Using CentOS 6, logged in to MySQL as root, entering the command:

create user 'user123' identified by 'pass123';

works fine. But when I try and give that user super user privileges with:

grant all on *.* to 'user123' identified by 'pass123';

I get the error:

ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

Then

select * from mysql.user;

shows that root has Y in all columns, so should have all privileges.

I'd be very grateful if anyone could help me find why root is unable to grant privileges as I can't see why it wouldn't be working.

Thanks