2.10.4 Securing the Initial MySQL Accounts

The MySQL installation process involves initializing the data directory, including the mysql database containing the grant tables that define MySQL accounts. For details, see Section 2.10, “Postinstallation Setup and Testing”.

This section describes how to assign passwords to the initial accounts created during the MySQL installation procedure, if you have not already done so.

The mysql.user grant table defines the initial MySQL user accounts and their access privileges:

• Some accounts have the user name root. These are superuser accounts that have all privileges and can do anything. If these root accounts have empty passwords, anyone can connect to the MySQL server as root without a password and be granted all privileges.

  • On Windows, root accounts are created that permit connections from the local host only. Connections can be made by specifying the host name localhost, the IP address 127.0.0.1, or the IPv6 address ::1. If the user selects the Enable root access from remote machines option during installation, the Windows installer creates another root account that permits connections from any host.

  • On Unix, each root account permits connections from the local host. Connections can be made by specifying the host name localhost, the IP address 127.0.0.1, the IPv6 address ::1, or the actual host name or IP address.

  An attempt to connect to the host 127.0.0.1 normally resolves to the localhost account. However, this fails if the server is run with the --skip-name-resolve option, so the 127.0.0.1 account is useful in that case. The ::1 account is used for IPv6 connections.

• If accounts for anonymous users were created, these have an empty user name. The anonymous accounts have no password, so anyone can use them to connect to the MySQL server.

  • On Windows, there is one anonymous account that permits connections from the local host. Connections can be made by specifying a host name of localhost.

  • On Unix, each anonymous account permits connections from the local host. Connections can be made by specifying a host name of localhost for one of the accounts, or the actual host name or IP address for the other.

  • The 'root'@'localhost' account also has a row in the mysql.proxies_priv table that enables granting the PROXY privilege for ''@'', that is, for all users and all hosts. This enables root to set up proxy users, as well as to delegate to other accounts the authority to set up proxy users. See Section 6.3.7, “Proxy Users”.

To display which accounts exist in the mysql.user table and check whether their passwords are empty, use the following statement:

mysql> SELECT User, Host, Password FROM mysql.user;
+------+--------------------+----------+
| User | Host               | Password |
+------+--------------------+----------+
| root | localhost          |          |
| root | myhost.example.com |          |
| root | 127.0.0.1          |          |
| root | ::1                |          |
|      | localhost          |          |
|      | myhost.example.com |          |
+------+--------------------+----------+

This output indicates that there are several root and anonymous-user accounts, none of which have passwords. The output might differ on your system, but the presence of accounts with empty passwords means that your MySQL installation is unprotected until you do something about it:

• Assign a password to each MySQL root account that does not have one.

• To prevent clients from connecting as anonymous users without a password, either assign a password to each anonymous account or remove the accounts.

In addition, the mysql.db table contains rows that permit all accounts to access the test database and other databases with names that start with test_. This is true even for accounts that otherwise have no special privileges such as the default anonymous accounts. This is convenient for testing but inadvisable on production servers. Administrators who want database access restricted only to accounts that have permissions granted explicitly for that purpose should remove these mysql.db table rows.

The following instructions describe how to set up passwords for the initial MySQL accounts, first for the root accounts, then for the anonymous accounts. The instructions also cover how to remove anonymous accounts, should you prefer not to permit anonymous access at all, and describe how to remove permissive access to test databases. Replace new_password in the examples with the password that you want to use. Replace host_name with the name of the server host. You can determine this name from the output of the preceding SELECT statement. For the output shown, host_name is myhost.example.com.

Note

For additional information about setting passwords, see Section 6.3.5, “Assigning Account Passwords”. If you forget your root password after setting it, see Section B.5.3.2, “How to Reset the Root Password”.

To set up additional accounts, see Section 6.3.2, “Adding User Accounts”.

You might want to defer setting the passwords until later, to avoid the need to specify them while you perform additional setup or testing. However, be sure to set them before using your installation for production purposes.

Note

On Windows, you can also perform the process described in this section using the Configuration Wizard (see Section 2.3.6.11, “The Security Options Dialog”). On all platforms, the MySQL distribution includes mysql_secure_installation, a command-line utility that automates much of the process of securing a MySQL installation. MySQL Workbench is available on all platforms, and also offers the ability to manage user accounts (see Chapter 26, MySQL Workbench ).

Assigning root Account Passwords

A root account password can be set several ways. The following discussion demonstrates three methods:

• Use the SET PASSWORD statement

• Use the UPDATE statement

• Use the mysqladmin command-line client program

To assign passwords using SET PASSWORD, connect to the server as root and issue a SET PASSWORD statement for each root account listed in the mysql.user table.

For Windows, do this:

shell> mysql -u root
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'127.0.0.1' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'::1' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'%' = PASSWORD('new_password');

The last statement is unnecessary if the mysql.user table has no root account with a host value of %.

For Unix, do this:

shell> mysql -u root
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'127.0.0.1' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'::1' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'host_name' = PASSWORD('new_password');

You can also use a single statement that assigns a password to all root accounts by using UPDATE to modify the mysql.user table directly. This method works on any platform:

shell> mysql -u root
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('new_password')
    ->     WHERE User = 'root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

The FLUSH statement causes the server to reread the grant tables. Without it, the password change remains unnoticed by the server until you restart it.

To assign passwords to the root accounts using mysqladmin, execute the following commands:

shell> mysqladmin -u root password "new_password"
shell> mysqladmin -u root -h host_name password "new_password"

Those commands apply both to Windows and to Unix. The double quotation marks around the password are not always necessary, but you should use them if the password contains spaces or other characters that are special to your command interpreter.

The mysqladmin method of setting the root account passwords does not work for the 'root'@'127.0.0.1' or 'root'@'::1' account. Use the SET PASSWORD method shown earlier.

After the root passwords have been set, you must supply the appropriate password whenever you connect as root to the server. For example, to shut down the server with mysqladmin, use this command:

shell> mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown
Enter password: (enter root password here)

The mysql commands in the following instructions include a -p option based on the assumption that you have assigned the root account passwords using the preceding instructions and must specify that password when connecting to the server.

Assigning Anonymous Account Passwords

To assign passwords to the anonymous accounts, connect to the server as root, then use either SET PASSWORD or UPDATE.

To use SET PASSWORD on Windows, do this:

shell> mysql -u root -p
Enter password: (enter root password here)
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR ''@'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');

To use SET PASSWORD on Unix, do this:

shell> mysql -u root -p
Enter password: (enter root password here)
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR ''@'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR ''@'host_name' = PASSWORD('new_password');

To set the anonymous-user account passwords with a single UPDATE statement, do this (on any platform):

shell> mysql -u root -p
Enter password: (enter root password here)
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('new_password')
    ->     WHERE User = '';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

The FLUSH statement causes the server to reread the grant tables. Without it, the password change remains unnoticed by the server until you restart it.

Removing Anonymous Accounts

If you prefer to remove any anonymous accounts rather than assigning them passwords, do so as follows on Windows:

shell> mysql -u root -p
Enter password: (enter root password here)
mysql> DROP USER ''@'localhost';

On Unix, remove the anonymous accounts like this:

shell> mysql -u root -p
Enter password: (enter root password here)
mysql> DROP USER ''@'localhost';
mysql> DROP USER ''@'host_name';

Securing Test Databases

By default, the mysql.db table contains rows that permit access by any user to the test database and other databases with names that start with test_. (These rows have an empty User column value, which for access-checking purposes matches any user name.) This means that such databases can be used even by accounts that otherwise possess no privileges. If you want to remove any-user access to test databases, do so as follows:

shell> mysql -u root -p
Enter password: (enter root password here)
mysql> DELETE FROM mysql.db WHERE Db LIKE 'test%';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

The FLUSH statement causes the server to reread the grant tables. Without it, the privilege change remains unnoticed by the server until you restart it.

With the preceding change, only users who have global database privileges or privileges granted explicitly for the test database can use it. However, if you prefer that the database not exist at all, drop it:

mysql> DROP DATABASE test;