How do I turn off the mysql password validation?

Building on the answer from Sharfi, edit the /etc/my.cnf file and add just this one line:

validate_password_policy=LOW

That should sufficiently neuter the validation as requested by the OP. You will probably want to restart mysqld after this change. Depending on your OS, it would look something like:

sudo service mysqld restart

validate_password_policy takes either values 0, 1, or 2 or words LOW, MEDIUM, and STRONG which correspond to those numbers. The default is MEDIUM (1) which requires passwords contain at least one upper case letter, one lower case letter, one digit, and one special character, and that the total password length is at least 8 characters. Changing to LOW as I suggest here then only will check for length, which if it hasn't been changed through other parameters will check for a length of 8. If you wanted to shorten that length limit too, you could also add validate_password_length in to the my.cnf file.

For more info about the levels and details, see the mysql doc.

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For MySQL 8, the property has changed from "validate_password_policy" to "validate_password.policy". See the updated mysql doc for the latest info.

Here is what I do to remove the validate password plugin:

1. Login to the mysql server as root mysql -h localhost -u root -p
2. Run the following sql command: uninstall plugin validate_password;
3. If last line doesn't work (new mysql release), you should execute UNINSTALL COMPONENT 'file://component_validate_password';

I would not recommend this solution for a production system. I used this solution on a local mysql instance for development purposes only.

For mysql 8.0 the command to disable password validation component is:

UNINSTALL COMPONENT 'file://component_validate_password';

To install it back again, the command is:

INSTALL COMPONENT 'file://component_validate_password';

If you just want to change the policy of password validation plugin:

SET GLOBAL validate_password.policy = 0;   # For LOW
SET GLOBAL validate_password.policy = 1;   # For MEDIUM
SET GLOBAL validate_password.policy = 2;   # For HIGH