Password Management who has the global  CREATE USER  privilege or the  UPDATE  privilege for the  mysql system database. To establish password-verification policy globally, use the  password_require_current  system variable. Its default value is  OFF , so it is not required that account password changes specify the current password. SET PERSIST  sets the value for the running MySQL instance. It also saves the value to carry over to subsequent server restarts; see Section 13.7.6.1, “SET Syntax for Variable Assignment” . To change the value for the running MySQL instance without having it carry over to subsequent restarts, use the GLOBAL  keyword rather than  PERSIST . The global password verification-required policy applies to all accounts that have not been set to override it. To establish policy for individual accounts, use the  PASSWORD REQUIRE  options of the  CREATE USER and  ALTER USER  statements. See Section 13.7.1.3, “CREATE USER Statement” , and Section 13.7.1.1, “ALTER USER Statement” . Example account-specific statements: This verification option overrides the global policy for all accounts named by the statement. This verification option overrides the global policy for all accounts named by the statement. Verification of the current password comes into play when a user changes a password using the  ALTER USER  or  SET PASSWORD  statement. The examples use  ALTER USER , which is preferred over  SET PASSWORD , but the principles described here are the same for both statements. In password-change statements, a  REPLACE  clause specifies the current password to be replaced. Examples: •Change the current user’s password: 1251 •Defer to the global password verification-required policy for all accounts named by the statement: •Do not require that password changes specify the current password (the current password may but need not be given): •Require that password changes specify the current password: •To set and persist  password_require_current  at runtime, use a statement such as one of these: •To establish a global policy that password changes must specify the current password, start the server with these lines in a server  my.cnf  file: Examples: [mysqld] password_require_current=ON SET PERSIST password_require_current = ON; SET PERSIST password_require_current = OFF; CREATE USER ’jeffrey’@’localhost’ PASSWORD REQUIRE CURRENT; ALTER USER ’jeffrey’@’localhost’ PASSWORD REQUIRE CURRENT; CREATE USER ’jeffrey’@’localhost’ PASSWORD REQUIRE CURRENT OPTIONAL; ALTER USER ’jeffrey’@’localhost’ PASSWORD REQUIRE CURRENT OPTIONAL; CREATE USER ’jeffrey’@’localhost’ PASSWORD REQUIRE CURRENT DEFAULT; ALTER USER ’jeffrey’@’localhost’ PASSWORD REQUIRE CURRENT DEFAULT;