Authentication Plugins

When a user attempts to log in, the authentication plugin controls how MariaDB Server determines whether the connection is from a legitimate user.

When creating or altering a user account with the GRANT, CREATE USER or ALTER USER statements, you can specify the authentication plugin you want the user account to use by providing the IDENTIFIED VIA clause. By default, when you create a user account without specifying an authentication plugin, MariaDB uses the mysql_native_password plugin.

From MariaDB 10.4:

• One can specify multiple authentication plugins for each user account.
• The root@localhost user created by mariadb-install-db is created with the ability to use two authentication plugins. First, it is configured to try to use the unix_socket authentication plugin. This allows the the root@localhost user to login without a password via the local Unix socket file defined by the socket system variable, as long as the login is attempted from a process owned by the operating system root user account. Second, if authentication fails with the unix_socket authentication plugin, then it is configured to try to use the mysql_native_password authentication plugin. However, an invalid password is initially set, so in order to authenticate this way, a password must be set with SET PASSWORD.