Alex Stetsenko

Apparently there is a pretty straight forward way to recover MySQL password. Although server root access is mandatory it is great solution in certain cases like recovering password of abandoned test server or when server was configured by someone else etc.

The key for success is to be able to (re)start MySQL using -skip-grant-tables option. In that case MySQL won’t ask for password.
Then simply reset MySQL password and restart MySQL ordinarily.

Details for each step are described by Vivek Gite in Recover MySQL root Password.