Advantages of having user authentication details stored in a separate table

Question

I have a user table in mysql containing all user data (firstname, surname, address, etc)

But should I store the authentication details in another table (username, password) and link the two tables via a user ID?

Is there much point in this?

Is it more secure?

or does it just add extra coding?

Legere

Answer 1

Is there much point in this?

Nope, not at all.

Is it more secure?

If someone can access your users table they can surely access whatever other table the passwords are on, so no.

or does it just add extra coding?

Pretty much. You'll have to a lot of excess JOINs to get the password info when there's really no reason to be dividing up the data in the first place.

Monies

Answer 2

Is there much point in this?

No.

Is it more secure?

How could it be? Database credentials apply to the whole database.

just add extra coding?

Precisely.

Lengel

Answer 3

Reusing the answers template to add my 2 cents:

Is there much point in this?

YES! it reduces overhead.If you only need to authenticate users, you don't need to fetch their profile info. It saves bandwidth and makes efficient tables.

Is it more secure?

Nope

or does it just add extra coding?

Well it is slightly more work but worth it as it's good Application Architecture. You're doing your future self a favor by designing a system that can scale. Also if you work with a framework you won't feel it.

Dogtooth

could you give an example setup or 2 of this to demonstrate? – Candida