To load the plugins and set the LDAP server host and base distinguished name for LDAP bind operations, put lines such as these in your my.cnf  file, adjusting the .so  suffix for your platform as necessary: 

[mysqld] plugin-load-add=authentication_ldap_simple.so authentication_ldap_simple_server_host=127.0.0.1 authentication_ldap_simple_bind_base_dn="dc=example,dc=com" plugin-load-add=authentication_ldap_sasl.so authentication_ldap_sasl_server_host=127.0.0.1 authentication_ldap_sasl_bind_base_dn="dc=example,dc=com" 

After modifying my.cnf , restart the server to cause the new settings to take effect. 

Alternatively, to load the plugins at runtime, use these statements, adjusting the .so  suffix for your platform as necessary: 

INSTALL PLUGIN authentication_ldap_simple SONAME ’authentication_ldap_simple.so’; INSTALL PLUGIN authentication_ldap_sasl SONAME ’authentication_ldap_sasl.so’; 

INSTALL PLUGIN  loads the plugin immediately, and also registers it in the mysql.plugins  system table to cause the server to load it for each subsequent normal startup without the need for --plugin-load- add . 

After installing the plugins at runtime, their system variables become available and you can add settings for them to your my.cnf  file to configure the plugins for subsequent restarts. For example: 

[mysqld] authentication_ldap_simple_server_host=127.0.0.1 authentication_ldap_simple_bind_base_dn="dc=example,dc=com" authentication_ldap_sasl_server_host=127.0.0.1 authentication_ldap_sasl_bind_base_dn="dc=example,dc=com" 

After modifying my.cnf , restart the server to cause the new settings to take effect. 

Alternatively, to set and persist the values at runtime, use these statements: 

SET PERSIST authentication_ldap_simple_server_host=’127.0.0.1’; SET PERSIST authentication_ldap_simple_bind_base_dn=’dc=example,dc=com’; SET PERSIST authentication_ldap_sasl_server_host=’127.0.0.1’; SET PERSIST authentication_ldap_sasl_bind_base_dn=’dc=example,dc=com’; 

SET PERSIST  sets the value for the running MySQL instance. It also saves the value, causing it to carry over to subsequent server restarts. To change a value for the running MySQL instance without having it carry over to subsequent restarts, use the GLOBAL  keyword rather than PERSIST . See Section 13.7.6.1, “SET Syntax for Variable Assignment” . 

To verify plugin installation, examine the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS  table or use the SHOW PLUGINS  statement (see Section 5.6.2, “Obtaining Server Plugin Information” ). For example: 

mysql> SELECT PLUGIN_NAME, PLUGIN_STATUS FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS WHERE PLUGIN_NAME LIKE ’%ldap%’; +----------------------------+---------------+ | PLUGIN_NAME | PLUGIN_STATUS | +----------------------------+---------------+ | authentication_ldap_sasl | ACTIVE | | authentication_ldap_simple | ACTIVE | +----------------------------+---------------+ 

If a plugin fails to initialize, check the server error log for diagnostic messages. 

