Giving someone root access in linux is easy. Why would someone need to be root I don’t know but this is how you do it using the usermod command.

To add root access

[root@abika root]# id sys_admin
uid=508(sys_admin) gid=508(sys_admin) groups=508(sys_admin)
[root@abika root]# usermod -G root sys_admin
[root@abika root]# id sys_admin
uid=508(sys_admin) gid=508(sys_admin) groups=508(sys_admin),0(root)

To remove root access.

[root@abika root]# usermod -G sys_admin sys_admin
[root@abika root]# id sys_admin
uid=508(sys_admin) gid=508(sys_admin) groups=508(sys_admin)

It happens, you set a super complicated password for your MySQL root account and 2 months down the road forget what it was.

Here’s how you’d fix that.

1. Stop your current MySQL database if it is running

root@abubu# service mysqld stop

2. Start MySQL in safe mode and bypass reading the privilege table.

root@abubu# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables

3. Reset your root password MySQL console. If it goes well you will not need to key in a password.

root@abubu# mysql -u root mysql

mysql> update user set Password=PASSWORD('new-password');
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql exit;

4. Kill the MySQL process and restart MySQL normally.