MySQL Password

[thaxRax]

Sorry if this seems simple to you but I need to ask this and several other stupid questions.

 

I started learning MySQL which I downloaded with XAMPP and was having no problems. Then I read that my databases were vulnerable to attack because I hadn't changed my password. I'm pretty sure the original password was 'root' which is a well known password of course. I was only using the databases within 'localhost' but worried my data could be exposed to an outside party.

 

After I changed my MySQL password from a command prompt I could no longer access MySQL databases from within XAMPP's MyAdmin software, as I hadn't changed the password in that program. So eventually I figured out how to change the password from XAMPP's security page. HOWEVER, the XAMPP security page would not allow me to change the password to a new password of more than 15 characters.

 

The new password was more than 15 characters so that left me without that option. So (a couple weeks later) I tried changing the password again at the command prompt. I seem to have successfully changed it but when I go to XAMPP's security page and change the password to my new password I have no luck, every time the security page tells me "PASSWORD WAS SUCCESSFULLY CHANGED" yet when I stop and restart MySQL I still have no access to the admin page.

 

This is driving me crazy, has anyone got any suggestions? I'm new to PHP / MySQL and find it difficult to get good information as different sources use different versions of software or different settings and the result is I'm wasting too much time trying to get solutions to what probably are simple problems to someone more experienced.

 

Thanks in advance.

[cpd]

So you can successfully log in to the server using the command prompt? But can't log in through, what I assume is, phpMyAdmin? 

[Jessica]

Unless you made your personal computer accessible over the internet, there's no reason to change your local setup.

[thaxRax]

UPDATE -- Thanks Jessica that question was nagging at me. Different sources have given ambiguous info in that regard.

 

I was able to log in  to MySQL again from PHP MyAdmin. Not sure why I eventually got in but one thing I did do was to reboot the system. Whether that had an effect I can't tell  but I'd already stopped and restarted MySQL many times.

 

Yes, cpd, that was  exactly the problem. So now I'm not sure whether it was a change I made from command prompt  or from MyAdmin's security page or both. I do know that initially when trying to update the password in PHP My Admin it kept telling me the password could not be more than 15 CHARACTERS in length, whereas my password I changed to in the command prompt was longer than that.

[cpd]

phpMyAdmin is a third party tool. Whenever you're messing with your database, see if you can access it directly via command prompt (as you did) and if not, then you know its the server - and vice versa.

 

The character restriction is something put on by the phpMyAdmin developers not the MySQL Server. You can probably change the settings somewhere, just do a bit of research.