I can start mysql service as sudo and hence can login to MySQL only via sudo but otherwise can't

Question

I am on Ubuntu 22.04 on WSL2 on Windows 11.

anjanesh@SOMEID:/mnt/c$ sudo service mysql start
 * Starting MySQL database server mysqld                                                                                      [ OK ]
anjanesh@SOMEID:/mnt/c$ service mysql start
 * Starting MySQL database server mysqld                                                                                             Password:
su: Authentication failure

sudo mysql --user=root -p works but mysql --user=root -p gives :

Enter password:
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (13)

Answer 1

This is not a MySQL-specific issue, this is more a Linux thing. Assuming you have a standard MySQL-Linux installation when you invoke command "MySQL" you are actually executing a program (MySQL client) located in /usr/bin/.

So, if you can't execute /usr/bin/mysql from other than root is because of permissions.

To fix it and allow any user to execute /usr/bin/mysql you have to use sudo one more time

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/mysql

Then you should be able to execute MySQL from any user.