Dear Sir, problem: run command mysqld --skip-grant-tables no work, and got error messages # /usr/sbin/mysqld --skip-grant-tables Fatal error: Please read "Security" section of the manual to find out how to run mysqld as root! 010322 13:44:51 Aborting the server is fresh installed with redhat linux6.2 and MySQL-3.23.33. also I followed the instruction: 20.10 How to Reset a Forgotten Password from http://www.mysql.com/doc/R/e/Resetting_permissions.html but about half years ago, at the same platform and run MySQL-3.22.32 these command work very well. the /etc/hosts content as below: 127.0.0.1 local localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.0.99 linux 192.168.0.2 anna the 192.168.0.99 is my local linux server and 192.168.0.2 is windows 98 which I used to connect local linux and internet. any suggestion? thanks a lot anna