MySQL without password

The common form to log in to MySQL server, is running a mysql command with your login credentials and server’s IP address as arguments. For example:

mysql -u $MYSQL_ROOT -p$MYSQL_PASS

However, besides the inconvenience of typing extra arguments, using plain-text login credentials in a command line like above is really not a secure way to access a MySQL server.

MySQL offers a way for you to log in to MySQL server without password, by using an external MySQL configuration file. In Linux, there are two different kinds of MySQL configuration files:

1. /etc/my.cnf and
2. ~/.my.conf

While any system-wide MySQL configuration is defined in /etc/my.cnf, any user-specific MySQL configuration is stored in ~/.my.cnf. You can leverage ~/.my.cnf, to define your MySQL login credential in the file.

vim ~/.my.cnf

We put our MySQL user in the configuration file:

[client]
user=root
password=$PASSWORD_ROOT

Make sure to have the configuration file readable to you only.

chmod 0600 ~/.my.cnf

Once ~/.my.cnf is created, simply typing mysql command will let you log in to the MySQL server as root, and you no longer need to provide login password separately.

mysql

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