Reset mysql forgotten password

First of all you will need to ensure that your database is stopped:

root@steve:~# /etc/init.d/mysql stop

Now you should start up the database in the background, via the mysqld_safe command:

root@steve:~# /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
[1] 6702
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
mysqld_safe[6763]: started

Here you can see the new job (number "1") has started and the server is running with the process ID (PID) of 6702.

Now that the server is running with the --skip-grant-tables flag you can connect to it without a password and complete the job:

root@steve:~$ mysql --user=root mysql
Enter password:

mysql> update user set Password=PASSWORD('new-password-here') WHERE User='root';
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.04 sec)
Rows matched: 2  Changed: 2  Warnings: 0

mysql> flush privileges;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

mysql> exit
Bye

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