MySQL Cookbook

Protecting Option Files

Problem

Your MySQL username and password are stored in your option file, and you don’t want other users reading it.

Solution

Change the file’s mode to make it accessible only by you.

Discussion

If you use a multiple-user operating system such as Unix, you should protect your option file to prevent other users from finding out how to connect to MySQL using your account. Use chmod to make the file private by setting its mode to allow access only by yourself:

% chmod 600 .my.cnf