Authentication Plugins Table 6.17 Plugin and Library Names for Windows Authentication Plugin or File Plugin or File Name Server-side plugin authentication_windows Client-side plugin authentication_windows_client Library file authentication_windows.dll The library file includes only the server-side plugin. The client-side plugin is built into the libmysqlclient  client library. The server-side Windows authentication plugin is included only in MySQL Enterprise Edition. It is not included in MySQL community distributions. The client-side plugin is included in all distributions, including community distributions. This permits clients from any distribution to connect to a server that has the server-side plugin loaded. The Windows authentication plugin is supported on any version of Windows supported by MySQL 8.0 (see https://www.mysql.com/support/supportedplatforms/database.html). The following sections provide installation and usage information specific to Windows pluggable authentication: •Installing Windows Pluggable Authentication •Uninstalling Windows Pluggable Authentication •Using Windows Pluggable Authentication For general information about pluggable authentication in MySQL, see Section 6.2.17, “Pluggable Authentication” . For proxy user information, see Section 6.2.18, “Proxy Users” . This section describes how to install the Windows authentication plugin. For general information about installing plugins, see Section 5.6.1, “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, configure the plugin directory location by setting the value of  plugin_dir  at server startup. 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 the server  my.cnf  file: After modifying  my.cnf , restart the server to cause the new settings to take effect. Alternatively, to load the plugin at runtime, use this statement: INSTALL PLUGIN  loads the plugin immediately, and also registers it in the  mysql.plugins  system table to cause the server to load it for each subsequent normal startup without the need for  --plugin-load- add . To verify plugin installation, examine the  INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS  table or use the  SHOW PLUGINS  statement (see Section 5.6.2, “Obtaining Server Plugin Information” ). For example: Installing Windows Pluggable Authentication [mysqld] plugin-load-add=authentication_windows.dll INSTALL PLUGIN authentication_windows SONAME ’authentication_windows.dll’; 1329