bWAPP: Connection failed: "Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost'" when clicking install

Question

I've downloaded the most recent bWAPP from sourceforge.net and followed the INSTALL.txt guidelines to install it on a clean Kali Linux installation (2017.3).

I use the following MySQL connection settings:

// Database connection settings
$db_server = "localhost";
$db_username = "root";
$db_password = "";
$db_name = "bWAPP";

However, pressing the "Click here to install bWAPP." on http://localhost/bWAPP/install.php results in the following error message: "Connection failed: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost'".

I've searched Google and it seems that other people have similar issue, but no solution is documented anywhere.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The reason is MariaDB database backend which comes installed with Kali Linux:

MariaDB is a community-developed fork of the MySQL relational database management system intended to remain free under the GNU GPL.

This database backend doesn't allow root@localhost user access from applications.

I fixed the issue by creating a new database user, bwappu, with granted priviledges for the bwapp database:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES on bwapp.* to 'bwappu'@'localhost';

Also, see this post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28068155/access-denied-for-user-rootlocalhost-using-password-yes-after-new-instal

Answer 2

A little bit more detalization for correct answer by Nicolas Lykke Iversen:

Go to the terminal:

root@kali: mysql -u root -p
enter password 'toor'
MariaDB [(none)]> use mysql;
MariaDB[(mysql)]> create user 'username'@'localhost' identified by 'my_password';
MariaDB[(mysql)]> grant all privileges on bWAPP.* to 'username'@'localhost' identified by 'my_password';

Go to /var/www/html/bWAPP/admin/settings.php and set:

$db_username = "username";
$db_password = "my_password";

Then go to http://localhost/bWAPP/install.php and install it.

PS: username & my_password - you may use any words you like

Answer 3

I had the same issue and figured out the solution for me at least. The $db_password field must be equal to the password for your SQL root user.

Answer 4

This solution worked for me on Kali Linux machine, but I am not sure if this is also applicable for ubuntu. Thank you.