This section describes how to install the test authentication plugin. For general information about installing plugins, see Section 5.6.2, “Installing and Uninstalling Plugins”.

To be usable by the server, the plugin library file must be located in the MySQL plugin directory (the directory named by the plugin_dir system variable). If necessary, set the value of plugin_dir at server startup to tell the server the plugin directory location.

To load the plugin at server startup, use the --plugin-load-add option to name the library file that contains it. With this plugin-loading method, the option must be given each time the server starts. For example, put these lines in your my.cnf file (adjust the .so suffix for your platform as necessary):

[mysqld]
plugin-load-add=auth_test_plugin.so

After modifying my.cnf, restart the server to cause the new settings to take effect.

Alternatively, to register the plugin at runtime, use this statement (adjust the .so suffix as necessary):

INSTALL PLUGIN test_plugin_server SONAME 'auth_test_plugin.so';

INSTALL PLUGIN loads a plugin, and also registers it in the mysql.plugins system table to cause the plugin to be loaded for each subsequent normal server startup.

To verify plugin installation, examine the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS table or use the SHOW PLUGINS statement (see Section 5.6.3, “Obtaining Server Plugin Information”). For example:

mysql> SELECT PLUGIN_NAME, PLUGIN_STATUS
       FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS
       WHERE PLUGIN_NAME LIKE '%test_plugin%';
+--------------------+---------------+
| PLUGIN_NAME        | PLUGIN_STATUS |
+--------------------+---------------+
| test_plugin_server | ACTIVE        |
+--------------------+---------------+

If the plugin fails to initialize, check the server error log for diagnostic messages.

To associate MySQL accounts with the test plugin, see Using Test Pluggable Authentication.

The method used to uninstall the test authentication plugin depends on how you installed it:

To use the test authentication plugin, create an account and name that plugin in the IDENTIFIED WITH clause:

CREATE USER 'testuser'@'localhost'
IDENTIFIED WITH test_plugin_server
BY 'testpassword';

Then provide the --user and --password options for that account when you connect to the server. For example:

shell> mysql --user=testuser --password
Enter password: testpassword

The plugin fetches the password as received from the client and compares it with the value stored in the authentication_string column of the account row in the mysql.user table. If the two values match, the plugin returns the authentication_string value as the new effective user ID.

You can look in the server error log for a message indicating whether authentication succeeded (notice that the password is reported as the “user”):

[Note] Plugin test_plugin_server reported:
'successfully authenticated user testpassword'