How to change the MySQL root account password on CentOS 7?

Question

What version of mySQL are you using? I”m using 5.7.10 and had the same problem with logging on as root

There is 2 issues – why can’t I log in as root to start with, and why can I not use ‘mysqld_safe` to start mySQL to reset the root password.

I have no answer to setting up the root password during installation, but here’s what you do to reset the root password

Edit: the initial root password on install can be found by running

grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/linux-installation-yum-repo.html

systemd is now used to look after mySQL instead of mysqld_safe (which is why you get the -bash: mysqld_safe: command not found error – it’s not installed)
The user table structure has changed.

So to reset the root password, you still start mySQL with --skip-grant-tables options and update the user table, but how you do it has changed.

Stop MySQL:
```
sudo systemctl stop mysqld
```

Set the MySQL environment option:

sudo systemctl set-environment MYSQLD_OPTS="--skip-grant-tables"

Start MySQL using the options you just set:
```
sudo systemctl start mysqld
```
Login as root
```
mysql -u root
```

Update the root user password with these mysql commands:

mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET authentication_string = PASSWORD('MyNewPassword')
    -> WHERE User="root" AND Host="localhost";
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit

Edit: As mentioned my shokulei in the comments, for 5.7.6 and later, you should use:

mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'MyNewPass';

Or you’ll get a warning

Stop MySQL
```
sudo systemctl stop mysqld
```
Unset the MySQL environment option so it starts normally next time:
```
sudo systemctl unset-environment MYSQLD_OPTS
```
Start MySQL normally:
```
sudo systemctl start mysqld
```
Try to login using your new password:
```
mysql -u root -p
```

Reference

As it says at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysqld-safe.html,

Note

As of MySQL 5.7.6, for MySQL installation using an RPM
distribution, server startup and shutdown is managed by systemd on
several Linux platforms. On these platforms, mysqld_safe is no longer
installed because it is unnecessary. For more information, see Section
2.5.10, “Managing MySQL Server with systemd”.

Which takes you to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/server-management-using-systemd.html where it mentions the systemctl set-environment MYSQLD_OPTS= towards the bottom of the page.

The password reset commands are at the bottom of http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/resetting-permissions.html

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