I had one of those oh-crap moments and forgot the mysql root password in one of my development/test machines.
This is a reblog of someone else's post in case it ever gets deleted, I must say it saved my bacon (or at the very lease a couple hours of hair pulling and reinstall)
Credit to: http://gettechgo.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/how-to-reset-mysql-root-password-linux-o-s/
0. Login as root/su
1. Stop the MySQL service
service mysqld stop
2. Start MySQL Safe mode with skip grant tables option
mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
(press ctrl+z to exit, if required)
3. Start the MySQL service
service mysqld start
4. Log into the MySQL server without any password
mysql -u root -p mysql
5. Reset the password for ‘root’ user
UPDATE user SET password=PASSWORD(‘new-password’) where user=’root’;
6. Flush privileges
flush privileges;
7. Restart the MySQL service
service mysqld restart
8. Log-in with the new password
mysql -u root -p
<enter new password when prompted>
Cheers,
Noveck
