MySQL on Debian versions is configured differently than the native local MySQL plugin so you will be disappointed when your password on the mysql client fails by default.

Here is how you reset the MySQL root password the proper and "working way"

#first we gracefully stop mysql

sudo systemctl stop mysql;

#then we forcefully kill any mysqld process just in case

sudo killall -9 mysqld mysqld_safe;

# we need to make this dir otherwise you'll get an error "mysqld_safe Directory '/var/run/mysqld' for UNIX socket file don't exists."

sudo mkdir -p /var/run/mysqld;

#chown /var/run/mysqld to mysql.mysql or you'll get errors still "mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid ended"

sudo chown mysql:mysql /var/run/mysqld;

#now start mysqld_safe with skip-grant-tables so you can login as root with no password to reset the root password or any account

sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

Now that we're in, let's reset the root password!

But before we do this let's see what type of auth our root account uses, as this explains why you need to change the plugin to native mysql otherwise you won't be able to login normally:

mysql -u root

use mysql;

mysql> select User,Host,authentication_string,plugin from user;
+------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
| User             | Host      | authentication_string                     | plugin                |
+------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
| root             | localhost | *7E877F388401BAB948632B9B213C144C24756EC6 | auth_socket           |
| mysql.session    | localhost | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password |
| mysql.sys        | localhost | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password |
| debian-sys-maint | localhost | *13CC8C41C8677DD6F22E91C2E10647FA20B05C56 | mysql_native_password |
+------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+

As we can see above the method for root is "auth_socket".  We need to change the plugin to "mysql_native_password".

use mysql;
update user set authentication_string=PASSWORD('newpassword'),plugin='mysql_native_password' where User='root';
flush privileges;

You need to switch the auth plugin to "mysql_native_password' by adding the ,plugin='mysql_native_password' option to the query above.

Change "newpassword" to what you want the password to be above.

Now we need to kill mysqld and restart it normally:

sudo killall -9 mysqld_safe mysqld


sudo systemctl start mysql

Now you should be able to login with your root password.

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