Warning 'mysql_native_password' authentication type is disabled by default in MySQL 8.4

The Warning

When upgrading from MySQL v8.0 to v8.4, you will get a warning message such as the following:

4) Check for deprecated or invalid user authentication methods.
	Some users are using authentication methods that may be deprecated or removed, please review the details below.
	username@% - The following users are using the 'mysql_native_password' authentication method which is deprecated as of MySQL 8.0.34 and will be removed in a future release.
Consider switching the users to a different authentication method (i.e. caching_sha2_password).
The 'mysql_native_password' authentication type is disabled by default in MySQL 8.4, but can still be enabled by setting loose_mysql_native_password=ON.

The Fix

1) (Recommended) Upgrade to the latest minor version of 8.0.x first.

2) Then, obtain a list of impacted users by running this query.

SELECT user, host, plugin FROM mysql.user;

2) Those users who have their plugin value equal to "mysql_native_password" require a change.

3) For each of these users, run the following query with their corresponding password to change the plugin.

ALTER USER 'the_username'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH caching_sha2_password BY 'the_password';

4) Test the connection to the database with the username and password.