How do I login as root on MySQL on OS X?

Question

I've just set up MySQL on my computer (OS X 10.7), and it seems to be working, judging by the "mysqld" in the activity monitor and the new icon in my System Preferences.

However I'm having trouble doing anything with MySQL, as I need to login at least as the root user, but it doesn't let me. So let's run through what I've been doing and what error messages I'm getting:

Firstly, I start up MySQL via the "mysql" unix executable file. This seems to work, as my entries are now preceded with

 mysql> 

Also, I can type

 help;

and I get MySQL's help list. So then I go to do something, like create a database:

 CREATE DATABASE books;

but I get the following error:

 ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user ''@'localhost' to database 'books'

So then I figure I need to login, and that logging in as the root user should be enough. I enter the following:

 mysql -u root -p;

But I get the 1064 error saying my syntax is wrong. I've had a look around through a number of websites, and this never seems to be a problematic step. Any clues on what's going wrong for me?

Answer 1

At the OSX Terminal prompt you enter mysql -u root to actually start the command line client that connects to the server.

shell> represents whatever your shell prompt actually looks like.

You do not enter this in after you have already typed mysql at the command line prompt.

Here is an example session:

shell> mysql -u root
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('newpwd');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'127.0.0.1' = PASSWORD('newpwd');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'::1' = PASSWORD('newpwd');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'host_name' = PASSWORD('newpwd');

NOTE: you might need to preface the shell> mysql -u root with shell> sudo mysql -u root

My shell prompt is customized to be[jhr@Blackintosh] [/usr/local/mysql-5.5.25a-osx10.6-x86_64/bin] with a \n on the end so ./mysql -u root it typed at the on the next line down. The rest is what the output of that command should be. The shell prompt is replaced by the prompt of the mysql program prompt.

Here is what my shell output looks like

[jhr@Blackintosh] [/usr/local/mysql-5.5.25a-osx10.6-x86_64/bin] 
./mysql -u root
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 5
Server version: 5.5.25a MySQL Community Server (GPL)

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Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql>