5.3 Overview of Connector/NET Authentication

MySQL Connector/NET implements a variety of authentication plugins that MySQL Server can invoke to authenticate a user. Pluggable authentication enables the server to determine which plugin applies, based on the user name and host name that your application passes to the server when making a connection. For a complete description of the authentication process, see Pluggable Authentication.

Connector/NET provides the following authentication plugins and methods:

mysql_native_password
Supported for all versions of Connector/NET.
sha256_password
Minimum version: Connector/NET 8.0.11
Supported for both classic MySQL protocol and X Protocol connections. For additional information on using the MYSQL41 mechanism with X Protocol, see the Auth connection option.
caching_sha2_password
Minimum version: Connector/NET 6.10.7 and 8.0.11 for classic MySQL protocol connections only.
authentication_windows_client
Supported for all versions of Connector/NET.
authentication_ldap_sasl_client
Minimum version: Connector/NET 8.0.22 (SCRAM-SHA-1) and Connector/NET 8.0.23 (SCRAM-SHA-256) for classic MySQL protocol only.
SASL-based LDAP authentication for Connector/NET requires the Enterprise Edition of MySQL. SASL authentication protocol, using either the SCRAM-SHA-1 or SCRAM-SHA-256 SASL authentication method, applies to clients running on Windows and Linux, but not macOS.
mysql_clear_password
Minimum version: Connector/NET 8.0.22 for classic MySQL protocol only.
Requires a secure connection to the server, which is satisfied by either condition at the client:
- The SslMode connection option has a value other than None (Preferred by default).
- The ConnectionProtocol connection option is set to unix for Unix domain sockets.