MySQL 5.7.20 unable to set root password - mysql

I installed MySQL Server 5.7.20 on ubuntu 14.04 and i can log in to server using:
mysql -u root -p
password is blank...how can i set mysql root password in terminal before install mysql server?
I installed it using silent install and try to run from terminal this mysql query:
SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'#'localhost' = 'mypasswordhere';
But i im getting this:
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
mysql> SHOW warnings;
+-------+------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level | Code | Message |
+-------+------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Note | 1699 | SET PASSWORD has no significance for user 'root'#'localhost' as authentication plugin does not support it. |
+-------+------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
So what i im doing wrong? I just want to change from blank password for user root to mypasswordhere password...how it needs to be done?

Try
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'mypasswordhere';
From https://www.percona.com/blog/2016/03/16/change-user-password-in-mysql-5-7-with-plugin-auth_socket/
If you install 5.7 and don’t provide a password to the root user, it will use the auth_socket plugin. That plugin doesn’t care and doesn’t need a password. It just checks if the user is connecting using a UNIX socket and then compares the username.
If we want to configure a password, we need to change the plugin and set the password at the same time, in the same command.

After installing Mysql on Ubuntu and similar one should run mysql_secure_installation command .
It clears some possible problems and one of the things is it asks for a new root password.
But previous answer from #Valuator will change the password.

Related

Not storing information into MySQL database [duplicate]

Consider:
./mysqladmin -u root -p** '_redacted_'
Output (including typing the password):
Enter password:
mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed error:
'Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost' (using password: YES)'
How can I fix this?
All solutions I found were much more complex than necessary and none worked for me. Here is the solution that solved my problem. There isn't any need to restart mysqld or start it with special privileges.
sudo mysql
-- for MySQL
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'root';
-- for MariaDB
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD('root');
With a single query we are changing the auth_plugin to mysql_native_password and setting the root password to root (feel free to change it in the query).
Now you should be able to log in with root. More information can be found in MySQL documentation or MariaDB documentation.
(Exit the MySQL console with Ctrl + D or by typing exit.)
Open and edit /etc/my.cnf or /etc/mysql/my.cnf, depending on your distribution.
Add skip-grant-tables under [mysqld]
Restart MySQL
You should be able to log in to MySQL now using the below command mysql -u root -p
Run mysql> flush privileges;
Set new password by ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'NewPassword';
Go back to /etc/my.cnf and remove/comment skip-grant-tables
Restart MySQL
Now you will be able to login with the new password mysql -u root -p
None of the previous answers helped me with this problem, so here's the solution I found.
The relevant part:
In Ubuntu systems running MySQL 5.7 (and later versions), the root MySQL user is set to authenticate using the auth_socket plugin by default rather than with a password. This allows for some greater security and usability in many cases, but it can also complicate things when you need to allow an external program (e.g., phpMyAdmin) to access the user.
In order to use a password to connect to MySQL as root, you will need to switch its authentication method from auth_socket to mysql_native_password. To do this, open up the MySQL prompt from your terminal:
sudo mysql
Next, check which authentication method each of your MySQL user accounts use with the following command:
SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
Output
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root | | auth_socket | localhost |
| mysql.session | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *CC744277A401A7D25BE1CA89AFF17BF607F876FF | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
In this example, you can see that the root user does in fact authenticate using the auth_socket plugin. To configure the root account to authenticate with a password, run the following ALTER USER command. Be sure to change password to a strong password of your choosing, and note that this command will change the root password you set in Step 2:
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
Then, run FLUSH PRIVILEGES which tells the server to reload the grant tables and put your new changes into effect:
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Check the authentication methods employed by each of your users again to confirm that root no longer authenticates using the auth_socket plugin:
SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
Output
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root | *3636DACC8616D997782ADD0839F92C1571D6D78F | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.session | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *CC744277A401A7D25BE1CA89AFF17BF607F876FF | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
You can see in this example output that the root MySQL user now authenticates using a password. Once you confirm this on your own server, you can exit the MySQL shell:
exit
I tried many steps to get this issue corrected. There are so many sources for possible solutions to this issue that is is hard to filter out the sense from the nonsense. I finally found a good solution here:
Step 1: Identify the database version
mysql --version
You'll see some output like this with MySQL:
mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.16, for Linux (x86_64) using EditLine wrapper
Or output like this for MariaDB:
mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 5.5.52-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1
Make note of which database and which version you're running, as you'll use them later. Next, you need to stop the database so you can access it manually.
Step 2: Stopping the database server
To change the root password, you have to shut down the database server beforehand.
You can do that for MySQL with:
sudo systemctl stop mysql
And for MariaDB with:
sudo systemctl stop mariadb
Step 3: Restarting the database server without permission checking
If you run MySQL and MariaDB without loading information about user privileges, it will allow you to access the database command line with root privileges without providing a password. This will allow you to gain access to the database without knowing it.
To do this, you need to stop the database from loading the grant tables, which store user privilege information. Because this is a bit of a security risk, you should also skip networking as well to prevent other clients from connecting.
Start the database without loading the grant tables or enabling networking:
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &
The ampersand at the end of this command will make this process run in the background so you can continue to use your terminal.
Now you can connect to the database as the root user, which should not ask for a password.
mysql -u root
You'll immediately see a database shell prompt instead.
MySQL Prompt
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
mysql>
MariaDB Prompt
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
MariaDB [(none)]>
Now that you have root access, you can change the root password.
Step 4: Changing the root password
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Now we can actually change the root password.
For MySQL 5.7.6 and newer as well as MariaDB 10.1.20 and newer, use the following command:
mysql> ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password';
For MySQL 5.7.5 and older as well as MariaDB 10.1.20 and older, use:
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'#'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
Make sure to replace new_password with your new password of choice.
Note: If the ALTER USER command doesn't work, it's usually indicative of a bigger problem. However, you can try UPDATE ... SET to reset the root password instead.
[IMPORTANT] This is the specific line that fixed my particular issue:
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET authentication_string = PASSWORD('new_password') WHERE User = 'root' AND Host = 'localhost';
Remember to reload the grant tables after this.
In either case, you should see confirmation that the command has been successfully executed.
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
The password has been changed, so you can now stop the manual instance of the database server and restart it as it was before.
Step 5: Restart the Database Server Normally
The tutorial goes into some further steps to restart the database, but the only piece I used was this:
For MySQL, use:
sudo systemctl start mysql
For MariaDB, use:
sudo systemctl start mariadb
Now you can confirm that the new password has been applied correctly by running:
mysql -u root -p
The command should now prompt for the newly assigned password. Enter it, and you should gain access to the database prompt as expected.
Conclusion
You now have administrative access to the MySQL or MariaDB server restored. Make sure the new root password you choose is strong and secure and keep it in safe place.
After trying all others answers, this it what finally worked for me:
sudo mysql -- It does not ask me for any password
-- Then in MariaDB/MySQL console:
update mysql.user set plugin = 'mysql_native_password' where User='root';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;
I found the answer in the blog post Solved: Error “Access denied for user ‘root’#’localhost’” of MySQL — codementor.tech (Medium).
For Ubuntu/Debian users
(It may work on other distributions, especially Debian-based ones.)
Run the following to connect as root (without any password)
sudo /usr/bin/mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf
If you don't want to add --defaults-file each time you want to connect as root, you can copy /etc/mysql/debian.cnf into your home directory:
sudo cp /etc/mysql/debian.cnf ~/.my.cnf
And then:
sudo mysql
In my experience, if you run without sudo it will not work. So make sure your command is;
sudo mysql -uroot -p
For new Linux users this could be a daunting task. Let me update this with MySQL 8 (the latest version available right now is 8.0.12 as on 2018-09-12)
Open "mysqld.cnf" configuration file at "/etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/".
Add skip-grant-tables to the next line of [mysql] text and save.
Restart the MySQL service as "sudo service mysql restart". Now your MySQL is free of any authentication.
Connect to the MySQL client (also known as mysql-shell) as mysql -u root -p. There is no password to be keyed in as of now.
Run SQL command flush privileges;
Reset the password now as ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'MyNewPassword';
Now let's get back to the normal state; remove that line "skip-grant-tables" from "mysqld.cnf" and restart the service.
That's it.
In my case under Debian 10, the error
ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost'
was solved by (good way)
sudo mysql -u root -p mysql
Bad way:
mysql -u root -p mysql
I did this to set my root password in the initial set up of MySQL in OS X. Open a terminal.
sudo sh -c 'echo /usr/local/mysql/bin > /etc/paths.d/mysql'
Close the terminal and open a new terminal.
And the following worked in Linux, to set the root password.
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables
(sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables: This did not work for me the first time. But on the second try, it was a success.)
Then log into MySQL:
mysql -u root
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Now change the password:
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword';
Restart MySQL:
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start
My Station here:
UBUNTU 21.04
PHP 5.6.40-57
MYSQL 5.7.37
let's config it
nano /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf
at the bottom, write this
skip-grant-tables
reload it
service mysql restart
In your MySQL Workbench, you can go to the left sidebar, under Management select "Users and Privileges", click root under User Accounts, in the right section click tab "Account Limits" to increase the maximum queries, updates, etc., and then click tab "Administrative Roles" and check the boxes to give the account access.
Ugh - nothing worked for me! I have a CentOS 7.4 machine running MariaDB 5.5.64.
I had to do this, right after installation of MariaDB from YUM;
systemctl restart mariadb
mysql_secure_installation
The mysql_secure_installation will take you through a number of steps, including "Set root password? [Y/n]". Just say "y" and give it a password. Answer the other questions as you wish.
Then you can get in with your password, using
mysql -u root -p
It will survive
systemctl restart mariadb
The Key
Then, I checked the /bin/mysql_secure_installation source code to find out how it was magically able to change the root password and none of the other answers here could. The import bit is:
do_query "UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('$esc_pass') WHERE User='root';"
...It says SET Password=... and not SET authentication_string = PASSWORD.... So, the proper procedure for this version (5.5.64) is:
Log in using mysql -u root -p, using the password you already set.
Or, stop the database and start it with:
mysql_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &
From the mysql> prompt:
use mysql;
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
(observe your existing passwords for root).
UPDATE mysql.user set Password = PASSWORD('your_new_cleartext_password') where user = 'root' AND host = 'localhost';
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
flush privileges;
quit;
Kill the running mysqld_safe. Restart MariaDB. Log in as root: mysql -u -p. Use your new password.
If you want, you can set all the root passwords at once. I think this is wise:
mysql -u root -p
(login)
use mysql;
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
UPDATE mysql.user set Password = PASSWORD('your_new_cleartext_password') where user = 'root';
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
flush privileges;
quit;
This will perform updates on all the root passwords: i.e., for "localhost", "127.0.0.1", and "::1"
In the future, when I go to RHEL 8 or what have you, I will try to remember to check the /bin/mysql_secure_installation and see how the guys did it, who were the ones that configured MariaDB for this OS.
Use sudo to alter your password:
sudo mysql
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'insert_password';
Source: Phoenixnap - Access denied for user root localhost
Fix for macOS
Install MySQL from https://downloads.mysql.com/archives/community/ (8.x is the latest as on date, but ensure that the version is compatible with the macOS version)
Give password for root (let <root-password> be the password) during installation (don't forget to remember the password!)
Select Use Legacy Password Encryption option (that is what I had used and did not try for Use Strong Password Encryption option)
Search and open MySQL.prefPane (use search tool)
Select Configuration tab
Click Select option of Configuration File
Select /private/etc/my.cnf
From terminal open a new or existing file with name /etc/my.cnf (vi /etc/my.cnf) add the following content:
[mysqld]
skip-grant-tables
Restart mysqld as follows:
ps aux | grep mysql
kill -9 <pid1> <pid2> ... (grab pids of all MySQL related processes)
mysqld gets restarted automatically
Verify that the option is set by running the following from terminal:
ps aux | grep mysql
> mysql/bin/mysqld ... --defaults-file=/private/etc/my.cnf ... (output)
Run the following command to connect (let mysql-<version>-macos<version>-x86_64 be the folder where MySQL is installed. To grab the actual folder, run ls /usr/local/ and copy the folder name):
/usr/local/mysql-<version>-macos<version>-x86_64/bin/mysql -uroot -p<root-password>
If you are like me and all the information in previous answers failed, proceed to uninstall all versions of MySQL on your machine, search for all remaining MySQL files using the command sudo find / -name "mysql" and rm -rf every file or directory with the "mysql" name attached to it (you should skip files related to programming language libraries).
Now install a fresh version of MySQL and enjoy. NB: You will lose all your data so weigh your options first.
Sometimes a default password is set when you install it - as mentioned in the documentation. This can be confirmed by the following command.
sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log
It can happen if you don't have enough privileges.
Type su, enter the root password and try again.
After trying a lot with the following answer:
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD('root');
And similar answers, my terminal was still throwing me the following error:
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near...
So after researching on the web, this line solved my problem and let me change the root user password:
sudo mysqladmin --user=root password "[your password]"
windows :
cd \Ampps\mysql\bin :
mysql.exe -u root -pmysql
after mysql start (you can see shell like this mysql> )
use this query :
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'root';
try again access with root root
If you reached this page via Google like I did and none of the previous solutions worked, what turned out to be the error was 100% foolishness on my end. I didn't connect to the server. Once connected everything was smooth sailing.
In case it helps to know my setup, I'm using Sequel Pro and am trying to connect to it with Node using the NPM package, mysql. I didn't think I needed to actually connect (other than run Sequel Pro), because I was doing that from my application already.
I was getting the same error while setting up the mysql-8 zip version. Finally, switched to installer version which worked seamlessly. During installation, there is a prompt to set up the root password. Once set, it works for sure.
According to MariaDB official documentation, in MariaDB 10.4.3 and later, the unix_socket authentication plugin is installed by default.
In order to disable it, and revert to the previous mysql_native_password authentication method, add line below in [mysqld] section of my.cnf file:
[mysqld]
unix_socket=OFF
And then run:
mysql_install_db --auth-root-authentication-method=normal
And then start mysqld
This command will then work fine:
mysqladmin -u root password CHANGEME
For additional information, see Configuring mysql_install_db to Revert to the Previous Authentication Method.
I was trying to leverage Docker desktop on Mac to get 5.7.35 running and this docker-compose.yml configuration allowed it to work:
In particular it was the addition of the line...
command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
...that did the trick
version: '3.3'
services:
mysql_db:
image: mysql:5.7
command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
restart: always
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: 'your_password'
ports:
- '3306:3306'
expose:
- '3306'
volumes:
- ~/your/volume/path:/var/lib/mysql
One thing to check is the from-host filter. It may be "localhost" by default. Are you trying to connect from a remote client? Change this to "%".
On Arch Linux
Package: mysql 8.0.29-1
What worked for me:
Edit my.cnf file, normally can be found at /etc/mysql/my.cnf and append this skip-grant-tables at the bottom/end of the file.
Restart mysql service by invoking sudo systemctl restart mysqld
Ensuring mysql service has started properly by invoking sudo systemctl status mysqld
Login to mysql using 'root' by invoking mysql -u root -p
Flush privileges by invoking flush privileges;
Create new user by CREATE USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'rootpassword';
(If you plan to use this db with PHP), you should instead use this CREATE USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'rootpassword';
Check whether your changes have reflected in db by invoking the following in sequence:
use mysql;
SELECT User, password_last_changed FROM user;
Exit mysql console and comment/remove skip-grant-tables by editing my.cnf file (Refer to step 1 for the location)
Restart the mysql service (Refer to step 2 and step 3)
And that's all.
The '-p' argument doesn't expect a space between the argument name and value.
Instead of
./mysqladmin -u root -p 'redacted'
Use
./mysqladmin -u root -p'redacted'
Or just
./mysqladmin -u root -p
which will prompt you for a password.
Solution: Give up!
Hear me out. I spent about two whole days trying to make MySQL work to no avail, always stuck with permission errors, none of which were fixed by the answers to this question. It got to the point that I thought if I continued I'd go insane.
Out of patience for making it work, I sent the command to install SQLite, only using 450 KB, and it worked perfectly right from the word go.
If you don't have the patience of a saint, go with SQLite and save yourself a lot of time, effort, pain, and storage space..!

Homebrew Mariadb Mysql installation root access denied

So I basically am installing mariadb with mysql on my mac using homebrew.
These are the steps I made:
brew doctor -> worked
brew update -> worked
brew install mariadb -> worked
mysql_install_db -> Failed
WARNING: The host 'Toms-MacBook-Pro.local' could not be looked up
with /usr/local/Cellar/mariadb/10.4.6_1/bin/resolveip. This probably
means that your libc libraries are not 100 % compatible with this
binary MariaDB version. The MariaDB daemon, mysqld, should work
normally with the exception that host name resolving will not work.
This means that you should use IP addresses instead of hostnames when
specifying MariaDB privileges ! mysql.user table already exists!
Running mysql_upgrade afterwards gave me following error:
Version check failed. Got the following error when calling the 'mysql'
command line client ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user
'root'#'localhost' FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed
I can't enter mysql like this:
mysql -uroot
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)
but like this:
sudo mysql -u root
The user table returns this:
MariaDB [(none)]> USE mysql;
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A
Database changed
MariaDB [mysql]> SELECT User, Host, plugin FROM mysql.user;
+---------------+-------------------------+-----------------------+
| User | Host | plugin |
+---------------+-------------------------+-----------------------+
| root | localhost | mysql_native_password |
| toms | localhost | mysql_native_password |
| | localhost | |
| | toms-macbook-pro.local | |
+---------------+-------------------------+-----------------------+
4 rows in set (0.004 sec)
You could try to update the root password and access it afterwards
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'root';
Exit Mysql and try to login
mysql -uroot -p # then use root as a password
What is the issue?
Install MariaDB using brew, brew install mariadb#10.2.
Try to reset root password.
Method 1: mysqld_safe command
run command: brew services stop mariadb#10.2
run command: mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking
on a new terminal tab,
run command for MariaDB <= 10.4: mysql_secure_installation
run command for MariaDB >= 10.4 mariadb-secure-installation
this will ask to enter root password
hit enter without entering any password (this step might never go away!)
if empty root password is granted in previous step
enter and re-enter new password in the next steps
this could show some errors Password update failed!
Method 2: /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p password
this will ask to enter password
hit enter without entering any password
this will show some errors!
But preceding two methods did not work!
Follow the working method:
start the mariadb#10.2 service brew services start mariadb#10.2
run mysql.servert start
this will show an error with error log file location
typical mariadb error file location: /usr/local/var/mysql/<filename>.local.err
run tail -f /usr/local/var/mysql/<filename>.local.err
then re-run mysql.servert start
there will be an error related to Invalid flags lib
run brew services stop mariadb#10.2
(BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP YOUR DBS! THIS WILL DELETE ALL DBs!) run sudo rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql
run
mysql_install_db --verbose --user=`whoami`
--basedir="$(brew --prefix mariadb#10.2)"
--datadir="/usr/local/var/mysql" --tempdir="/tmp"
This will get the mariaDB Cellar installation path from brew
and this will install the initial db.
instead of running mysql_secure_installation or
mariadb-secure-installation run: sudo mysql -u root
this will drop to mysql shell
enter command: use mysql;
enter command: ALTER USER 'root#localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<password>'; (replace the )
enter command: ALTER USER 'root#127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY '<password>'; (replace the )
enter command: FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
enter command: exit
now you can run mysql -u root -p and use the <password> entered in earlier step.
That's all!
MariaDB 10.4 enables Unix socket authentication plugin for the local root by default. It means that on a freshly installed system you can connect to a running server without a password, as long as you are a local root (e.g. run under sudo) and using a socket rather than TCP.
Further, MariaDB 10.4 allows multiple authentication methods for accounts. It configures the local root to be able to use password authentication as well, but it initially invalidates the password (doesn't set an empty password as it used to). If you want to use the password authentication and connect as mysql -uroot -p, you need first connect as a root using Unix socket and run SET PASSWORD=....
The advanced user configuration is now stored in mysql.global_priv table in JSON format. mysql.user has been kept for backward compatibility, but it has stopped being a table and has become a view. As a consequence of allowing multiple authentication methods, it doesn't always show user configuration accurately. Specifically, it doesn't show all authentication methods available for a user, you need to query mysql.global_priv for that. On a fresh installation, you'll see something like
+-----------+--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Host | User | Priv |
+-----------+--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| localhost | root | {"access":18446744073709551615,"plugin":"mysql_native_password","authentication_string":"invalid","auth_or":[{},{"plugin":"unix_socket"}]} |
...
You can find more information about 10.4 authentication changes here.
I'm using this mysql_secure_installation and it now works for me:
$ mysql_secure_installation
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!
In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user. If you've just installed MariaDB, and
haven't set the root password yet, you should just press enter here.
Enter current password for root (enter for none): << enter root here >>
I enter root as current password
OK, successfully used password, moving on...
Setting the root password or using the unix_socket ensures that nobody
can log into the MariaDB root user without the proper authorisation.
and do the rest

MariaDB - cannot login as root

I am trying to setup MariaDB (10.0.29) on Ubuntu (16.04.02). After I installed it and started the process (sudo service mysql start), I cannot login as root even though I originally set the password to blank.
Ie mysql -u root will deny me access. I logged in through sudo mysql and checked the user table, ie. select user, password, authentication_string from mysql.user and as expected:
+---------+----------+-----------------------+
| User | password | authentication_string |
+---------+----------+-----------------------+
| root | | |
+---------+----------+-----------------------+
I also created a new user, ie. create user 'test'#'localhost' identified by ''; and when I try to do mysql -u test (empty password), it works as expected and logs me in.
The user table looks like this:
+---------+----------+-----------------------+
| User | password | authentication_string |
+---------+----------+-----------------------+
| root | | |
| test | | |
+---------+----------+-----------------------+
So, can anyone tell me why I cannot login as root with empty password but I can login as test?
Unlike native MariaDB packages (those provided by MariaDB itself), packages generated by Ubuntu by default have unix_socket authentication for the local root. To check, run
SELECT user, host, plugin FROM mysql.user;
If you see unix_socket in the plugin column, that's the reason.
To return to the usual password authentication, run
UPDATE mysql.user SET plugin = '' WHERE plugin = 'unix_socket';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
(choose the WHERE clause which fits your purposes, the one above is just an example)
The issue you're having is due to changes in the authentication system of MariaDB 10.4:
As a result of the above changes, the open-for-everyone all-powerful root account is finally gone. (...) because the root account is securely created automatically. They are created as: CREATE USER root#localhost IDENTIFIED VIA unix_socket OR mysql_native_password USING 'invalid'
If you really want to access your DB as root, you should login via cli mariadb -p and run:
ALTER USER root#localhost IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD("your-password-here");
Source: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/authentication-from-mariadb-104/#altering-the-user-account-to-revert-to-the-previous-authentication-method
About the other solution bellow: they won't work because MariaDB won't also allow you to update the plugin column: ERROR 1348 (HY000): Column 'plugin' is not updatable.~
Update 2020: although my solution above works it replaces the default root unix_socket authentication with a password. I've noticed this breaks tasks such as mariadb upgrade / your own maintenance scripts that would expect to be able to connect to the DB without extra passwords when running as root.
My suggestion is to add a new root login as follows:
CREATE USER `root`#`%` IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password using PASSWORD('your-password-here');
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO `root`#`%` WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
This will effectively still allow for the default behavior of root login and add external access to the DB using the password.
I struggled with this for some time. My Ubuntu comes with MariaDB (10.0.31) by default. After reinstalling a few times and changing the plugins to various suggestions - I still could not login properly to mysql.
In the end I installed the latest MariaDB (10.2.12) from the repo :
https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/
I was able to login properly immediately.

MySQL Error: : 'Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost'

Consider:
./mysqladmin -u root -p** '_redacted_'
Output (including typing the password):
Enter password:
mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed error:
'Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost' (using password: YES)'
How can I fix this?
All solutions I found were much more complex than necessary and none worked for me. Here is the solution that solved my problem. There isn't any need to restart mysqld or start it with special privileges.
sudo mysql
-- for MySQL
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'root';
-- for MariaDB
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD('root');
With a single query we are changing the auth_plugin to mysql_native_password and setting the root password to root (feel free to change it in the query).
Now you should be able to log in with root. More information can be found in MySQL documentation or MariaDB documentation.
(Exit the MySQL console with Ctrl + D or by typing exit.)
Open and edit /etc/my.cnf or /etc/mysql/my.cnf, depending on your distribution.
Add skip-grant-tables under [mysqld]
Restart MySQL
You should be able to log in to MySQL now using the below command mysql -u root -p
Run mysql> flush privileges;
Set new password by ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'NewPassword';
Go back to /etc/my.cnf and remove/comment skip-grant-tables
Restart MySQL
Now you will be able to login with the new password mysql -u root -p
None of the previous answers helped me with this problem, so here's the solution I found.
The relevant part:
In Ubuntu systems running MySQL 5.7 (and later versions), the root MySQL user is set to authenticate using the auth_socket plugin by default rather than with a password. This allows for some greater security and usability in many cases, but it can also complicate things when you need to allow an external program (e.g., phpMyAdmin) to access the user.
In order to use a password to connect to MySQL as root, you will need to switch its authentication method from auth_socket to mysql_native_password. To do this, open up the MySQL prompt from your terminal:
sudo mysql
Next, check which authentication method each of your MySQL user accounts use with the following command:
SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
Output
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root | | auth_socket | localhost |
| mysql.session | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *CC744277A401A7D25BE1CA89AFF17BF607F876FF | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
In this example, you can see that the root user does in fact authenticate using the auth_socket plugin. To configure the root account to authenticate with a password, run the following ALTER USER command. Be sure to change password to a strong password of your choosing, and note that this command will change the root password you set in Step 2:
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
Then, run FLUSH PRIVILEGES which tells the server to reload the grant tables and put your new changes into effect:
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Check the authentication methods employed by each of your users again to confirm that root no longer authenticates using the auth_socket plugin:
SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;
Output
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user | authentication_string | plugin | host |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root | *3636DACC8616D997782ADD0839F92C1571D6D78F | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.session | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *CC744277A401A7D25BE1CA89AFF17BF607F876FF | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
You can see in this example output that the root MySQL user now authenticates using a password. Once you confirm this on your own server, you can exit the MySQL shell:
exit
I tried many steps to get this issue corrected. There are so many sources for possible solutions to this issue that is is hard to filter out the sense from the nonsense. I finally found a good solution here:
Step 1: Identify the database version
mysql --version
You'll see some output like this with MySQL:
mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.16, for Linux (x86_64) using EditLine wrapper
Or output like this for MariaDB:
mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 5.5.52-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1
Make note of which database and which version you're running, as you'll use them later. Next, you need to stop the database so you can access it manually.
Step 2: Stopping the database server
To change the root password, you have to shut down the database server beforehand.
You can do that for MySQL with:
sudo systemctl stop mysql
And for MariaDB with:
sudo systemctl stop mariadb
Step 3: Restarting the database server without permission checking
If you run MySQL and MariaDB without loading information about user privileges, it will allow you to access the database command line with root privileges without providing a password. This will allow you to gain access to the database without knowing it.
To do this, you need to stop the database from loading the grant tables, which store user privilege information. Because this is a bit of a security risk, you should also skip networking as well to prevent other clients from connecting.
Start the database without loading the grant tables or enabling networking:
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &
The ampersand at the end of this command will make this process run in the background so you can continue to use your terminal.
Now you can connect to the database as the root user, which should not ask for a password.
mysql -u root
You'll immediately see a database shell prompt instead.
MySQL Prompt
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
mysql>
MariaDB Prompt
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
MariaDB [(none)]>
Now that you have root access, you can change the root password.
Step 4: Changing the root password
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Now we can actually change the root password.
For MySQL 5.7.6 and newer as well as MariaDB 10.1.20 and newer, use the following command:
mysql> ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password';
For MySQL 5.7.5 and older as well as MariaDB 10.1.20 and older, use:
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'#'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
Make sure to replace new_password with your new password of choice.
Note: If the ALTER USER command doesn't work, it's usually indicative of a bigger problem. However, you can try UPDATE ... SET to reset the root password instead.
[IMPORTANT] This is the specific line that fixed my particular issue:
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET authentication_string = PASSWORD('new_password') WHERE User = 'root' AND Host = 'localhost';
Remember to reload the grant tables after this.
In either case, you should see confirmation that the command has been successfully executed.
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
The password has been changed, so you can now stop the manual instance of the database server and restart it as it was before.
Step 5: Restart the Database Server Normally
The tutorial goes into some further steps to restart the database, but the only piece I used was this:
For MySQL, use:
sudo systemctl start mysql
For MariaDB, use:
sudo systemctl start mariadb
Now you can confirm that the new password has been applied correctly by running:
mysql -u root -p
The command should now prompt for the newly assigned password. Enter it, and you should gain access to the database prompt as expected.
Conclusion
You now have administrative access to the MySQL or MariaDB server restored. Make sure the new root password you choose is strong and secure and keep it in safe place.
After trying all others answers, this it what finally worked for me:
sudo mysql -- It does not ask me for any password
-- Then in MariaDB/MySQL console:
update mysql.user set plugin = 'mysql_native_password' where User='root';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;
I found the answer in the blog post Solved: Error “Access denied for user ‘root’#’localhost’” of MySQL — codementor.tech (Medium).
For Ubuntu/Debian users
(It may work on other distributions, especially Debian-based ones.)
Run the following to connect as root (without any password)
sudo /usr/bin/mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf
If you don't want to add --defaults-file each time you want to connect as root, you can copy /etc/mysql/debian.cnf into your home directory:
sudo cp /etc/mysql/debian.cnf ~/.my.cnf
And then:
sudo mysql
In my experience, if you run without sudo it will not work. So make sure your command is;
sudo mysql -uroot -p
For new Linux users this could be a daunting task. Let me update this with MySQL 8 (the latest version available right now is 8.0.12 as on 2018-09-12)
Open "mysqld.cnf" configuration file at "/etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/".
Add skip-grant-tables to the next line of [mysql] text and save.
Restart the MySQL service as "sudo service mysql restart". Now your MySQL is free of any authentication.
Connect to the MySQL client (also known as mysql-shell) as mysql -u root -p. There is no password to be keyed in as of now.
Run SQL command flush privileges;
Reset the password now as ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'MyNewPassword';
Now let's get back to the normal state; remove that line "skip-grant-tables" from "mysqld.cnf" and restart the service.
That's it.
In my case under Debian 10, the error
ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost'
was solved by (good way)
sudo mysql -u root -p mysql
Bad way:
mysql -u root -p mysql
I did this to set my root password in the initial set up of MySQL in OS X. Open a terminal.
sudo sh -c 'echo /usr/local/mysql/bin > /etc/paths.d/mysql'
Close the terminal and open a new terminal.
And the following worked in Linux, to set the root password.
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables
(sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables: This did not work for me the first time. But on the second try, it was a success.)
Then log into MySQL:
mysql -u root
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Now change the password:
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword';
Restart MySQL:
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop
sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start
My Station here:
UBUNTU 21.04
PHP 5.6.40-57
MYSQL 5.7.37
let's config it
nano /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf
at the bottom, write this
skip-grant-tables
reload it
service mysql restart
In your MySQL Workbench, you can go to the left sidebar, under Management select "Users and Privileges", click root under User Accounts, in the right section click tab "Account Limits" to increase the maximum queries, updates, etc., and then click tab "Administrative Roles" and check the boxes to give the account access.
Ugh - nothing worked for me! I have a CentOS 7.4 machine running MariaDB 5.5.64.
I had to do this, right after installation of MariaDB from YUM;
systemctl restart mariadb
mysql_secure_installation
The mysql_secure_installation will take you through a number of steps, including "Set root password? [Y/n]". Just say "y" and give it a password. Answer the other questions as you wish.
Then you can get in with your password, using
mysql -u root -p
It will survive
systemctl restart mariadb
The Key
Then, I checked the /bin/mysql_secure_installation source code to find out how it was magically able to change the root password and none of the other answers here could. The import bit is:
do_query "UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('$esc_pass') WHERE User='root';"
...It says SET Password=... and not SET authentication_string = PASSWORD.... So, the proper procedure for this version (5.5.64) is:
Log in using mysql -u root -p, using the password you already set.
Or, stop the database and start it with:
mysql_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &
From the mysql> prompt:
use mysql;
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
(observe your existing passwords for root).
UPDATE mysql.user set Password = PASSWORD('your_new_cleartext_password') where user = 'root' AND host = 'localhost';
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
flush privileges;
quit;
Kill the running mysqld_safe. Restart MariaDB. Log in as root: mysql -u -p. Use your new password.
If you want, you can set all the root passwords at once. I think this is wise:
mysql -u root -p
(login)
use mysql;
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
UPDATE mysql.user set Password = PASSWORD('your_new_cleartext_password') where user = 'root';
select host,user,password from user where user = 'root';
flush privileges;
quit;
This will perform updates on all the root passwords: i.e., for "localhost", "127.0.0.1", and "::1"
In the future, when I go to RHEL 8 or what have you, I will try to remember to check the /bin/mysql_secure_installation and see how the guys did it, who were the ones that configured MariaDB for this OS.
Use sudo to alter your password:
sudo mysql
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'insert_password';
Source: Phoenixnap - Access denied for user root localhost
Fix for macOS
Install MySQL from https://downloads.mysql.com/archives/community/ (8.x is the latest as on date, but ensure that the version is compatible with the macOS version)
Give password for root (let <root-password> be the password) during installation (don't forget to remember the password!)
Select Use Legacy Password Encryption option (that is what I had used and did not try for Use Strong Password Encryption option)
Search and open MySQL.prefPane (use search tool)
Select Configuration tab
Click Select option of Configuration File
Select /private/etc/my.cnf
From terminal open a new or existing file with name /etc/my.cnf (vi /etc/my.cnf) add the following content:
[mysqld]
skip-grant-tables
Restart mysqld as follows:
ps aux | grep mysql
kill -9 <pid1> <pid2> ... (grab pids of all MySQL related processes)
mysqld gets restarted automatically
Verify that the option is set by running the following from terminal:
ps aux | grep mysql
> mysql/bin/mysqld ... --defaults-file=/private/etc/my.cnf ... (output)
Run the following command to connect (let mysql-<version>-macos<version>-x86_64 be the folder where MySQL is installed. To grab the actual folder, run ls /usr/local/ and copy the folder name):
/usr/local/mysql-<version>-macos<version>-x86_64/bin/mysql -uroot -p<root-password>
If you are like me and all the information in previous answers failed, proceed to uninstall all versions of MySQL on your machine, search for all remaining MySQL files using the command sudo find / -name "mysql" and rm -rf every file or directory with the "mysql" name attached to it (you should skip files related to programming language libraries).
Now install a fresh version of MySQL and enjoy. NB: You will lose all your data so weigh your options first.
Sometimes a default password is set when you install it - as mentioned in the documentation. This can be confirmed by the following command.
sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log
It can happen if you don't have enough privileges.
Type su, enter the root password and try again.
After trying a lot with the following answer:
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD('root');
And similar answers, my terminal was still throwing me the following error:
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near...
So after researching on the web, this line solved my problem and let me change the root user password:
sudo mysqladmin --user=root password "[your password]"
windows :
cd \Ampps\mysql\bin :
mysql.exe -u root -pmysql
after mysql start (you can see shell like this mysql> )
use this query :
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'root';
try again access with root root
If you reached this page via Google like I did and none of the previous solutions worked, what turned out to be the error was 100% foolishness on my end. I didn't connect to the server. Once connected everything was smooth sailing.
In case it helps to know my setup, I'm using Sequel Pro and am trying to connect to it with Node using the NPM package, mysql. I didn't think I needed to actually connect (other than run Sequel Pro), because I was doing that from my application already.
I was getting the same error while setting up the mysql-8 zip version. Finally, switched to installer version which worked seamlessly. During installation, there is a prompt to set up the root password. Once set, it works for sure.
According to MariaDB official documentation, in MariaDB 10.4.3 and later, the unix_socket authentication plugin is installed by default.
In order to disable it, and revert to the previous mysql_native_password authentication method, add line below in [mysqld] section of my.cnf file:
[mysqld]
unix_socket=OFF
And then run:
mysql_install_db --auth-root-authentication-method=normal
And then start mysqld
This command will then work fine:
mysqladmin -u root password CHANGEME
For additional information, see Configuring mysql_install_db to Revert to the Previous Authentication Method.
I was trying to leverage Docker desktop on Mac to get 5.7.35 running and this docker-compose.yml configuration allowed it to work:
In particular it was the addition of the line...
command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
...that did the trick
version: '3.3'
services:
mysql_db:
image: mysql:5.7
command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
restart: always
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: 'your_password'
ports:
- '3306:3306'
expose:
- '3306'
volumes:
- ~/your/volume/path:/var/lib/mysql
One thing to check is the from-host filter. It may be "localhost" by default. Are you trying to connect from a remote client? Change this to "%".
On Arch Linux
Package: mysql 8.0.29-1
What worked for me:
Edit my.cnf file, normally can be found at /etc/mysql/my.cnf and append this skip-grant-tables at the bottom/end of the file.
Restart mysql service by invoking sudo systemctl restart mysqld
Ensuring mysql service has started properly by invoking sudo systemctl status mysqld
Login to mysql using 'root' by invoking mysql -u root -p
Flush privileges by invoking flush privileges;
Create new user by CREATE USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'rootpassword';
(If you plan to use this db with PHP), you should instead use this CREATE USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'rootpassword';
Check whether your changes have reflected in db by invoking the following in sequence:
use mysql;
SELECT User, password_last_changed FROM user;
Exit mysql console and comment/remove skip-grant-tables by editing my.cnf file (Refer to step 1 for the location)
Restart the mysql service (Refer to step 2 and step 3)
And that's all.
The '-p' argument doesn't expect a space between the argument name and value.
Instead of
./mysqladmin -u root -p 'redacted'
Use
./mysqladmin -u root -p'redacted'
Or just
./mysqladmin -u root -p
which will prompt you for a password.
Solution: Give up!
Hear me out. I spent about two whole days trying to make MySQL work to no avail, always stuck with permission errors, none of which were fixed by the answers to this question. It got to the point that I thought if I continued I'd go insane.
Out of patience for making it work, I sent the command to install SQLite, only using 450 KB, and it worked perfectly right from the word go.
If you don't have the patience of a saint, go with SQLite and save yourself a lot of time, effort, pain, and storage space..!

MariaDB installed without password prompt

I've installed mariadb from Ubuntu 15.04 repositories using the Ubuntu software center or at the command prompt (apt-get install maraidb-server), but no password is asked for root user.
Now I'm able to connect to mysql on command line without password, but connecting using Mysql-Workbench or python mysqldb library failed with the "Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost'" message
Starting with MariaDB 10.4 root#localhost account is created with the ability to use two authentication plugins:
First, it is configured to try to use the unix_socket authentication plugin. This allows the root#localhost user to login without a password via the local Unix socket file defined by the socket system variable, as long as the login is attempted from a process owned by the operating system root user account.
Second, if authentication fails with the unix_socket authentication plugin, then it is configured to try to use the mysql_native_password authentication plugin. However, an invalid password is initially set, so in order to authenticate this way, a password must be set with SET PASSWORD.
That is why you don't need a password to login on a fresh install.
But then another quote:
When the plugin column is empty, MariaDB defaults to authenticating accounts with either the mysql_native_password or the mysql_old_password plugins. It decides which based on the hash used in the value for the Password column. When there's no password set or when the 4.1 password hash is used, (which is 41 characters long), MariaDB uses the mysql_native_password plugin. The mysql_old_password plugin is used with pre-4.1 password hashes, (which are 16 characters long).
So setting plugin = '' will force it to use password based authentication. Make sure you set a password before that.
sudo mysql -u root
[mysql] use mysql;
[mysql] update user set plugin='' where User='root';
[mysql] flush privileges;
[mysql] \q
sudo mysql -u root
[mysql] use mysql;
[mysql] update user set plugin='' where User='root';
[mysql] flush privileges;
[mysql] \q
This needs to be followed by following command
# mysql_secure_installation
it is common for root to have password-less access if accessing from localhost, I recommend this setting to be left alone.
I also recommend that you create a user with less permissions and allow that user to login remotely.
create user my_admin identified by '12345';
create database my_database;
grant all on my_database.* to my_admin;
This way you have a little more security.
If you do need to connect as root from a tool like workbench, you can configure those tools to create an ssh tunnel and connect to the database as localhost.
As #Pedru noticed, the "Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost'" message is due to the fact that Debian and Ubuntu enable the UNIX_SOCKET Authentication Plugin plugin by default, allowing passwordless login (See also Authentication Plugin - Unix Socket). This is not an installation problem.
It means that if you type mysql -u root -p in the Linux Shell, root is actually the Linux root (or linked to it, I don't know how this actually works). So that if you logged on Linux with another account, you will get an error:
ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'#'localhost'. Better type sudo mysql -u root -p or sudo mysql -u root if the password is not yet defined.
If you want to switch to the mysql_native_password authentication plugin, then you could use
ALTER USER root#localhost IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password;
SET PASSWORD = PASSWORD('new_password');
For further information see
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/authentication-plugin-unix-socket/
For a MariaDB version greater than or equals to 10.2.0, the response of user3054067 is correct.
For a MariaDB version less than 10.2.0, you can do this :
me$ sudo su -
root$ mysql -u root
MariaDB [(none)]> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'#'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
MariaDB [(none)]> UPDATE mysql.user SET plugin='mysql_native_password' WHERE User='root';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1 Changed: 1 Warnings: 0
MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
In another terminal,
me$ mysql -u root -pnew_password
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 83
Server version: 10.0.38-MariaDB-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 Ubuntu 16.04
Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
MariaDB [(none)]>