Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' while attempting to grant privileges. How do I grant privileges?

Question

I've looked at a number of similar questions and so I'm demonstrating that I've checked the basics. Though of course, that doesn't mean I haven't missed something totally obvious. :-)

My question is: why am I denied access on a user with the privileges to do what I'm trying to do and where I have already typed the password and been granted access? (For the sake of completeness, I tried typing the wrong password just to make sure that MySQL client would deny me access at program start.)

Background:

Logged in to the shell of the machine running the MySQL server via ssh, I log in as root:

[myname@host ~]$ mysql -u root -p -hlocalhost Enter password:  Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 62396 Server version: 5.5.18-log MySQL Community Server (GPL)  Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.  mysql>  

Awesome. My reading of the answers to similar questions suggests that I should make sure the the privileges are current with what is in the grant tables

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)  mysql>  

Next make sure I am who I think I am:

mysql> SELECT user(); +----------------+ | user()         | +----------------+ | root@localhost | +----------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) 

...and really really make sure:

mysql> SELECT current_user(); +----------------+ | current_user() | +----------------+ | root@localhost | +----------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)  mysql>  

So far so good. Now what privileges do I have?

mysql> SHOW GRANTS FOR 'root'@'localhost'; +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Grants for root@localhost                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, RELOAD, SHUTDOWN, PROCESS, FILE, REFERENCES, INDEX, ALTER, SHOW DATABASES, SUPER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, REPLICATION SLAVE, REPLICATION CLIENT, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, CREATE USER, EVENT, TRIGGER ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '[OBSCURED]' WITH GRANT OPTION | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) 

Now that's a little hard to read, so lets try this way (you will also get to see that there is a non-localhost 'root' user):

mysql> SELECT * FROM mysql.user WHERE User='root'\G *************************** 1. row ***************************                  Host: localhost                  User: root              Password: *[OBSCURED]           Select_priv: Y           Insert_priv: Y           Update_priv: Y           Delete_priv: Y           Create_priv: Y             Drop_priv: Y           Reload_priv: Y         Shutdown_priv: Y          Process_priv: Y             File_priv: Y            Grant_priv: Y       References_priv: Y            Index_priv: Y            Alter_priv: Y          Show_db_priv: Y            Super_priv: Y Create_tmp_table_priv: Y      Lock_tables_priv: Y          Execute_priv: Y       Repl_slave_priv: Y      Repl_client_priv: Y      Create_view_priv: Y        Show_view_priv: Y   Create_routine_priv: Y    Alter_routine_priv: Y      Create_user_priv: Y            Event_priv: Y          Trigger_priv: Y              ssl_type:             ssl_cipher:            x509_issuer:           x509_subject:          max_questions: 0           max_updates: 0       max_connections: 0  max_user_connections: 0 *************************** 2. row ***************************                  Host: [HOSTNAME].com                  User: root              Password: *[OBSCURED]           Select_priv: Y           Insert_priv: Y           Update_priv: Y           Delete_priv: Y           Create_priv: Y             Drop_priv: Y           Reload_priv: Y         Shutdown_priv: Y          Process_priv: Y             File_priv: Y            Grant_priv: Y       References_priv: Y            Index_priv: Y            Alter_priv: Y          Show_db_priv: Y            Super_priv: Y Create_tmp_table_priv: Y      Lock_tables_priv: Y          Execute_priv: Y       Repl_slave_priv: Y      Repl_client_priv: Y      Create_view_priv: Y        Show_view_priv: Y   Create_routine_priv: Y    Alter_routine_priv: Y      Create_user_priv: Y            Event_priv: Y          Trigger_priv: Y              ssl_type:             ssl_cipher:            x509_issuer:           x509_subject:          max_questions: 0           max_updates: 0       max_connections: 0  max_user_connections: 0  2 rows in set (0.00 sec) 

Awesome! MySQL thinks that I am root@localhost and root@localhost has all those privileges. That means I ought to be able to do what I want, right?

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'steves'@'[hostname].com' IDENTIFIED BY '[OBSCURED]' WITH GRANT OPTION; ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES) 

How could I have screwed up something this basic?

Side note: for anyone who wants to suggest that I not have a user named root with all privileges, that's great and something I'll consider doing once I can give another user some privileges.

Thank you!

Answer 1

I also had the same problem with this but on Windows after upgrading to MySQL 5.5 from MySQL 5.1. I already tried changing, creating, and resetting password mentioned in here, here, here, and here, no clue. I still get the same error:

ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES) 

I'm able to connect normally, show all databases, do selects and inserts, create and add users, and but when it comes to GRANT, I'm screwed up. Those access denied error shows up again.

I managed to solve this problem by fixing the privileges by the following command on the MySQL server bin/ directory as mentioned in here:

C:\MySQL Server 5.5\bin> mysql_upgrade 

Then, the problem gone away. I hope this solution works on Linux too since usually MySQL provide the same command both on Linux and Windows.