Extending MariaDB the Easy Way: A Tour d’Horizon of Server Plugins

MariaDB is not only a database server you configure and operate; it is also a platform you can extend. With server plugins, you can add new SQL functions, expose operational capabilities, experiment with new data types, or adapt server behavior to your own needs without maintaining a long-lived fork.

In this session, I will show how approachable MariaDB Server plugin development can be. After a short introduction to the MariaDB plugin architecture, build process, installation, and testing workflow, we will take a practical tour d’horizon of several real plugins I created.

The examples will cover different plugin use cases: GTID inspection and flashback helpers, disabling selected built-in SQL functions, adding small utility functions, IP address classification and CIDR matching, richer UUID manipulation, timestamp extraction from UUIDv1 and UUIDv7 values, SQL-driven tcmalloc/gperftools profiling, and even extending MariaDB with a custom MONEY type using the Type Handler framework.

The goal is not only to present the plugins themselves, but to demystify the process. Attendees should leave with a clear mental model of what can be extended, how a plugin is structured, how to build and test one, and where MariaDB plugins can be useful in real-world production, troubleshooting, observability, and developer experience scenarios.