Authentication Plugins No password is required here. The  authentication_windows  plugin uses the Windows security API to check which Windows user is connecting. If that user is named  Rafal  or  Tasha , or is a member of the Administrators  or  Power Users  group, the server grants access and the client is authenticated as sql_admin  and has whatever privileges are granted to the  sql_admin  account. Otherwise, the server denies access. Authentication string syntax for the Windows authentication plugin follows these rules: For the latter syntax, with no  mysql_user_name  value given, the implicit value is the MySQL user created by the  CREATE USER  statement. Thus, these statements are equivalent: When invoked by the server to authenticate a client, the plugin scans the authentication string left to right for a user or group match to the Windows user. If there is a match, the plugin returns the corresponding mysql_user_name  to the MySQL server. If there is no match, authentication fails. A user name match takes preference over a group name match. Suppose that the Windows user named win_user  is a member of  win_group  and the authentication string looks like this: When  win_user  connects to the MySQL server, there is a match both to  win_group  and to  win_user . The plugin authenticates the user as  sql_user2  because the more-specific user match takes precedence over the group match, even though the group is listed first in the authentication string. 1331 domain\\user .\\user domain\\group .\\group BUILTIN\\WellKnownGroup ’win_group = sql_user1, win_user = sql_user2’ CREATE USER sql_admin IDENTIFIED WITH authentication_windows AS ’Rafal, Tasha, Administrators, "Power Users"’; CREATE USER sql_admin IDENTIFIED WITH authentication_windows AS ’Rafal=sql_admin, Tasha=sql_admin, Administrators=sql_admin, "Power Users"=sql_admin’; win_user_or_group_name=mysql_user_name win_user_or_group_name •The string consists of one or more user mappings separated by commas. •Each user mapping associates a Windows user or group name with a MySQL user name: •Each backslash character ( \ ) in a value must be doubled because backslash is the escape character in MySQL strings. •Leading and trailing spaces not inside double quotation marks are ignored. •Unquoted  win_user_or_group_name  and  mysql_user_name  values can contain anything except equal sign, comma, or space. •If a  win_user_or_group_name  and or  mysql_user_name  value is quoted with double quotation marks, everything between the quotation marks is part of the value. This is necessary, for example, if the name contains space characters. All characters within double quotes are legal except double quotation mark and backslash. To include either character, escape it with a backslash. • win_user_or_group_name  values use conventional syntax for Windows principals, either local or in a domain. Examples (note the doubling of backslashes):