[debian-mysql] Bug#855098: mariadb-server: Passwordless root access does not work on new installation

[jmolina at swoncology.net]

Package: mariadb-server
Version: 10.1.21-5
Severity: important

Newly installed mariadb-server. How the hell is this passwordless root thing supposed to work?

user at myhost-->sudo mysql -u root
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

root at myhost# mysql -u root
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)



I was surprised when the installer didn't prompt me to create a root password.

Grepping through the /usr/share/doc/mariadb* files led to me to mariadb-server-10.1/README.Debian.gz, which indicates that I should be able to use sudo to get root access.

This behavior change is substantial enough that you may want to consider actively notifying the user during installation. Even a "Please read the README file at bla-bla-bla" would be fine since I don't really want to have to guess which of the SEVEN /usr/share/doc/mariadb* directories has the README file I want (BONUS FUN: THREE different mariadb-server* directories).



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages mariadb-server depends on:
ii  mariadb-server-10.1  10.1.21-5

mariadb-server recommends no packages.

mariadb-server suggests no packages.

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