MySQL 8 Support needed!

Well, my MySQL docker got upgraded to MySQL v8.

Because of this, the password is now using the new sha2 authentication plugins ( and I want it to stay that way for security) and since OSMC is on MySQL 5.5, it can no longer authenticate. When working from the command line to log into the remote database, I see this:

osmc@rrl-vero:~/.kodi/userdata$ mysql -h 192.168.3.21 -u root -p
Enter password:
ERROR 2059 (HY000): Authentication plugin 'caching_sha2_password' cannot be loaded: /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/mariadb18/plugin/caching_sha2_password.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

After doing some research, it seems that OSMC needs to have its MySQL client updated. I tried some of the avilable guides out there and I guess there is some issue with arm64 support. I tried the following guide:

https://linoxide.com/linux-how-to/install-mysql-ubuntu/

When I get to the point in the guide where you run apt update to sync the new repositories, I get the following errors:

root@rrl-vero:/home/osmc/.kodi/userdata# apt update
Ign:2 http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch InRelease
Hit:3 http://security.debian.org stretch/updates InRelease
Hit:1 http://ftp.fau.de/osmc/osmc/apt stretch InRelease
Hit:4 http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease
Hit:5 http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch-updates InRelease
Hit:6 http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch Release
Reading package lists... Done
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'mysql-apt-config/binary-arm64/Packages' as repository 'http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'arm64'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'mysql-apt-config/binary-armhf/Packages' as repository 'http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'armhf'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'mysql-8.0/binary-arm64/Packages' as repository 'http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'arm64'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'mysql-8.0/binary-armhf/Packages' as repository 'http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'armhf'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'mysql-tools/binary-armhf/Packages' as repository 'http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'armhf'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'mysql-tools/binary-arm64/Packages' as repository 'http://repo.mysql.com/apt/debian stretch InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'arm64'

And running apt-install mysql-client reports that it is at the current version (5.5.9999+default)

So…

How can I get the support for connections to mysql8 servers?

Yeah, I suppose I can go back to using SQLite since I only have one Kodi machine at the moment, but I plan to have more and really want the shared mysql-based libraries available to me.

Please advise.

OSMC’s Kodi dependency is based on Maria 10.1.x.
There will be a version bump when we move to Buster.

We don’t provide any mysql client by default; so you may have installed an old client version manually.

According to Authentication Plugin - SHA-256 - MariaDB Knowledge Base

MariaDB Server does not currently support either the sha256_password or the caching_sha2_password authentication plugins.

You said you would want to keep SHA2 authentication which is good. But if you cannot get the client updated you could configure the user to authenticate with mysql_native_password plugin (change the configuration of the user in server). The client should support this legacy mechanism it is the same used on 5.5.