I'm using ubuntu 12.04 and trying to get things secured. I'm still pretty new to Linux so I'm not quite sure how to interpret this.
I logged into my root account using mysql -u root -p
and then to see all of the users I typed SELECT User FROM mysql.user;
which showed the following
+------------------+
| User |
+------------------+
| root |
| root |
| |
| root |
| |
| Testing |
| debian-sys-maint |
| phpmyadmin |
| root |
+------------------+
I logged into phpmyadmin to check out what each of the root accounts for and noticed they all have different hosts. Localhost, 127.0.0.1, ::1 and another IP address. Is it necessary to keep all of these? I currently SSH into my server (using a key pair) and then access MySQL through the terminal or through PHPMyadmin directly from my URL, so I'm pretty sure I just access it through the localhost root account and none of the others.
If I change my root password will all of the other MySQL root accounts change (from the different hosts)? What would you guys do in this situation to make it more secure?
Here's what I was thinking of doing, but maybe there's a better way. I was going to change the MySQL root user's password to something long and random (and write it down), and create another account with a shorter password for everyday management.
For the record, I have already restricted IP access to PHPMyAdmin and made an alias, I just want to do everything I can to prevent some jerk from trying to get a hold of it.