Allow linux root user mysql root access without password

Question

On cPanel when I am logged in as root and type "mysql" without hostname and password it gives me direct access to mysql root user.

I would like to do this for one of my non-cpanel server where the linux root user gets password less logon to mysql root user in the same way as it does on cPanel.

Is this possible ?

Solution 1

The easiest way to do this is to use a client section of the ~/.my.cnf file, and add the credentials there.

[client]
user=root
password=somepassword
...

it's a good idea to make that file readable only by root too.

Solution 2

For mysql 5.7+, if you set empty password for the initial setup, mysql will automatically use auth_socket as a strategy. An attempt to update password without change the strategy will have no result. You can always able to login without using password if your user is root.

Solution Run following command to change the authentication strategy and set the password

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY ''

reference: https://www.percona.com/blog/2016/03/16/change-user-password-in-mysql-5-7-with-plugin-auth_socket/

Solution 3

As of MySQL 5.6.6, you can use the mysql_config_editor to create an encrypted file that will log you in automatically:

mysql_config_editor set --login-path=client --host=localhost --user=root --password

Then enter the password when prompted.

Note: if your password has '#' in it, and possibly other characters, use single quotes when entering the password.

Comments

[user1066991]

Yes this works and this is how cPanel is doing it

[Koen van der Rijt]

I need to point towards a potential security problem.. You need to be a bit careful that you don't edit this in the /etc/my.cnf which the mysql server uses to boot up. If you put the mysql root user in the /etc/my.cnf ANYONE can use the mysql server with ALL privileges on EVERY database without a password. Iain points towards the shell user's own .my.cnf in the root's home which is correct of course.

[Michael Hampton]

This is much more work than the other answer. And your password is too short. :)

[camh]

Do not do this. It puts the password on the command line which any one can read with ps(1)

[user2299958]

Can you elaborate on the single-quote comment? It is prompting you for the password on the terminal, are you wrapping the password in single quotes

[Brian Deterling]

Yes, I found that entering it without quotes did not work if it had special characters. So when prompted, just enter ' (single quote), then the password, then '.

[kramer65]

I had to add an empty string at the end to make it work: ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '';

[Amalgovinus]

What if there is no ~/.my.cnf file? If I create it and restart mysqld, am I then supposed to be able to do this?

[Juan Antonio]

Intersting @kramer, only works if I set it as you ... BY "";. Thanks!

[Fernando Kosh]

That's really a not good idea

[Fernando Kosh]

It are changing passwiord to 'ANY_PASSWORD' and not clearing the password. To clear and login without password, set it to a empty string.

[mivk]

Be aware that the file is not "encrypted" at all! It is only encoded, and can easily be decoded to reveal the password, with simple scripts like decode-mylogin or the one described here.

[Ap Tsi]

not work in Fedora + Mysql8

[Emilio]

MariaDB does not allow this, since it gives a false sense of security. Since the file can be easily decoded, it's as good as storing it in plain text and allowing only the current user permissions to read it. jira.mariadb.org/browse/MDEV-20665