This MariaDB plugin authenticates database users against the system password file, LDAP or other mechanisms supported by saslauthd.

This plugin is no longer maintained because of constant incompatible changes in MariaDB.

On Slackware Linux, enable the saslauthd daemon with:

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.saslauthd
/etc/rc.d/rc.saslauthd start

On OpenBSD, install the cyrus-sasl package and enable the saslauthd daemon with rcctl(8).

On Ubuntu, install the sasl2-bin package. Enable and configure the saslauthd daemon in /etc/default/saslauthd. Add the mysql user to the sasl group and restart the database system.

If saslauthd uses PAM, create the file /etc/pam.d/mariadb.

#%PAM-1.0
@include common-auth
@include common-account

If saslauthd uses LDAP, create /etc/saslauthd.conf.

ldap_servers: ldap://ad1.example.com ldap://ad2.example.com
ldap_start_tls: yes
ldap_tls_cacert_file: /etc/ssl/certs/EXAMPLE-ADS-CA.pem
ldap_tls_check_peer: yes
ldap_search_base: OU=Users,DC=EXAMPLE,DC=COM
ldap_filter: (sAMAccountName=%U)
ldap_bind_dn: CN=saslauthd,OU=Users,DC=EXAMPLE,DC=COM
ldap_password: secret

Check your setup with testsaslauthd.

unset HISTFILE
/usr/sbin/testsaslauthd -s mariadb -u $USER -p 'your password'

To install the plugin, run the following commands:

make OPTIMIZE="-O2" SASLAUTHD_PATH="/var/run/saslauthd/mux"
make install

Depending on your system the communications socket is named /run/saslauthd/mux, /var/run/saslauthd/mux, /var/state/saslauthd/mux or /var/sasl2/mux.

Enable the plugin with:

mysql -h localhost -u root -p \
      -e "INSTALL PLUGIN saslauthd SONAME 'auth_saslauthd.so'"

Or add the following section to your database server's configuration and restart the database system:

[mariadb]
plugin-load-add=auth_saslauthd.so

List the installed plugins with:

mysql -h localhost -u root -p -e 'SHOW PLUGINS\G'
Enter password:
*************************** 53. row ***************************
   Name: saslauthd
 Status: ACTIVE
   Type: AUTHENTICATION
Library: auth_saslauthd.so
License: BSD

Add a database account for the system user "jennifer" as follows:

CREATE USER 'jennifer'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH saslauthd;

Optionally, a different system user as well as a realm can be specified. Example:

CREATE USER 'jekyll' IDENTIFIED WITH saslauthd AS '[email protected]';

Run the mysql command-line tool and enter the system user's password to check the database account. Example:

mysql -h localhost -u jennifer -p
Enter password:

saslauthd needs clear text passwords. Secure non-local connections between your database clients and the server with TLS. See the MariaDB documentation for more information.

The plugin requires MariaDB and the saslauthd daemon from Cyrus SASL. Ensure that the MariaDB client libraries and the mysql_clear_password plugin are installed.

Building the plugin requires a C compiler, GNU Make 4 or a BSD make and the MariaDB development files. On Ubuntu, install the build-essential and libmariadb-dev packages.

Copyright 2017-2018 Andreas Vögele

This plugin is free software; you can redistribute and modify it under the terms of the ISC license.