Authentication Plugins •(MySQL Enterprise Edition only) MySQL Enterprise Data Masking and De-Identification, implemented as a plugin library containing a plugin and a set of functions. Data masking hides sensitive information by replacing real values with substitutes. MySQL Enterprise Data Masking and De-Identification functions enable masking existing data using several methods such as obfuscation (removing identifying characteristics), generation of formatted random data, and data replacement or substitution. See Section 6.5, “MySQL Enterprise Data Masking and De-Identification” . •The server-side plugin is built into the server, need not be loaded explicitly, and cannot be disabled by unloading it. •The client-side plugin is built into the  libmysqlclient  client library and is available to any program linked against  libmysqlclient . Using Native Pluggable Authentication Installing Native Pluggable Authentication 6.4.1.1 Native Pluggable Authentication 6.4.1 Authentication Plugins The following sections describe pluggable authentication methods available in MySQL and the plugins that implement these methods. For general discussion of the authentication process, see Section 6.2.17, “Pluggable Authentication” . The default plugin is indicated by the value of the  default_authentication_plugin  system variable. MySQL includes a  mysql_native_password  plugin that implements native authentication; that is, authentication based on the password hashing method in use from before the introduction of pluggable authentication. The following table shows the plugin names on the server and client sides. The following sections provide installation and usage information specific to native pluggable authentication: For general information about pluggable authentication in MySQL, see Section 6.2.17, “Pluggable Authentication” . The  mysql_native_password  plugin exists in server and client forms: MySQL client programs use  mysql_native_password  by default. The  --default-auth  option can be used as a hint about which client-side plugin the program can expect to use: 1306 shell>  mysql --default-auth=mysql_native_password ... •Installing Native Pluggable Authentication •Using Native Pluggable Authentication Table 6.12 Plugin and Library Names for Native Password Authentication Plugin or File Plugin or File Name Server-side plugin mysql_native_password Client-side plugin mysql_native_password Library file None (plugins are built in)