MySQL distributions include several plugins that implement server extensions:
Plugins for authenticating attempts by clients to connect to MySQL Server. Plugins are available for several authentication protocols. See Section 6.3.6, “Pluggable Authentication”.
Semisynchronous replication plugins implement an interface to replication capabilities that permit the master to proceed as long as at least one slave has responded to each transaction. See Section 17.3.8, “Semisynchronous Replication”.
MySQL Enterprise Edition includes a thread pool plugin that manages connection threads to increase server performance by efficiently managing statement execution threads for large numbers of client connections. See Section 5.5.4, “MySQL Enterprise Thread Pool”.
MySQL Enterprise Edition includes an audit plugin for monitoring and logging of connection and query activity. See Section 6.5.2, “MySQL Enterprise Audit”.
The following sections describe how to install and uninstall plugins, and how to determine at runtime which plugins are installed and obtain information about them. For information about writing plugins, see Section 24.2, “The MySQL Plugin API”.