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

The Issue

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;

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

4) 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';

If you change the password here, make sure you also inform the corresponding user to update on the client side.

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