basic steps to play with mysql
# 1) login mysql with root mysql -u root -p
# 2) update password for root (optional)
UPDATE mysql.user SET password=PASSWORD('newPasswordForRoot') WHERE User='root';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
# 3) create a new user 'user1'
CREATE USER user1 IDENTIFIED BY 'mypassword';
# 4) grant all privileges for this user
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'user1'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'mypassword';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
# 5) create a database with char set utf-8
create database mydatabase character set utf8;
set character_set_client=utf8;
set character_set_connection=utf8;
set character_set_database=utf8;
set character_set_results=utf8;
set character_set_server=utf8;
# 6) switch to a database
use mydatabase;
show tables;
# 7) Sample JDBC connection URL
jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydatabase?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf-8&autoReconnect=true&failOverReadOnly=false