MySQL enables database administrators to expire account passwords manually, and to establish a policy for automatic password expiration.
To expire a password manually, the database administrator uses the ALTER USER
statement:
ALTER USER 'jeffrey'@'localhost' PASSWORD EXPIRE;
This operation marks the password expired in the corresponding mysql.user
table row.
Automatic password expiration is available in MySQL 5.7.4 and later. The mysql.user
table indicates for each account when its password was last changed, and the server automatically treats the password as expired at client connection time if it is past its permitted lifetime. This works with no explicit manual password expiration.
The default_password_lifetime
system variable defines the global automatic password expiration policy. It applies to accounts that use MySQL built-in authentication methods (accounts that use an authentication plugin of mysql_native_password
, mysql_old_password
, or sha256_password
).
The default default_password_lifetime
value is 0, which disables automatic password expiration. If the value of default_password_lifetime
is a positive integer N
, it indicates the permitted password lifetime; passwords must be changed every N
days.
From MySQL 5.7.4 to 5.7.10, the default default_password_lifetime
value is 360 (passwords must be changed approximately once per year). For those versions, be aware that, if you make no changes to the default_password_lifetime
variable or to individual user accounts, all user passwords will expire after 360 days, and all user accounts will start running in restricted mode when this happens. Clients (which are effectively users) connecting to the server will then get an error indicating that the password must be changed: ERROR 1820 (HY000): You must reset your password using ALTER USER statement before executing this statement.
However, this is easy to miss for clients that automatically connect to the server, such as connections made from scripts. To avoid having such clients suddenly stop working due to a password expiring, make sure to change the password expiration settings for those clients, like this:
ALTER USER 'script'@'localhost' PASSWORD EXPIRE NEVER
Alternatively, set the default_password_lifetime
variable to 0
, thus disabling automatic password expiration for all users.
Examples:
To establish a global policy that passwords have a lifetime of approximately six months, start the server with these lines in an option file:
[mysqld] default_password_lifetime=180
To establish a global policy such that passwords never expire, set default_password_lifetime
to 0:
[mysqld] default_password_lifetime=0
default_password_lifetime
can also be changed at runtime (this requires the SUPER
privilege):
SET GLOBAL default_password_lifetime = 180; SET GLOBAL default_password_lifetime = 0;
No matter the global policy, it can be overridden for individual accounts with ALTER USER
:
Require the password to be changed every 90 days:
ALTER USER 'jeffrey'@'localhost' PASSWORD EXPIRE INTERVAL 90 DAY;
Disable password expiration:
ALTER USER 'jeffrey'@'localhost' PASSWORD EXPIRE NEVER;
Defer to the global expiration policy:
ALTER USER 'jeffrey'@'localhost' PASSWORD EXPIRE DEFAULT;
These ALTER USER
statements update the corresponding mysql.user
table row.
When a client successfully connects, the server determines whether the account password is expired:
The server checks whether the password has been manually expired and, if so, restricts the session.
Otherwise, the server checks whether the password is past its lifetime according to the automatic password expiration policy. If so, the server considers the password expired and restricts the session.
A restricted client operates in “sandbox mode,”, which limits the operations permitted to the client (see Section 6.3.7, “Password Expiration and Sandbox Mode”). Operations performed by a restricted client result in an error until the user establishes a new account password:
mysql>SELECT 1;
ERROR 1820 (HY000): You must SET PASSWORD before executing this statement mysql>ALTER USER USER() IDENTIFIED BY '
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec) mysql>new_password
';SELECT 1;
+---+ | 1 | +---+ | 1 | +---+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
This restricted mode of operation permits SET
statements, which is useful before MySQL 5.7.6 if SET PASSWORD
must be used instead of ALTER USER
and the account password has a hashing format that requires old_passwords
to be set to a value different from its default.
It is possible for an administrative user to reset the account password, but any existing sessions for that account remain restricted. A client using the account must disconnect and reconnect before statements can be executed successfully.
It is possible to “reset” a password by setting it to its current value. As a matter of good policy, it is preferable to choose a different password.