--init-file=C:\\mysql-init.txt 

The appropriate --defaults-file  setting can be found using the Services Manager: From the Start menu, select Control Panel , then Administrative Tools , then Services . Find the MySQL service in the list, right-click it, and choose the Properties  option. The Path to executable  field contains the --defaults-file  setting. 

7. After the server has started successfully, delete C:\mysql-init.txt . 

You should now be able to connect to the MySQL server as root  using the new password. Stop the MySQL server and restart it normally. If you run the server as a service, start it from the Windows Services window. If you start the server manually, use whatever command you normally use. 

## Resetting the Root Password: Unix and Unix-Like Systems 

On Unix, use the following procedure to reset the password for the MySQL ’root’@’localhost’ account. To change the password for a root  account with a different host name part, modify the instructions to use that host name. 

The instructions assume that you start the MySQL server from the Unix login account that you normally use for running it. For example, if you run the server using the mysql  login account, you should log in as mysql  before using the instructions. Alternatively, you can log in as root , but in this case you must  start mysqld  with the --user=mysql  option. If you start the server as root  without using --user=mysql , the server may create root -owned files in the data directory, such as log files, and these may cause permission-related problems for future server startups. If that happens, you must either change the ownership of the files to mysql  or remove them. 

1. Log on to your system as the Unix user that the MySQL server runs as (for example, mysql ). 

2. Stop the MySQL server if it is running. Locate the .pid  file that contains the server’s process ID. The exact location and name of this file depend on your distribution, host name, and configuration. Common locations are /var/lib/mysql/ , /var/run/mysqld/ , and /usr/local/mysql/data/ . Generally, the file name has an extension of .pid  and begins with either mysqld  or your system’s host name. 

Stop the MySQL server by sending a normal kill  (not kill -9 ) to the mysqld  process. Use the actual path name of the .pid  file in the following command: 

shell> kill ‘cat /mysql-data-directory/host_name.pid‘ 

Use backticks (not forward quotation marks) with the cat  command. These cause the output of cat  to be substituted into the kill  command. 

3. Create a text file containing the password-assignment statement on a single line. Replace the password with the password that you want to use. 

ALTER USER ’root’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ’MyNewPass’; 

4. Save the file. This example assumes that you name the file /home/me/mysql-init . The file contains the password, so do not save it where it can be read by other users. If you are not logged in as mysql (the user the server runs as), make sure that the file has permissions that permit mysql  to read it. 

5. Start the MySQL server with the init_file  system variable set to name the file: 

shell> mysqld --init-file=/home/me/mysql-init & 

The server executes the contents of the file named by the init_file  system variable at startup, changing the ’root’@’localhost’  account password. 

