`mysql-client` 9.0 does not include `mysql_native_password` plugin

[zhangyangyu]

brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.3.12
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 874d2da45344d3b27aa740e555b0210d8c474220
Last commit: 9 days ago
Core tap JSON: 08 Aug 13:26 UTC
Core cask tap JSON: 08 Aug 13:27 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 8
Homebrew Ruby: 3.3.4 => /opt/homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/3.3.4/bin/ruby
CPU: octa-core 64-bit arm_firestorm_icestorm
Clang: 15.0.0 build 1500
Git: 2.39.3 => /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/git
Curl: 8.6.0 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 14.5-arm64
CLT: 15.3.0.0.1.1708646388
Xcode: N/A
Rosetta 2: false

Verification

• [X] My brew doctor output says Your system is ready to brew. and am still able to reproduce my issue.
• [X] I ran brew update and am still able to reproduce my issue.
• [X] I have resolved all warnings from brew doctor and that did not fix my problem.
• [X] I searched for recent similar issues at https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues?q=is%3Aissue and found no duplicates.

What were you trying to do (and why)?

Use MySQL command line client to connect old version MySQL servers using mysql_native_password auth method.

What happened (include all command output)?

ERROR 2059 (HY000): Authentication plugin 'mysql_native_password' cannot be loaded: dlopen(/opt/homebrew/Cellar/mysql-client/9.0.1/lib/plugin/mysql_native_password.so, 0x0002): tried: '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/mysql-client/9.0.1/lib/plugin/mysql_native_password.so' (no such file), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/opt/homebrew/Cellar/mysql-client/9.0.1/lib/plugin/mysql_native_password.so' (no such file), '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/mysql-client/9.0.1/lib/plugin/mysql_native_password.so' (no such file)

What did you expect to happen?

9.0 version client should connect successfully with mysql_native_password auth method. From MySQL 9.0, mysql_native_password is removed from built-in auth methods. But for backward compatibility, client should still include it but now it's not built-in but a dynamically loadable plugin. https://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/9.0/en/news-9-0-0.html

The mysql_native_password authentication plugin, deprecated in MySQL 8.0, has been removed, and the server now rejects mysql_native authentication requests from older client programs which do not have CLIENT_PLUGIN_AUTH capability. For backward compatibility, mysql_native_password remains available on the client; the client-side built-in authentication plugin has been converted into a dynamically loadable plugin.

I think mysql-client should still include it. Otherwise, the new version client might not connect to old version servers.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions (by running brew commands)

brew install mysql-client
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/mysql-client/9.0.1/bin/mysql --comments -u '<user>' -h <host> -P <port> -D '<database>' --ssl-mode=VERIFY_IDENTITY --ssl-ca=/etc/ssl/cert.pem -p'<password>'

[edismooth]

My temporary solution was downgrading to version 8.4:

brew install [email protected]

[deivid11]

Hello, TLDR; Now I'm aware this is not really related to this issue, but I'll keep this comment because is helping lot of people :)

MySQL 9 no longer supports the mysql_native_password authentication method, which may affect users upgrading from MySQL 8.x to MySQL 9. To resolve this issue, you need to update the MySQL user tables to use the new authentication method. Follow these steps:

1.- Disable the Grant Tables:

Edit the MySQL configuration file, typically located at /opt/homebrew/etc/my.cnf. Add the following line under the [mysqld] section to disable the grant tables:

[mysqld]
skip-grant-tables

2.- Restart MySQL: Use Homebrew to restart MySQL:

brew services restart mysql

3.- Connect to MySQL as the root user:

mysql -uroot

4.- Update User Authentication Method:

Refresh the privileges:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

5.- Check for users using the mysql_native_password plugin:

SELECT User, Host, plugin FROM mysql.user WHERE plugin = 'mysql_native_password';

6.- Update the root user to use the caching_sha2_password plugin:

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH caching_sha2_password BY 'new_password';

7.- Re-enable Grant Tables:

After updating, remove or comment out the skip-grant-tables line from the MySQL configuration file.

8.- Restart MySQL to apply the changes:

brew services restart mysql

By following these steps, you should resolve the authentication method issue after upgrading to MySQL 9.

[elreydetodo]

Well that's an interesting detail for why it doesn't work, but I think this still needs to be fixed somehow. I'm not actually running MySQL locally, but I'm using the mysql-client package to connect to a remove service. In fact it's not even MySQL I'm connecting to, it's actually MariaDB.

So a couple things here:

1. We need mysql-client to keep supporting the old password login module, because this is the client, and there's no guarantee what server version you're trying to talk to.
2. We probably could also use a mariadb-client package similar to this one.

[Bo98]

For backward compatibility, mysql_native_password remains available on the client

Despite upstream's release notes, they didn't actually flip the default value for WITH_AUTHENTICATION_CLIENT_PLUGINS. It is actually disabled by default in the client.

This could be argued to be an upstream bug (or at least: confusing documentation). Though we could also override that default in the formula. I'd be OK with a PR that does that, though we should compare the install directory before and after to make sure it has the intended effect.

[zhangyangyu]

Well that's an interesting detail for why it doesn't work, but I think this still needs to be fixed somehow. I'm not actually running MySQL locally, but I'm using the mysql-client package to connect to a remove service. In fact it's not even MySQL I'm connecting to, it's actually MariaDB.

So a couple things here:

1. We need mysql-client to keep supporting the old password login module, because this is the client, and there's no guarantee what server version you're trying to talk to.
2. We probably could also use a mariadb-client package similar to this one.

Exactly our case. We are connecting to remote MySQL-compatible servers.

[john8329]

As mentioned already, MySQL 9 is not fully backwards compatible without this plugin. Remember to link after installing the older, more stable and potentially less secure version.

brew install [email protected]
brew unlink mysql
brew link [email protected]

[goalkes]

This is how I solved this problem, on MySQL 9 and it doesn't use a password for the root user.

1. brew services stop mysql
2. mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
3. mysql -u root
4. USE mysql;
5. UPDATE user SET plugin = 'caching_sha2_password' WHERE User = 'root';
6. EXIT;
7. killall mysqld
8. brew services start mysql

and now you can access as before.

[arudp]

As mentioned already, MySQL 9 is not fully backwards compatible without this plugin. Remember to link after installing the older, more stable and potentially less secure version.

brew install [email protected]
brew unlink mysql
brew link [email protected]

In case it helps anyone, I did this but also remember to refresh the install of whatever tool might be employing it. In my case, since I'm using Python, I was only missing to reinstall the client with pip after the brew reinstall (it's a dumb thing, but quite forgettable)

pip uninstall mysqlclient
pip install mysqlclient --no-cache-dir

[cswingler]

Linking the old version of mysqlclient doesn't fix all the Homebrew packages that depend on it, however (see the output of brew uses --eval-all mysql-client). This is a blocker for those of us relying on things like innotop and percona-toolkit.

Is there some reason that mysql-client >=9.0 can't be built with the -DWITH_AUTHENTICATION_CLIENT_PLUGINS=yes flag? Extracting that formula into my own tap and rebuilding gets all of the things that depend on it working again as well.

[victormongi]

Linking the old version of mysqlclient doesn't fix all the Homebrew packages that depend on it, however (see the output of brew uses --eval-all mysql-client). This is a blocker for those of us relying on things like innotop and percona-toolkit.

Is there some reason that mysql-client >=9.0 can't be built with the -DWITH_AUTHENTICATION_CLIENT_PLUGINS=yes flag? Extracting that formula into my own tap and rebuilding gets all of the things that depend on it working again as well.

do you have any step for this?

[zent1n0]

Linking the old version of mysqlclient doesn't fix all the Homebrew packages that depend on it, however (see the output of brew uses --eval-all mysql-client). This is a blocker for those of us relying on things like innotop and percona-toolkit. Is there some reason that mysql-client >=9.0 can't be built with the -DWITH_AUTHENTICATION_CLIENT_PLUGINS=yes flag? Extracting that formula into my own tap and rebuilding gets all of the things that depend on it working again as well.

do you have any step for this?

See https://docs.brew.sh/FAQ#can-i-edit-formulae-myself

EDIT: Additional arguments are listed at StackOverflow

[klausbreyer]

Uninstall, deleting everything and reinstall everything fresh with MySQL 9 is also an option.

rm -rf /opt/homebrew/var/mysql/*

[mattnorris]

If you're using SQLAlchemy and Python, use PyMySQL.

# NOTE: Do not use native MySQL to connect. Use PyMySQL instead.
# CONNECTION_URI = f"mysql+mysqldb://{USER}:{PASSWORD}@{HOST}:{PORT}/{DATABASE}"

CONNECTION_URI = f"mysql+pymysql://{USER}:{PASSWORD}@{HOST}:{PORT}/{DATABASE}"
db = SQLDatabase.from_uri(CONNECTION_URI)

[ndiaz-addepar]

any estimate to merge this ?

[SMillerDev]

any estimate to merge this ?

How are we going to merge an issue?

If you meant to comment that on the pull request, there are still unresolved tasks.

[ndiaz-addepar]

any estimate to merge this ?

How are we going to merge an issue?

If you meant to comment that on the pull request, there are still unresolved tasks.

Yes, sorry. I meant to comment in the PR more specifically 0dc3ffd

[ndiaz-addepar]

For the poor souls out there there's another workaround when reverting to the previous mysql-client is not enough (I didn't work for me) Download a Formula from 3.5.5 (make sure it is from before the upgrade of mysql-client) and then brew install ./percona-toolkit.rb

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs.

[vladkens]

Hi. Commenting to remove state label.

I use mysql-client with SingleStore database. Also there are many running older MySQL databases where the old login format may be needed. It is strange that this login option was removed from the client rather than restrict it on server.

[SMillerDev]

Closing this since there have been no actionable comments since August.

[JonnoN]

This is disappointing it is closed without a fix. This bug has broken the packages innotop and percona-toolkit (and maybe others).

[SMillerDev]

This is disappointing it is closed without a fix. This bug has broken the packages innotop and percona-toolkit (and maybe others).

The fix is in: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/180498#issuecomment-2284787356

[princedavid-0]

My temporary solution was downgrading to version 8.4:

brew install [email protected]

How did you run your commands with this version? because when I run mysql--version, it says command not found

[Genyus]

when I run mysql--version, it says command not found

@princedavid-0 That means MySQL isn't on your PATH, which you can fix by modifying your .zshrc file:

export PATH="$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/mysql/bin:$PATH"

[nicolasalbani]

My temporary solution was downgrading to version 8.4:

brew install [email protected]

Use this together with https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/180498#issuecomment-2293057321

[stoem]

Hello,

MySQL 9 no longer supports the mysql_native_password authentication method, which may affect users upgrading from MySQL 8.x to MySQL 9. To resolve this issue, you need to update the MySQL user tables to use the new authentication method. Follow these steps:

1.- Disable the Grant Tables:

Edit the MySQL configuration file, typically located at /opt/homebrew/etc/my.cnf. Add the following line under the [mysqld] section to disable the grant tables:

[mysqld]
skip-grant-tables

Could you explain what the skip-grant-tables does and why it is necessary? I'm trying to update an existing user from mysql_native_password to caching_sha2_password using a UI frontend (Navicat). This works but the database connection from my Rails app then fails with Access denied for user...

If I create a new user in MySQL with caching_sha2_password then the connection succeeds. This suggests to me that something differs doesn't 'stick' when altering user records via the UI.

~~Would it require a server reboot? I can try that but thought to ask here before I do.~~ Scratch that, altering the user in Navicat and rebooting the MySQL instance appears to work and the app now connects with caching_sha2_password having been set.

[kylelee24]

My temporary solution was downgrading to version 8.4:

brew install [email protected]

This worked for me on 01/07/2025. I tried to brew uninstall/install prior and was still throwing the same errors reported here.

[zhangyangyu]

This issue has been fixed in https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/201853. No need to pin mysql-client version at 8.4 now. Just brew install mysql-client use 9.1.0.

[ViniciusGabriel92]

I solved it with the following command:

choco install mysql-cli

[LiXiang2019]

I has the same problem，my macOs is 15.4.1，when I execute the command 'brew install mysql',it provided the mysql version for 9.3.0,how solve the issue。