the password() function – mysql 4 vs. mysql 5
Posted on: March 17, 2008
- In: databases | SQL
- 4 Comments
We’re planning on upgrading from an archaic mysql engine (3.58) to the latest, shiny release version (5.1), so I’ve undertaking a code review of some of our administration applications to see what this unearthed.
Turns out the password hashing for the MySQL native PASSWORD() function changed in version 4.1, so our login system won’t work in 5.1. Great.
Turns out we’ll be able to skirt around this by making sdure this line is in the new my.cnf file:
old-passwords = 1
It’s great this was thought of, as PASSWORD() is a one-way, irreversible function, so authentication will fail for any old application using it when it is run on mysql >= 4.1.
thanks to [ducea.com]
————
Need to improve your MySQL skills? I recommend:
High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More
4 Responses to "the password() function – mysql 4 vs. mysql 5"
April 29, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Ahah!
Thanks Lucas. Fortunately our user table was small, so I was able to simply recreate the passwords using the updated hashing in MySQL5.
I wasn’t even aware of the old_password() function!
December 14, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Thank you Paul.
A week ago I got this page and I practiced everything here.
It’s so helpfull. Good luck brother! 🙂
[…] may I can do. A few minutes later, O thanks God, I get it. Not from the official of MySQL, but from this site. By default, function password() is not supported anymore by the updated MySQL server. But, if we […]
paul bennett 
April 28, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Hi, I’m having the same problem on several websites I have programmed. The hosting company is migrating all servers gradually to MySQL 5 so all queries using the “PASSWORD()” function will cease to work. I found a forum entry here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/old-client.html
which provides several solutions. I, for one, am replacing the “PASSWORD()” function with “OLD_PASSWORD()” in my queries until I have the occasion to “force” all users to update their password.
Cheers,
Lucas