PASSWORD('cleartext password')
      | OLD_PASSWORD('cleartext password')
      | 'encrypted password'


In MySQL 5.0, enabling the read_only system variable does not prevent use of SET PASSWORD.

If a FOR user clause is given, the account name uses the format described in Section 6.2.3, “Specifying Account Names”. The user value should be given as 'user_name'@'host_name', where 'user_name' and 'host_name' are exactly as listed in the User and Host columns of the account's mysql.user table row. (If you specify only a user name, a host name of '%' is used.) For example, to set the password for an account with User and Host column values of 'bob' and '%.example.org', write the statement like this:


The password can be specified in these ways:



SET PASSWORD may be recorded in server logs or in a history file such as ~/.mysql_history, which means that cleartext passwords may be read by anyone having read access to that information. See Section 6.1.2, “Keeping Passwords Secure”.


