Installing MySQL in Ubuntu|Linux|Windows Subsystem for Linux from Scratch

5 min readJul 4, 2019

Lets purge everything before starting (in case you installed previously)

sudo apt-get remove --purge *mysql*
sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql /var/lib/mysql
sudo apt-get remove --purge *mariadb*
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean

and again, verified that both MySQL and MariaDB (if installed previously)were removed

dpkg -l | grep mariadb
dpkg -l | grep mysql

Now to fix all broken repositories

sudo apt-get install -f

Now Upgrading the Repositories

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Now, to install MySQL 5.7, simply type:

sudo apt install mysql-server

Secure MySQL Installation

Execute the below command on your system to make security changes on your Database server. This will prompt some questions. To do the high security provide all answers to yes

sudo mysql_secure_installationharshit95@harshit95-VirtualBox:~$ sudo mysql_secure_installationSecuring the MySQL server deployment.Connecting to MySQL using a blank password.VALIDATE PASSWORD PLUGIN can be used to test passwords
and improve security. It checks the strength of password
and allows the users to set only those passwords which are
secure enough. Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD plugin?Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No: yThere are three levels of password validation policy:LOW    Length >= 8
MEDIUM Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, and special characters
STRONG Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, special characters and dictionary                  filePlease enter 0 = LOW, 1 = MEDIUM and 2 = STRONG: 0
Please set the password for root here.New password:Re-enter new password:Estimated strength of the password: 50
Do you wish to continue with the password provided?(Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user,
allowing anyone to log into MySQL without having to have
a user account created for them. This is intended only for
testing, and to make the installation go a bit smoother.
You should remove them before moving into a production
environment.Remove anonymous users? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
Success.Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from
'localhost'. This ensures that someone cannot guess at
the root password from the network.Disallow root login remotely? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : n... skipping.
By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that
anyone can access. This is also intended only for testing,
and should be removed before moving into a production
environment.Remove test database and access to it? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : n... skipping.
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes
made so far will take effect immediately.Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
Success.All done!
harshit95@harshit95-VirtualBox:~$

Connect to MySQL

The MySQL server has been installed on your system. Now connect to the MySQL database using the command line. Use root account password set in above step

Now if you try to connect to Mysql using the root user (command give below)you will end up with message Access Denied root@localhost

 $ mysql -u root  -p

First, start the MySQL shell by running the following command as sudo:

$ sudo mysql

In the MySQL prompt, enter the following command that lets you check the authentication method/plugin that all your MySQL accounts are currently using:

mysql> SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

In the above output, you can see that root is using the auth-socket plugin for authentication by default.

Now you have 2 options either

Option 1:Change the authentication method for root

Our purpose here is that the root user should authenticate with a password on MySQL.

mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';

From now on your root will not have the password you specified while running the included security script, but this strong password you specified in the above-mentioned command.

Reloading the grant tables

Now is the time to tell the server to use the new privilege settings from now on. Run the following command in the MySQL prompt to reload the grant tables and register your changes:

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Recheck authentication method for MySQL Users

mysql> SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

Now that your root user is setup to connect to the MySQL shell through a secure password.

Check the status of mysql.service

$ systemctl status mysql.service

By connecting to MySQL Admin as root and running any administrative command

MySQL Admin is a client that lets you perform administrative operations on MySQL. Let us run one of the administrative commands through it as an example to check if the system is running properly and our root is configured to use it.

$ sudo mysqladmin -p -u root version

Option 2: Creating a New User

First, start the MySQL shell by running the following command as sudo:

$ sudo mysql

Let’s start by making a new user within the MySQL shell:

mysql >CREATE USER 'newuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

At this point newuser has no permissions to do anything with the databases. In fact, even if newuser tries to login (with the password, password), they will not be able to reach the MySQL shell.

Therefore, the first thing to do is to provide the user with access to the information they will need.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON * . * TO 'newuser'@'localhost';

Once you have finalized the permissions that you want to set up for your new users, always be sure to reload all the privileges

mysql >   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Now connecting using the command

$ mysql -u username -p

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