python manage.py syncdb error

Question

I am attempting to get my first Django project working, on Windows, but I get an error message that reads:

File "c:\users\[username]\appdata\local\temp\easy_install-pazcre\MySQL_python-1.2.3-py2.7-    win32.egg.tmp\MySQLdb\connections.py", line 187, in __init__     mysql_exceptions.OperationalError: (1045, "Access denied for user 'django_user'@'localhost'     (using password: YES)")

I created my database from the command line as:

-- create the database
CREATE DATABASE GlobalXdb CHARACTER SET utf8;

-- create user
CREATE USER 'django_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'thepassword';

-- give user permissions to db 
GRANT ALL ON django.* TO 'django_user'@'localhost'

My settings.py file contains:

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
    'NAME': 'GlobalXdb',                      # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
    'USER': 'django_user',                      # Not used with sqlite3.
    'PASSWORD': 'thepassword',                  # Not used with sqlite3.
    'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
    'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
}

}

Can anyone shed some light on what I have done incorrectly?

Answer 1

Your database is named GlobalXdb and yet in this line...

#give user permissions to db 
GRANT ALL ON django.* TO 'django_user'@'localhost'

you grant permissions to django_user on database named django.

Give permissions to the correct database GlobalXdb should solve your problem.

Answer 2

The error message says Access denied for user 'django_user'@'localhost' so my guess would be that the user 'django_user' doesn't exist or you typed the password wrong.

Another less likely suggestion would be to check the rights granted for 'django_user'. It's possible that this user doesn't have permission to create tables.

Answer 3

This is solved by defining two DATABASE profiles in your settings.py.

default - Used by django at runtime with limited permissions for that extra security.

sync - Used by syncdb, as user root, with extra create privileges.

DATABASES = {
  'default': {
    'ENGINE':'django.db.backends.mysql',
    'NAME':'database_name',
    'USER':'runtime',
    'PASSWORD':'runtime_password',
    'HOST':'',
    'PORT':'',
  },
  'sync': {
    'ENGINE':'django.db.backends.mysql',
    'NAME':'database_name',
    'USER':'root',
    'PASSWORD':'',
    'HOST':'',
    'PORT':'',
  },
}

You will also have to grant limited permissions for the default runtime access in MySQL:

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON database_name.* TO 'runtime'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'runtime_password';

Finally when you run syncdb specify your sync access profile:

python manage.py syncdb --database=sync

That should give you the security you want at runtime and the access you want on the command line.