Hey Mike,

Mini-necroposting here, but I think I ran (and have been for some time)
into the same issue you described here.

On Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:26:02 +0100, Mike wrote:

A while ago (probably bookworm), I built a MySQL server and all was
well. By default, one could log in with mysql -u root and it connect
via a UNIX socket and auth. This worked well and I had no complaints.

At some point, which may or may not coincide with an upgrade to
Trixie, this stopping working. Now, when runnig mysql -u root, I'm
greeted with "ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user
'root'@'localhost'"

I traced my issue down to someting askew with the user setup in
MyS^WMariaDB `unix_socket` auth method. I'm not sure how we got there.

However, I found that running the following command (as the
`debian-sys-maint` user defined in `/etc/mysql/debian.cnf`) to update
the auth method would reset my root user to a functional state of being
able to log-in passwordlessly using the Unix socket.

alter user 'root'@'localhost' identified via unix_socket;

I'd be interested to know if that works for you, or if you found another
way to fix the issue.

Cheers!

--
Olivier Mehani <shtrom+debian@ssji.net>
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On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 06:58:42PM +1100, Olivier Mehani wrote:

Hey Mike,

Mini-necroposting here, but I think I ran (and have been for some time)
into the same issue you described here.

On Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:26:02 +0100, Mike wrote:

A while ago (probably bookworm), I built a MySQL server and all was
well. By default, one could log in with mysql -u root and it connect
via a UNIX socket and auth. This worked well and I had no complaints.

At some point, which may or may not coincide with an upgrade to
Trixie, this stopping working. Now, when runnig mysql -u root, I'm
greeted with "ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost'"

I traced my issue down to someting askew with the user setup in
MyS^WMariaDB `unix_socket` auth method. I'm not sure how we got there.

However, I found that running the following command (as the `debian-sys-maint` user defined in `/etc/mysql/debian.cnf`) to update
the auth method would reset my root user to a functional state of being
able to log-in passwordlessly using the Unix socket.

alter user 'root'@'localhost' identified via unix_socket;

I'd be interested to know if that works for you, or if you found another
way to fix the issue.

Hi Olivier,
Thanks for getting back on this.
It's been a while, so I'm not certain about the exact details. I know
that in the end, I couldn't really get to the bottom of it and ended up
deleting and recreating the user.
I have a vague feeling that I still couldn't get unix_socket to work and
ended up setting a password.
Regards,
Mike.


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* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)