6.3.7.4. The Socket Peer-Credential Authentication Plugin

A server-side authentication plugin is available that authenticates clients that connect from the local host through the Unix socket file.

The source code for this plugin can be examined as a relatively simple example demonstrating how to write a loadable authentication plugin.

The following table shows the plugin and library file names. The file name suffix might differ on your system. The file location is the directory named by the plugin_dir system variable. For installation information, see Section 6.3.7, "Pluggable Authentication".

Table 6.12. MySQL Socket Peer-Credential Authentication Plugin

Server-side plugin name	`auth_socket`
Client-side plugin name	None, see discussion
Library object file name	`auth_socket.so`

The auth_socket authentication plugin authenticates clients that connect from the local host through the Unix socket file. The plugin uses the SO_PEERCRED socket option to obtain information about the user running the client program. The plugin checks whether the user name matches the MySQL user name specified by the client program to the server, and permits the connection only if the names match. The plugin can be built only on systems that support the SO_PEERCRED option, such as Linux.

Suppose that a MySQL account is created for a user named valerie who is to be authenticated by the auth_socket plugin for connections from the local host through the socket file:

CREATE USER 'valerie'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH auth_socket;

If a user on the local host with a login name of stefanie invokes mysql with the option --user=valerie to connect through the socket file, the server uses auth_socket to authenticate the client. The plugin determines that the --user option value (valerie) differs from the client user's name (stephanie) and refuses the connection. If a user named valerie tries the same thing, the plugin finds that the user name and the MySQL user name are both valerie and permits the connection. However, the plugin refuses the connection even for valerie if the connection is made using a different protocol, such as TCP/IP.

For general information about pluggable authentication in MySQL, see Section 6.3.7, "Pluggable Authentication".