Resetting your mysql root password

It is quite frequent that an administrator simply forgets his mysql's root password.

Luckily, it is quiet easy to reset it, here are the steps:

1. SSH as root to your machine
2. Turn off the mysqld daemon if running
• RedHat/Fedora users can do so by executing:  service mysqld stop
3. Run safe_mysqld by executing:
• safe_mysqld --skip-grant-tables
  (this will run allow you to connect without a password)
4. Open a second shell / SSH again and execute:
• mysql mysql
  (to directly connect and select the mysql database which contains the user authentication data)
5. On the mysql prompt, execute:
• update user set password=password('newpassword') where user='root';
  where newpassword is your newly chosen password.
6. That's it! close everything and start your mysql daemon again:
• service mysqld start