How to set root password to null

Question

How can I change the password for root user of MySQL to null -- meaning no password or '' -- from the MySQL command line client?

Answer 1

Worked for me and "5.7.11 MySQL Community Server":

use mysql; update user set authentication_string=password(''), plugin='mysql_native_password' where user='root'; 

I had to change the 'plugin' field as well because it was set to 'auth_socket'.

After that I could connect as mysql -u root without a password.

Answer 2

If you want an empty password, you should set the password to null and not use the Password hash function, as such:

On the command line:

sudo service mysql stop sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking & mysql -uroot 

In MySQL:

use mysql; update user set password=null where User='root'; flush privileges; quit;