Mysql daemon failed to start: unknown variable password=xxx

Question

Mysqld don't restart anymore...In the log, the apparently obvious reason:

mysqld started
[Warning] Ignoring user change to 'root' because the user was set to 'mysql' earlier on the command line
[ERROR] /usr/libexec/mysqld: unknown variable 'password=mypassword'
mysqld ended

/etc/my.cnf there is nothing relevant and there is no such variable, which by the way has the correct mysql root password value in the message (!!!?):

[mysqld]
user=mysql
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
[mysqld_safe] 
log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Mysql 5.0.95 on Centos 5.9. It worked ok before restarting!!

Tried also

 /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --no-defaults
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
STOPPING server from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
mysqld ended

Answer 1

I followed the last suggestion here

cd /usr
./mysqld_safe --defaults-file=/etc/my.cnf --user=mysql --ledir=/usr/libexec &

Now it started, but don't understand it...not very nice!!!

Answer 2

I'v got same problem. Just deleted password line from /etc/my.conf and mysqld started Have no idea what was that...