Being new to MySQL, it took a while to grok how "security" works. Now that I have a bit of a better understanding, a mental "revalation" is coming to the surface of my mind: since "mysql" users are NOT unix/windows-domain "users", is the "root" user truly needed for a functional mysql environment?
I do realize that there needs to be "some" user who essentially has all the grantable columns set to "Y" in the USER table, otherwise you could lose the ability to add or delete users, specify new databases, etc. I'm thinking this "super user" could (should?) be identified by something such as "dba" or "admin" -- anything other than the name of "root". This would avoid the [probable] security hole of using the "unix" password as the "mysql" password for the "root" user (something I suspect many people have done without realizing the implications) simply because there would be no "root" user. I'm kind of guessing that one reason that the name "root" was chosen was because the command-line interface defaults the user name to your (unix) session name. By pre-building a "root" user, the authors avoided the need to "teach" the use of the "-u" switch during the initial setup of mySql (which is good and bad: good because it is "one less thing" for a new mysql admin to have to learn, bad because new admins haven't even been introduced to the security system, so they are likely to use their actual "root" password because they haven't yet been informed that mysql-users <> unix-users...) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
