Differences in Available Plugins for Enterprise Server
Plugin Evolution Across Enterprise Releases
The availability, maturity, and package inclusions of plugins continuously change from version to version to maintain a predictable operational ecosystem:
MariaDB Enterprise Server 11.8
caching_sha2_passwordPlugin: This authentication plugin was added to provide MySQL-compatible authentication, allowing users to be moved from MySQL to MariaDB without changing their passwords (it is not installed by default).PARSECPlugin: Available in MariaDB Enterprise Server 11.8.HashiCorp Vault Upgrade: Namespace support was added to HashiCorp Vault to integrate with HashiCorp enterprise namespaces.
file_key_managementEncryption Plugin: This plugin can now read keys from a Unix socket instead of just local files. It also added key rotation capability along with a new Information Schema table namedFILE_KEY_MANAGEMENT_KEYS.Enterprise Audit Buffering: Audit logging buffer writes are now possible, controlled by the
server_audit_file_buffer_sizevariable and manually flushed usingserver_audit_sync_log_file.
MariaDB Enterprise Server 11.4
PARSECAuthentication: This plugin (Password Authentication using Response Signed with Elliptic Curve) is included as a backported feature. It uses salted passwords, pbkdf2 key derivation, and signed responses to mitigate replay and man-in-the-middle attacks.password_reuse_checkPlugin: Included as a backported feature to prevent users from reusing previous passwords. (Note: Upgrading this plugin to version 2.0 alters the data storage format to fix a weakness under MDEV-28838, which invalidates older v1.0 history).SQL Error Log Plugin: Enhanced to display the active thread ID and the default schema for errors when
sql_error_log_with_db_and_thread_info=ONis set.
MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.6
Object Filtering for Audit: Advanced filtering was added to MariaDB Enterprise Audit, allowing administrators to define JSON filters (
ignore_databases,ignore_tables,log_databases,log_tables) to restrict logging to specific databases or tables. This capability was also backported to ES 10.5.12-8 and ES 10.4.21-13.
MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.5
ColumnStore Storage Engine Plugin: MariaDB ColumnStore 5 was introduced as an integrated enterprise plugin to provide distributed columnar storage for analytical workloads.
Spider Storage Engine Plugin: Updated to support an ODBC foreign data wrapper and added the
information_schema.SPIDER_WRAPPER_PROTOCOLSsystem table.Plugin Phase-outs & Repository Splits:
TokuDB and Cassandra: Both storage engine plugins were completely phased out and removed from installation packages.
CONNECT Storage Engine: Moved from the main Enterprise repository to an "unsupported" repository. To ensure it functions, you must explicitly include the
--include-unsupportedflag in themariadb_es_repo_setupscript, or else the libraryha_connect.sowill be unavailable.
MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4
Aria System Tables: System tables transitioned to use the crash-safe Aria storage engine plugin by default.
Multi-Plugin Authentication: Added the ability to specify multiple authentication plugins for an individual user account using
ORfallback constraints (e.g., executingIDENTIFIED VIA unix_socket OR mysql_native_password).
Querying Plugin Information
Because your specific installation state depends on repository definitions (such as whether the unsupported repository is active), documentation can diverge from real-time database deployments. You can dynamically query plugin availability via the following database interface methods:
Using SHOW PLUGINS
SHOW PLUGINSThe simplest statement to review all loaded plugins and identify hard-coded components:
Mechanic: If a plugin's Library column returns a NULL value, the plugin is natively built-in and cannot be uninstalled.
Using information_schema.PLUGINS
information_schema.PLUGINSTo filter plugins systematically by maturity level, type, or library names:
Mechanic: If the PLUGIN_LIBRARY column is NULL, the plugin is built-in and cannot be uninstalled.
Using mysql.plugin
mysql.pluginTo see exactly which plugins have been explicitly installed onto the database system registry:
Critical Nuance: This table only retains records for plugins explicitly loaded via the INSTALL SONAME statement, the INSTALL PLUGIN statement, or the offline mariadb-plugin utility. It does not contain information about built-in plugins or plugins loaded temporarily at server startup using the --plugin-load or --plugin-load-add configuration options.
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