How can I change root username in MySQL

Question

I'm running MySQL in Ubuntu, default installation.

How can I change the username from root to another one, let's say admin? Preferably from the command line.

Answer 1

After connecting to MySQL run

use mysql;
update user set user='admin' where user='root';
flush privileges;

That's it.

If you also want to change password, in MySQL < 5.7, run

update user set password=PASSWORD('new password') where user='admin';

before flush privileges;. In MySQL >= 5.7, the password field in the user table was renamed to authentication_string, so the above line becomes:

update user set authentication_string=PASSWORD('new password') where user='admin';