Answer - The primary function of the MySQL privilege system is to authenticate a user connecting from a given host, and to associate that user with privileges on a database such as select, insert, update and delete. Additional functionality includes the ability to have an anonymous user and to grant privileges for MySQL-specific functions such as LOAD DATA INFILE and administrative operations. MySQL User Names and Passwords There are several distinctions between the way user names and passwords are used by MySQL and the way they are used by Unix or Windows: User names, as used by MySQL for authentication purposes, have nothing to do with Unix user names (login names) or Windows user names. Most MySQL clients by default try to log in using the current Unix user name as the MySQL user name, but that is for convenience only. Client programs allow a different name to be specified with the -u or --user options. This means that you can't make a database secure in any way unless all MySQL user names have passwords. Anyone may attempt to connect to the server using any name, and they will succeed if they specify any name that doesn't have a password. MySQL user names can be up to 16 characters long; Unix user names typically are limited to 8 characters. MySQL passwords have nothing to do with Unix passwords. There is no necessary connection between the password you use to log in to a Unix machine and the password you use to access a database on that machine. MySQL encrypts passwords using a different algorithm than the one used during the Unix login process. Note that even if the password is stored 'scrambled', and knowing your 'scrambled' password is enough to be able to connect to the MySQL server! Connecting to the MySQL Server MySQL client programs generally require that you specify connection parameters when you want to access a MySQL server: the host you want to connect to, your user name, and your password. For example, the mysql client can be started like this (optional arguments are enclosed between `[' and `]'): shell> mysql [-h host_name] [-u user_name] [-pyour_pass] Alternate forms of the -h, -u, and -p options are --host=host_name, --user=user_name, and --password=your_pass. Note that there is no space between -p or --password= and the password following