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(mysql.info)User names

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MySQL User Names and Passwords
------------------------------

There are several distinctions between the way user names and passwords
are used by MySQL and the way they are used by Unix or Windows:

   * User names, as used by MySQL for authentication purposes, have
     nothing to do with Unix user names (login names) or Windows user
     names.  Most MySQL clients by default try to log in using the
     current Unix user name as the MySQL user name, but that is for
     convenience only.  Client programs allow a different name to be
     specified with the `-u' or `--user' options. This means that you
     can't make a database secure in any way unless all MySQL user
     names have passwords.  Anyone may attempt to connect to the server
     using any name, and they will succeed if they specify any name
     that doesn't have a password.

   * MySQL user names can be up to 16 characters long; Unix user names
     typically are limited to 8 characters.

   * MySQL passwords have nothing to do with Unix passwords.  There is
     no necessary connection between the password you use to log in to
     a Unix machine and the password you use to access a database on
     that machine.

   * MySQL encrypts passwords using a different algorithm than the one
     used during the Unix login process.  See the descriptions of the
     `PASSWORD()' and `ENCRYPT()' functions in Note: Miscellaneous
     functions.  Note that even if the password is stored
     'scrambled', and knowing your 'scrambled' password is enough to be
     able to connect to the MySQL server!

MySQL users and their privileges are normally created with the `GRANT'
command. Note: GRANT.

When you login to a MySQL server with a command line client you should
specify the password with `--password=your-password'.  Note:
Connecting.

     mysql --user=monty --password=guess database_name

If you want the client to prompt for a password, you should use
`--password' without any argument

     mysql --user=monty --password database_name

or the short form:

     mysql -u monty -p database_name

Note that in the last example the password is *NOT* 'database_name'.

If you want to use the `-p' option to supply a password you should do so
like this:

     mysql -u monty -pguess database_name

On some systems, the library call that MySQL uses to prompt for a
password will automatically cut the password to 8 characters. Internally
MySQL doesn't have any limit for the length of the password.