Question: I have been bitten several times by the 'debian-sys-maint' user that is installed by default on the mysql-server packages installed from the Ubuntu repositories.

Generally what happens is I pull a fresh copy of our production database (which is not running on Debian/Ubuntu) for troubleshooting or new development and forget to exclude the mysql.user table hence losing the debian-sys-maint user. 

If we add new mysql users for whatever reason, I have to 'merge' these into my development environment as opposed to just overlaying the table.

Without the user my system still seems functional, but plagued with errors such as:

```
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart
Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld...failed.
error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'

```

* What is debian-sys-maint used for?
	+ Is there a better way for the package maintainers to do what they're trying to do?
* What is the easiest way to restore it after I've lost it?
* What is the correct/minimal set of privileges for this user?
	+ Seems like poor idea to 'grant all privileges on \*.\* ...'

**Edit**

Additional question - Is the password in /etc/mysql/debian.cnf already hashed or is this the plaintext password? It matters when you go to recreate the user and I never seem to get it right on the first try.

Thanks

Answer: 
You could also:

```
sudo dpkg-reconfigure mysql-server-5.0

```

Which will give you the option to recreate the debian-sys-maint user. Existing users and databases are safe.
As a side note to this, take a look at [this mysqlperformanceblog post](http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/01/28/the-perils-of-innodb-with-debian-and-startup-scripts/) for reasons why you might want to disable the debian-specific stuff.