Creating database access denied

Question

Here is what I've done:

user@name /my/path # mysql -u root -p<myPassword>  
mysql> create database spy;
ERROR 13 (HY000): Can't get stat of './spy' (Errcode: 13 - Permission denied)

How can I fix it?

Noted that this also happens:

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost';
ERROR 29 (HY000): File './mysql/user.MYD' not found (Errcode: 13 - Permission denied)

Solution

This is because mysql user does not have permissions to access your datadir. Please execute the below command to fix the issue :

sudo chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql 

Note : I am assuming that your datadir is /var/lib/mysql.