Select your database type

1. First, Locate and copy the necessary jdbc driver for your database into <frevvo-home>\tomcat\lib.
2. Edit the file <frevvo-home>\tomcat\conf\Catalina\localhost\frevvo.xml
3. You will see two data source definitions for each database type. name="jdbc/frevvoDS" is the form submissions database. name="jdbc/userDS" is the user database. See the above sample of the HSQLDB data source in the frevvo.xml file.
4. Comment out the pair of the definitions for the default database (HSQLDB) using the <!-- --> comment characters. The entire section must be commented out:

<!--
  HSQLDB Resource 
<Parameter name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect" override="false"/>
        <Resource auth="Container"
                type="javax.sql.DataSource"
                factory="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory"
                name="jdbc/frevvoDS"
                driverClassName="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
                username="sa"                password=""
                url="jdbc:hsqldb:file:${catalina.home}/../data/db/forms"
                maxActive="200"
                maxIdle="20"
                maxWait="10000"
                validationQuery="select 1 from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SYSTEM_USERS"
                testOnBorrow="true"
                testOnIdle="true"
                timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="10000"
                removeAbandoned="true"
                logAbandoned="true"/>
        <Parameter name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect" override="false"/>
        <Resource auth="Container"
                type="javax.sql.DataSource"
                factory="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory"
                name="jdbc/userDS"
                driverClassName="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
                username="sa"
                password=""
                url="jdbc:hsqldb:file:${catalina.home}/../data/db/users"                maxActive="200"
                maxIdle="20"
                maxWait="10000"
                validationQuery="select 1 from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SYSTEM_USERS"
                testOnBorrow="true"
                testOnIdle="true"
                timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="10000"
                removeAbandoned="true"
                logAbandoned="true"/>
 -->

Next, uncomment the pair of definitions for your database. Ex: if you are using SQL server, uncomment the definition for SQLSERVER Resource.

 <!--
                SQLSERVER Resource  
   -->
  
        <Parameter name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect" override="false"/>
        <Resource auth="Container"
                factory="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory"
                maxActive="200"
                maxIdle="20"
                maxWait="10000"
                validationQuery="select 1"
                testOnBorrow="true"
                testOnIdle="true"
                timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="10000"
                removeAbandoned="true"
                logAbandoned="true"
                name="jdbc/frevvoDS"
                driverClassName="net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbcx.JtdsDataSource"
                username="root"
                password=""
                type="javax.sql.DataSource"
                url="jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost/frevvoSubmissions"/>
          <Resource auth="Container"
                factory="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory"
                maxActive="200"
                maxIdle="20"
                maxWait="10000"
                validationQuery="select 1"
                testOnBorrow="true"
                testOnIdle="true"
                timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="10000"
                removeAbandoned="true"
                logAbandoned="true"
                name="jdbc/userDS"
                driverClassName="net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbcx.JtdsDataSource"
                username="root"
                password=""
                type="javax.sql.DataSource"
                url="jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost/users"/>

Configure the Live Forms submissions database

For your selected database type in frevvo.xml

1. Locate the frevvoDS data source url parameter.url="jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost/frevvo"/>. You can change the name "frevvo" to whatever you wish, " forms" for example. But it must match the database name you create in your SQL server. See verify connection Url below.
2. Create a utf8 encoded database ""frevvo" (assuming you left the url parameter database name as the default) in your SQL server
3. In the  installation locate the script <frevvo-home>/data/sql/forms-<database type>.sql. Ex: for mySQL the script is named <frevvo-home>/data/sql/forms-mysql5.sql
4. Run that script in your "" database. That will create all the tables required to persist submissions
5. Set the frevvoDS data source parameters username and password to a user that has write permissions to the "" database.
6. The submissions database setup is now complete.

Configure the Live Forms users database

For your selected database type in frevvo.xml,

1. Locate the userDS data source url parameter.<nowiki>url="jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost/users"/></nowiki>. You can change the name "users" to whatever you wish, "Live Forms users" for example. But it must match the database name you create in your SQL server. See verify connection Url below.
2. Create a utf8 encoded database "users" (assuming you left the url parameter database name as the default) in your SQL server
3. In the Live Forms installation locate the script <frevvo-home>/data/sql/users-<database type>.sql. Ex: for mySQL the script is named <frevvo-home>/data/sql/users-mysql5.sql
4. Run that script in the "users" database
5. Set the userDS data source username and password parameter to a user that has write permissions to your "users" database.

Verify the Connection Url

Configuration of the connection Url is key to successfully connection the Live Forms server to your database. Consult your DBA to assist with connection issues.

For both data sources frevvoDS and userDS:

1) verify that the "url" parameter is pointing to the correct server. If  and the database server are collocated "localhost" may be fine.
The Url parameters depend on the database type and installation choices made when your DBA installed your database software. Consult your DBA for the correct connection values. For example, SQL server installed on a non-default port and running on a machine named e00sca will require that you add a port number and host name to the Url. For example:

<url>jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://e00sca:59377/frevvo</url>

As of SQL 2000, Microsoft SQL allows installation of multiple SQL named instances. If your SQL server was installed this way you must use the instance parameter. For example if you database instance was named xyzzy:

{<url>jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://e00sca:59377/frevvo;instance=xyzzy</url>

2) Verify that the users and passwords required to connect to each database are correct.<br/>
3) Make sure that the users configured in the data sources have permissions to read and write to the respective databases.

Non Standard Databases

If you are trying a different database type and do not see an example in frevvo.xml for  your database, you can create a new data source entry. Hibernate supports the following dialects however Live Forms has only been certified to run with a subset of these databases. For additional dialects see Hibernate documentation. See the certified database list above:

•  org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5Dialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.OracleDialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect
•  org.hibernate.dialect.Sybase11Dialect

UTF8 Encoded Database

Setting the encoding depends upon the database you are using. Please consult your database documentation.

MySQL UTF-8 Example

These commands will create the proper Live Forms and users utf8 encoded database in mySql:

create database if not exists frevvo default character set "utf8" default collate "utf8_unicode_ci";
create database if not exists users default character set "utf8" default collate "utf8_unicode_ci";

You can convert a database and/or table to UTF-8. Using the mySQL configuration file or via the mySQL cmd tool.

Via the configuration file:

mysqld]
default-character-set=utf8
default-collation=utf8_general_ci

Via the mySQL cmd tool:

SET @OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=@@UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0;
SET @OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@@FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
SET @OLD_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='TRADITIONAL';
--
ALTER DATABASE frevvo CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
ALTER TABLE formsubmission CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
--
SET SQL_MODE=@OLD_SQL_MODE;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS;
SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=@OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS;

Run the SQL Scripts

What does it mean to run the SQL scripts? The *.sql file is a text file with SQL statements to be executed by the SQL server. Here is one ways to run a SQL script for a mySql database to create the tables needed by Live Forms on a windows box.

1. Open a Command Prompt window 
2. cd to <frevvo installdir>\frevvo\data\sql
3. execute the command: mysql <my_db_name> -u <user_name> -p < forms-mysql5.sql

This will prompt you for the mysql password for <user_name> and then execute the script creating all the required tables.

Install a JDBC Driver

Live Forms's submission and user databases rely on the JDBC API. You can use any relational database as long as you have a JDBC driver for that database, however. See the list of certified databases. If you choose a database that's not in this list you do so at your own risk.

The  download package comes with several pre-installed drivers. Look in <frevvo-home>/tomcat/lib and you will see (among other jar files) the following pre-installed driver jar files:

• hsqldb-2.2.4.jar - HSQLDB driver
• postgresql-9.0-801.jdbc4.jar - Postgress driver

If you don't find what you need pre-installed you will need to locate a driver compatible to your database. Usually you can download your driver from the internet. Try one of these locations

• SQL Server JDBC Driver
• Oracle
• DB2
• Mysql

Once you have the driver you need, copy it to <frevvo-home>/tomcat/lib.

It is also appropriate to copy the driver into any location that is in the CLASSPATH of your servlet container. In a tomcat installation another location would be <CATALINA_HOME>/lib.

Previous Pre-Installed Driver Versions

Previous versions of frevvo include these drivers:

• hsqldb-1.8.0.7.jar - HSQLDB jdbc driver
• com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc-1.1.3.jar - SQL Server driver
• jtds-1.2.5.jar - SQL Server driver
• org.objectweb.rmijdbc-1.0.0.jar - Access driver (also can be used for SQL Server)

If you don't find what you need pre-installed you will need to locate a driver compatible to your database. Usually you can download your driver from the internet. Try one of these locations

• Oracle
• IBM DB2 
• MySQL
• RmiJDBC

Changing Submission database naming and escaping conventions

In specific situations, your organization may require a certain naming convention for database objects (all uppercase, or at most 32 chars, or a specific name escaping convention) and the good news is that It is possible to change some of these parameters in Live Forms by setting a couple of specific web context parameters.

Note also that the following settings affect only the frevvoDS database schema (and not the userDS schema) and that any changes to these settings will force Live Forms to create a schema that is different than the pre-generated scripts found in frevvo/data/sql/forms-*.sql when the schema is initially empty (you have to start from an empty schema).

How can you make database object names are uppercase or lowercase? You can affect this by  editing the frevvo/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/frevvo.xml and adding the following parameter:

<Parameter name="teneo.naming.strategy" value="uppercase" override="false" />

How can you make sure that all database object names have a max length (e.g. Oracle specifies a max of 32 chars)? You can affect this by  editing the frevvo/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/frevvo.xml and adding the following parameter:

<Parameter name="teneo.naming.max_sql_name_length" value="30" override="false" />

How can you specify a custom name escape character? You can affect this by  editing the frevvo/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/frevvo.xml and adding the following parameter:

<Parameter name="teneo.naming.sql_name_escape_character" value="" override="false" />

Moving the forms database

This information applies ONLY to the pre-installed demo database HSQLDB. When using the Live Forms tomcat bundle installation and the default configuration settings, the forms and users database is written to the <frevvo-home>\data\db directory. You may wish to locate the databases outside of <frevvo-home>. To do this:

1. Edit <frevvo-home>\tomcat\conf\Catalina\localhost\frevvo.xml
2. You will see two data source definitions for each database type. jdbc/frevvoDS is the form submissions database. jdbc/usersDS is for the user database.
3. Configure the HSQLDB jdbc/frevvoDS Resource
4. Change <nowiki>url="jdbc:hsqldb:file:${catalina.home}/../data/db/forms"</nowiki> to an absolute directory e.g. <nowiki>url="jdbc:hsqldb:file:c:\tmp\frevvo-data\forms"</nowiki>
5. Configure the HSQLDB jdbc/userDS Resource
6. Change <nowiki>url="jdbc:hsqldb:file:${catalina.home}/../data/db/users"</nowiki> to an absolute directory e.g. <nowiki>url="jdbc:hsqldb:file:c:\tmp\frevvo-data\users"</nowiki>