontraseña'; 

• Now you can try to log in with the new password using the command:

  # mysql -uroot -pnuevacontraseña mysql

• If the last step worked, you will need to restart MySQL without the “–skip-grant-tables” option. You can do this with the commands:

  # /etc/init.d/mysql stop && /etc/init.d/mysql start