Depending on whether mysql_plugin is invoked to enable or disable plugins, it inserts or deletes rows in the mysql.plugin table that serves as a plugin registry. (To perform this operation, mysql_plugin invokes the MySQL server in bootstrap mode. This means that the server must not already be running.) For normal server startups, the server loads and enables plugins listed in mysql.plugin automatically. For additional control over plugin activation, use --plugin_name options named for specific plugins, as described in Section 5.1.8.1, "Installing and Uninstalling Plugins".

Each invocation of mysql_plugin reads a configuration file to determine how to configure the plugins contained in a single plugin library object file. To invoke mysql_plugin, use this syntax:

mysql_plugin [options] plugin {ENABLE|DISABLE}

plugin is the name of the plugin to configure. ENABLE or DISABLE (not case sensitive) specify whether to enable or disable components of the plugin library named in the configuration file. The order of the plugin and ENABLE or DISABLE arguments does not matter.

For example, to configure components of a plugin library file named myplugins.so on Linux or myplugins.dll on Windows, specify a plugin value of myplugins. Suppose that this plugin library contains three plugins, plugin1, plugin2, and plugin3, all of which should be configured under mysql_plugin control. By convention, configuration files have a suffix of .ini and the same base name as the plugin library, so the default configuration file name for this plugin library is myplugins.ini. The configuration file contents look like this:

myplugins
plugin1
plugin2
plugin3

The first line in the myplugins.ini file is the name of the library object file, without any extension such as .so or .dll. The remaining lines are the names of the components to be enabled or disabled. Each value in the file should be on a separate line. Lines on which the first character is '#' are taken as comments and ignored.

To enable the plugins listed in the configuration file, invoke mysql_plugin this way:

shell> mysql_plugin myplugins ENABLE

To disable the plugins, use DISABLE rather than ENABLE.

An error occurs if mysql_plugin cannot find the configuration file or plugin library file, or if mysql_plugin cannot start the MySQL server.

mysql_plugin supports the following options, which can be specified on the command line or in the [mysqld] group of any option file. For options specified in a [mysqld] group, mysql_plugin recognizes the --basedir, --datadir, and --plugin-dir options and ignores others. For information about option files used by MySQL programs, see Section 4.2.6, "Using Option Files".

• --help, -?

Display a help message and exit.

• --basedir=dir_name, -b dir_name

The server base directory.

• --datadir=dir_name, -d dir_name

The server data directory.

• --my-print-defaults=file_name, -b file_name

The path to the my_print_defaults program.

• --mysqld=file_name, -b file_name

The path to the mysqld server.

• --no-defaults, -p

Do not read values from the configuration file. This option enables an administrator to skip reading defaults from the configuration file.

With mysql_plugin, this option need not be given first on the command line, unlike most other MySQL programs that support --no-defaults.

• --plugin-dir=dir_name, -p dir_name

The server plugin directory.

• --plugin-ini=file_name, -i file_name

The mysql_plugin configuration file. Relative path names are interpreted relative to the current directory. If this option is not given, the default is plugin.ini in the plugin directory, where plugin is the plugin argument on the command line.

• --print-defaults, -P

Display the default values from the configuration file. This option causes mysql_plugin to print the defaults for --basedir, --datadir, and --plugin-dir if they are found in the configuration file. If no value for a variable is found, nothing is shown.

With mysql_plugin, this option need not be given first on the command line, unlike most other MySQL programs that support --print-defaults.

• --verbose, -v

Verbose mode. Print more information about what the program does. This option can be used multiple times to increase the amount of information.

• --version, -V

Display version information and exit.