25

I recently installed LAMP on Ubuntu 13.04(32-bit) but forgot my phpMyAdmin password. How can I reset its password without re-installing it?

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42

Simply change or reset your MySQL root password by doing the following:

  1. Stop the MySQL server

    sudo service mysql stop

  2. Start mysqld

    sudo mysqld --skip-grant-tables &

  3. Login to MySQL as root

    mysql -u root mysql

  4. Change MYSECRET with your new root password

    UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('MYSECRET') WHERE User='root'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; exit;

  5. Kill mysqld 

    sudo pkill mysqld

  6. Start mysql

    sudo service mysql start

  7. Login to phpmyadmin as root with your new password

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  • Can you please explain the use of #2 Start mysqld? Also, how will I be able to execute #3 since I don't remember my MySQL password anymore? – tHe_VaGaBonD Jul 22 '13 at 16:40
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    The idea for #2 is that you are spawning a version of the MySQL daemon without a password. This allows you to reset it on step 4. – jctoledo Aug 6 '13 at 15:54
  • Using Ubuntu 16 I was not able to run mysqld manually - trying to create socket and socket lock file in a dir that didn't even exist! But if you look at the very NEXT answer (which is not the accepted answer) that is what I needed - I stupidly forgot the password for the phpmyadmin user, and there it is, in plain text, in the phpmyadmin.conf folder! – Brian B Sep 6 '17 at 18:09
  • ERROR 1054 (42S22): Unknown column 'Password' in 'field list' – Tiago Gouvêa Dec 26 '18 at 17:04
32

You don't actually need to reset your username and password, if you can see them.

In your terminal window, type:

sudo -H gedit /etc/dbconfig-common/phpmyadmin.conf

This will open your phpmyadmin configurations.

There, you will see your username under dbc_dbuser='your_username' and password under dbc_dbpass='your_password'.

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  • I could not able to find **/etc/dbconfig-common/ ** path. Both "MySQL Database" & "Apache Web Server" running successfully. Any suggestion !! This I'm trying to work on Wordpress. – CoDe Aug 1 '16 at 9:41
  • Don't forget to restart mysql " sudo service mysql restart " – alnassre Aug 24 '16 at 15:15
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    I found a user called phpmyadmin, but not my main root user. That user also did not have permissions to add new users or databases! – Yahya Uddin Aug 24 '16 at 22:57
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    Nice solution ! – ivva Feb 26 '18 at 17:14
6

There is a workaround on Debian (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.) where there is a second admin account automatically generated by the system called 

debian-sys-maint

You can see (and should not change) its password via 

sudo nano /etc/mysql/debian.cnf

It is possible (sure on Ubuntu 16.04) to use that account both in phpMyAdmin as well as in the command line 

mysql -u debian-sys-maint -p

The account has exactly the same privileges as phpMyAdmin's / MySQL's root.

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