Reset MySQL root password

• Kill the mysql process using. Some process has may not be in the folder in the example below. The folder can be found my using ps aux | grep mysqld and looking for the file that ends with .pid or starts with mysqld
  
  • $: kill `cat /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid`
  
  


• Create a file with entries below.
  
  • UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('MyNewPass') WHERE User='root';
  
  
  • FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
  
  


• Start mysql using the command below. Where --init-file is the path to the file created above.
  
  • mysqld_safe --init-file=/home/me/mysql-init &
  
  
  
• Login to mysql using the new mysql root password
  

MySQL root password should be reset now.

Reference: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/resetting-permissions.html#resetting-permissions-unix