ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost'

Some systems like Ubuntu, mysql is using by default the UNIX auth_socket plugin.

Basically means that: db_users using it, will be "auth" by the system user credentias. You can see if your root user is set up like this by doing the following:

$ sudo mysql -u root # I had to use "sudo" since is new installation

mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> SELECT User, Host, plugin FROM mysql.user;

+------------------+-----------------------+
| User             | plugin                |
+------------------+-----------------------+
| root             | auth_socket           |
| mysql.sys        | mysql_native_password |
| debian-sys-maint | mysql_native_password |
+------------------+-----------------------+

As you can see in the query, the root user is using the auth_socket plugin

There are 2 ways to solve this:

  1. You can set the root user to use the mysql_native_password plugin
  2. You can create a new db_user with you system_user (recommended)

Option 1:

$ sudo mysql -u root # I had to use "sudo" since is new installation

mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> UPDATE user SET plugin='mysql_native_password' WHERE User='root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit;

$ sudo service mysql restart

Option 2: (replace YOUR_SYSTEM_USER with the username you have)

$ sudo mysql -u root # I had to use "sudo" since is new installation

mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> CREATE USER 'YOUR_SYSTEM_USER'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR_PASSWD';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'YOUR_SYSTEM_USER'@'localhost';
mysql> UPDATE user SET plugin='auth_socket' WHERE User='YOUR_SYSTEM_USER';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit;

$ sudo service mysql restart

Remember that if you use option #2 you'll have to connect to mysql as your system username (mysql -u YOUR_SYSTEM_USER)

Note: On some systems (e.g., Debian stretch) 'auth_socket' plugin is called 'unix_socket', so the corresponding SQL command should be: UPDATE user SET plugin='unix_socket' WHERE User='YOUR_SYSTEM_USER';

Update: from @andy's comment seems that mysql 8.x.x updated/replaced the auth_socket for caching_sha2_password I don't have a system setup with mysql 8.x.x to test this, however the steps above should help you to understand the issue. Here's the reply:

One change as of MySQL 8.0.4 is that the new default authentication plugin is 'caching_sha2_password'. The new 'YOUR_SYSTEM_USER' will have this auth plugin and you can login from the bash shell now with "mysql -u YOUR_SYSTEM_USER -p" and provide the password for this user on the prompt. No need for the "UPDATE user SET plugin" step. For the 8.0.4 default auth plugin update see, https://mysqlserverteam.com/mysql-8-0-4-new-default-authentication-plugin-caching_sha2_password/


Check here:

NEW Version of MYSQL does it this way.

In the new my-sql if the password is left empty while installing then it is based on the auth_socket plugin.

The correct way is to login to my-sql with sudo privilege.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

And then updating the password using:

$ ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'new-password';

Once this is done stop and start the mysql server.

$  sudo service mysql stop
$  sudo service mysql start

For complete details you can refer to this link.

Do comment for any doubt.


I was having this issue on an Debian 8 VM that I was interacting with through Putty on my Windows 10 desktop.

I tried the various suggestions on here but nothing quite worked and I am running MariaDB on the Debian host. In the end I found that I couldn't start the db server in safe mode but I didn't need to and the following commands actually worked for me i.e. allowing a newly created MySql user to log into the MySql/MariaDB server:

sudo service mysql restart
sudo mysql # logs in automatically into MariaDB
use mysql;
update user set plugin='' where user='your_user_name';
flush privileges;
exit;
sudo service mysql restart # restarts the mysql service

If the above doesn't quite work for you, follow the steps outlined in zetacu's post above (zetacu) then follow my steps.

Now you should be able to use a remote terminal client and securely log into mysql using the command:

mysql -u your_user_name -p

*type in the password when prompted

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