Question

I created user ‘wordpress’ and granted privileges at mysql via phpMyAdmin. However, when I log-in at the command line as user wordpress, I can’t seem to access what I should be able to access. Take a look:

>mysql -u wordpress
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2
Server version: 5.5.27 MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> SHOW GRANTS;
+--------------------------------------+
| Grants for @localhost                |
+--------------------------------------+
| GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO ''@'localhost' |
+--------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Isn’t that supposed to show Grants for wordpress@localhost?

Furthermore, I granted all (dangerous, I know, but I’m sanity testing) priveleges for wordpress on datbase sitedb. I get the following when I try to use sitedb (this, in the same session):

mysql> USE sitedb;
ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user ''@'localhost' to database 'sitedb'

What’s up?

Answer 1

I figured it out…

I logged in as as root and checked the priveleges of root and where it differs from wordpress:

mysql> SHOW GRANTS;
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grants for root@localhost                                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION |
| GRANT PROXY ON ''@'' TO 'root'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW GRANTS FOR wordpress;
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grants for wordpress@%                                                      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'wordpress'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION            |
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `skytreader`.* TO 'wordpress'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

As it stands, the only difference I can gather is the host. I went back to phpMyAdmin to change the host of user wordpress and specify it as ‘localhost’. And lo,

>mysql -u wordpress
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 42
Server version: 5.5.27 MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> SHOW GRANTS;
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grants for wordpress@localhost                                                      |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'wordpress'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION            |
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `skytreader`.* TO 'wordpress'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> USE sitedb;
Database changed

Now I wonder why is this so? Isn’t it that ‘wordpress’@’%’ should stand for wild card host (and so it should include localhost)? I’m guessing this is some kind of security feature…