This is our mysql table for proftpd with two users. One user has a clear text password ‘Clear_text’ and the other user has a Crypt password. The passwords are stored in the field passwd. Which we need to update for the user ftp.

mysql> select * from ftpuser;
+----+----------+-------------------------------------------+-----+------+---------------+---------------+-------+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | userid | passwd | uid | gid | homedir | shell | count | accessed | modified |
+----+----------+-------------------------------------------+-----+------+---------------+---------------+-------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 10 | ftp| *BD0359A2B6ZZHHA6A35B8D06DC1114D92CE3101 | 108 | 1002 | /storage/data | /sbin/nologin | 23 | 2011-01-19 13:07:33 | 2011-01-19 11:47:54 |
| 11 | upload | Clear_text | 108 | 1002 | /storage/data | /sbin/nologin | 529 | 2011-01-19 10:06:28 | 2011-01-06 16:01:30 |
+----+----------+-------------------------------------------+-----+------+---------------+---------------+-------+---------------------+---------------------+

We want to update the crypt password from the mysql shell. The following command will update the user ftp with a new crypt password:

update ftpuser set passwd=PASSWORD('KLatttGuya') where userid='ftp';

You can see the password in clear text here ‘KLatttGuya’ because of the option PASSWORD mysql knows that it must store a crypt password.