mysqladmin user account not secure?
Before you continue playing with mysqladmin, you need to make sure your installation is not intentionally giving away access.

For starters, can you login to mysql like this?

# mysql &lt;hit enter&gt;


If you can get just like that, run this command:

SELECT USER(),CURRENT_USER();



USER() reports how you attempted to authenticate in MySQL
CURRENT_USER() reports how you were allowed to authenticate in MySQL


If CURRENT_USER() return a user and host where the user is blank, then you were allowed in as an anonymous user. At that point, you can remove anonymou users with this:

DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE user='';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;


Now, locate all users with no password with this:

SELECT user,host,password FROM mysql.user;


If any users have no password, you can issue new passwords for user using mysqladmin or you could just assign them as follows:

UPDATE mysql.user SET password=PASSWORD('whateverpassword') WHERE user='...' AND host='...';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;


Now, check for remote users

SELECT user,host FROM mysql.user WHERE host='%';


If you see any, run this:

DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE host='%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;


Make sure when all is said and done that at least root@localhost and/or root@127.0.0.1 exist and have a password

SELECT user,host,password FROM mysql.user WHERE user='root';


I could probably go on. Here are other posts I have about stuff like this:


Cannot drop anonymous user from mysql.user
MySQL error: Access denied for user &#39;a&#39;@&#39;localhost&#39; (using password: YES)
Secure method beside phpMyAdmin for remote mysql
MySQL : Why are there &quot;test&quot; entries in mysql.db?