Default password of mysql in ubuntu server 16.04

Question

I have installed ubuntu 16.04 server. Mysql server was installed by default in it. When I am trying to access the mysql with mysql -u root -p, I am unable to log in to mysql because I dont have the password. Is there any default password?

I have also tried with --skip-grant-tables, even this does not work. Even trying to log in with just mysql -u root is a failure.

Answer 1

This is what you are looking for:
sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf
MySql on Debian-base Linux usually use a configuration file with the credentials.

Answer 2

I had a fresh installation of mysql-server on Ubuntu 18.10 and couldn't login with default password. Then only I got to know that by default root user is authenticated using auth_socket. So as in the answer when the plugin changed to mysql_native_password, we can use mysql default password

$ sudo apt install mysql-server $ sudo cat /etc/mysql/debian.cnf 

You can find the following lines in there

user     = debian-sys-maint password = password_for_the_user 

Then:

$ mysql -u debian-sys-maint -p Enter password:  

type the password from debian.cnf

mysql> USE mysql mysql> SELECT User, Host, plugin FROM mysql.user;  +------------------+-----------+-----------------------+ | User             | Host      | plugin                | +------------------+-----------+-----------------------+ | root             | localhost | auth_socket           | | mysql.session    | localhost | mysql_native_password | | mysql.sys        | localhost | mysql_native_password | | debian-sys-maint | localhost | mysql_native_password | +------------------+-----------+-----------------------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec)  mysql> UPDATE user SET plugin='mysql_native_password' WHERE User='root'; mysql> COMMIT;  

Either:

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

Or:

// For MySQL 5.7+

mysql>UPDATE mysql.user SET authentication_string=PASSWORD('new_password') where user='root'; 

--Update--

Sometimes you will need to restart your mysql server.

sudo service mysql restart 

or

sudo systemctl restart mysql