How can we set up a MySQL User account by using INSERT INTO statement?

For adding a new user to MySQL, we just need to add a new entry to the user table in the database mysql. To illustrate it we are using the following example −

Example

The following program is an example of adding a new user guest with SELECT, INSERT and UPDATE privileges with the password guest123; the SQL query is −

root@host# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:*******
mysql> use mysql;
Database changed

mysql> INSERT INTO user (host, user, password,select_priv, insert_priv,
update_priv) VALUES ('localhost', 'guest',PASSWORD('guest123'),'Y','Y’,
'Y');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.20 sec)

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> SELECT host, user, password FROM user WHERE user = 'guest';
+-----------+---------+------------------+
|     host  |    user |         password |
+-----------+---------+------------------+
| localhost |   guest | 6f8c114b58f2ce9e |
+-----------+---------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

When adding a new user, remember to encrypt the new password using PASSWORD() function provided by MySQL. As you can see in the above example, the password bypass is encrypted to 6f8c114b58f2ce9e.

The FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement tells the server to reload the grant tables. If you don't use it, then you won't be able to connect to MySQL using the new user account at least until the server is rebooted.