Changing the MySQL password
If you are using the default password, you will see the message:
Warning: You are running freePBX and mysql with the default password
Running with the default password is a bad idea, simply because
everyone else in the world knows it, and (if not properly firewalled,
etc etc) could potentially connect to your mysql server and do bad
things(tm).
Warning: Don't get cute and try to use a password
with non-alphabetic or non-numeric characters - things may break in
strange ways if you try to use punctuation characters in passwords.
Unless you really know what you are doing, stick to numbers and
standard alphabetic characters.
Changing the mysql password
There are multiple ways to change the password in mysql.
Using mysql admin
This requires that you know the existing password. From a shell, run:
mysqladmin -u asteriskuser -p password newpass
where asteriskuser is the username (asteriskuser is typically the default username in FreePBX), and newpass is your new password. You will be prompted for the old password interactively.
Using phpMyAdmin
Log into phpMyAdmin, and select Privileges from the main page. From there, select the user you want to edit, and click the edit icon next to their name.
Note on multiple username entries: Note that
sometimes there will be multiple user names with different hosts. MySQL
identifies users based on the hostname they're connecting from, and
allows different passwords for users when they connect from different
hosts. Often there is an entry with localhost and another with %.
% is a wildcard in MySQL, and means any host in this case. If you have
freePBX running on the same machine (which is most likely true) then
the localhost entry is a better match than %, so it
is the one that will be used. You can usually safely delete the % entry
if you're not using it. If you are using a different host, it's better
to use that specific host's name or IP than %. See MySQL documentation
for more information.
Scroll down to the "change password" section, and enter the new password.
Using SQL
Connect to the mysql interactive shell:
mysql -u username -p
Usually you will use root or another user with administrative privileges as the username.
Run the following SQL command:
SET PASSWORD FOR asteriskuser@localhost=PASSWORD('newpass');
asteriskuser should be the username of the freePBX user. localhost
should only be changed if your freePBX and MySQL servers are different
machines. Be sure to include quotes around the new password.
type quit to return to the OS shell.
Verifying the password
If you want to be sure that the password has been changed, run:
mysql -u asteriskuser -p
amportal.conf, cdr_mysql.conf, res_mysql.conf
Once the password works, you need to update three files:
AMPDBUSER=asteriskuser
AMPDBPASS=mypass
password=mypass
user=asteriskuser
dbuser = asteriskuser
dbpass = mypass
Where asteriskuser is the username (asteriskuser is the typical FreePBX default username) and mypass is the changed password.
(Thanks to gstueve for the comment regarding the latter two files.)