Installation Steps

The Database Connector is available as a separate download. You can download it from here.

It is assumed that Cloud customers have already verified connectivity between the frevvo Cloud and your in-house database server.

Follow these steps to install the Database Connector:

• Install the connector in the tomcat bundle or Install the connector in Standalone mode
• Install the JDBC driver, if required

Once the connector is installed and up and running, you must configure it to integrate with your in-house database. Refer to the DB Connector Configuration topic for the details.

Install the connector in the tomcat bundle

This portion of the documentation assumes that the  tomcat bundle is up and running and installed in c:\frevvo . We'll refer to this directory below as <frevvo-home>.

1. Download the Database Connector.
2. Unzip the database.zip file to a temporary location of your choice: e.g. c:\tmp. This will create a folder c:\tmp\database-connector-2.5.x. We'll refer to this directory as <db-tmp>
3. Copy <db-tmp>\database.war to <frevvo-home>\tomcat\webapps.
4. Install the JDBC driver, if required

5. Start the Insight server. and then start Live Forms.

    Click here for the instructions to start the Insight server and Live Forms

    requires Insight software for the Reporting and Submissions View feature. The Insight software is included in the tomcat bundle. The Insight server MUST be started BEFORE starting . Instructions for Windows and Linux operating systems are listed here:

    Windows:

   1. Open a command prompt. Navigate to <frevvo-home>\solr-5.4.1.Type bin\solr.cmd start to run the Insight server in the background, listening on the default port 8983.
      
      

      

      You will see this message:

      
      
      
   2. Browse http;<your server:your port>/solr to verify the Insight server is running. The <server:port> default values are localhost:8983. Change <your server>  to the server name and <your port> to the port the Insight server is running on if they are different than the defaults. Do not include the angle brackets <>. You will see the Insight server (Solr) dashboard with the current status:
      

   

   If you close the Insight server (Solr) startup window, the server will stop running. Leave the window open or set up Live Forms and the Insight Server to run as Windows services.

   Linux:

   1. Ensure that the scripts are executable: chmod 755 <frevvo-home>/tomcat/bin/*.sh
   2. Navigate to <frevvo-home>/solr-5.4.1/bin. Run this command to make the solr startup file executable:
      
      chmod +x solr
      
   3. Navigate back to the solr-5.4.1 directory.
   4. Start the Insight server by typing:
      
      bin/solr start - this starts the Insight server in the background, listening on the default port 8983.
      
   5. Browse http;<your server:your port>/solr to verify the Insight server is running. The <server:port> default values are localhost:8983. Change <your server>  to the server name and <your port> to the port the Insight server is running on if they are different than the defaults. Do not include the angle brackets <>. You will see the Insight server (Solr) dashboard with the current status:

   

      

     You do not have to restart the Insight server every time you restart .

   The database.war does not extract after startup. You will not see a database subfolder in the <frevvo-home>\tomcat\webapps directory.

6. Test the connector installation by copying this URL directly into your browser:

http://localhost:8082/database/status

•  Change localhost and port 8082 to the host and port where you installed the connector.
  
• Verify that query validation page is loaded with status Passed for the built-in database BIRT and myStore querysets. You are now ready to configure the Database Connector.
  
  
  
  

If the Connector Test failed then:

1. Review the previous installation steps
2. See starting and testing the connector installation for more detailed instructions and common problems.
3. If you cannot get the database connector working please see Getting Help to contact  support.

Install the connector in Standalone mode

1. Verify that Java 8 is installed and the Java_Home environment variable has been configured .
2. Download the Standalone connector zipfile here.
3. Unzip the database.zip file to a location of your choice. We will refer to this directory as <db-home>
4. Install the JDBC driver, if required.
5. You can start the connector using plain java command or execute one of the files in this directory to install the DB Connector as a Windows service or *nix console instance:
   1. Choose one of these methods to start the connector:
      1. Method 1: Using java in a command window
         
         1. Navigate to the <directory where you unzipped the database.zipfile>
         2. Type java -jar database.war
            
      2. Method 2: for Windows OS
         
         1. Install the DB Connector as a Windows service by double clicking the Install-Service.bat file. Click the Start DBConnector Service.bat to start the service.
      3. Method 2 for *nix OS
         1. Execute the  DB Connector.sh shell script for *nix operating systems.
6. Test the connector installation by copying this URL directly into your browser:

http://localhost:8081/database/status

• Note the standalone connector runs on port 8081 by default. The port number can be changed when you configure the DB Connector in the next step. Use port 8081 to verify that the Db Connector is up and running for now. 
• Verify that query validation page is loaded with status Passed for the built-in database BIRT and myStore querysets. You are now ready to configure the Database Connector.
  
  
  

If the Connector Test failed then:

1. Review the previous installation steps
2. See starting and testing the connector installation for more detailed instructions and common problems.

If you cannot get the database connector working please see Getting Help to contact  support.

systemctl enable dbconnector.service

Install a JDBC driver

The connector relies on the JDBC API. You can use any relational database as long as you have a JDBC driver for that database. The database connector download database.zip comes with pre-installed drivers.

The  download package comes with the pre-installed drivers listed below.

• MS SQL driver
• DERBY 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. Refer to the Using the jTDS driver topic if you are using the jTDS SQL Server driver.

• Oracle
• MySQL

Once you have the driver you need, copy it to:

• <frevvo-home>/tomcat/lib if you are deploying the connector in the tomcat bundle
• <directory where you unzipped the database zip file>\database-connector-2.5.0\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.

Using the jTDS driver

There are some special considerations when defining datasources if you are using the jTDS driver. The validationQuery must be included in the resource definition. This query is used during the validation sequence. This is not needed for the Microsoft's JDBC driver as it will be inferred for you.

Here is an example of the resource definition for the jTDS driver for a database named TEST:

queryset name="TEST">
     <resource-def>
          <url>jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://dbhost;DatabaseName=TEST;</url>
          <validationQuery>SELECT 1</validationQuery>
          <user>dbconnector</user>
          <password>************</password>
     </resource-def>
...

If you are using the dbconnector.properties file to define your datasources you must add the validationQuery property.

Here is the same example as above as it would appear in the dbconnector.properties file:

dbconnector.queryset@TEST.resource-def.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://dbhost;databaseName=TEST;
dbconnector.queryset@TEST.resource-def.validationQuery=SELECT 1
dbconnector.queryset@TEST.resource-def.user=dbconnector
dbconnector.queryset@TEST.resource-def.password=*******

DB Connector Quick Demo

The database connector contains working sample databases with some test data. The BIRT (ClassicModels) and myStore querySets are preloaded with in-memory Derby databases.  This make it very easy to try out the connector. No configuration is necessary.

Follow the steps below to deploy the connector in Standalone mode or the tomcat bundle and you can get started very quickly.

The In-house tomcat bundle:

1. Download the v7.2.1 tomcat bundle from the frevvo website.
2. Extract the files to a location of your choice. We will refer to this directory as <frevvo-home>.
3. Navigate to the <frevvo-home>\ext\connectors directory.
4. Unzip the database.zip file to a temporary location of your choice: e.g. c:\tmp. This will create a folder c:\tmp\database. We'll refer to this directory below as <db-tmp>
5. Copy <db-tmp>\database.war to <frevvo-home>\tomcat\webapps.

6. Start the Insight server. and then start Live Forms.

    Click here for the instructions to start the Insight Server and Live Forms

    requires Insight software for the Reporting and Submissions View feature. The Insight software is included in the tomcat bundle. The Insight server MUST be started BEFORE starting . Instructions for Windows and Linux operating systems are listed here:

    Windows:

   1. Open a command prompt. Navigate to <frevvo-home>\solr-5.4.1.Type bin\solr.cmd start to run the Insight server in the background, listening on the default port 8983.
      
      

      

      You will see this message:

      
      
      
   2. Browse http;<your server:your port>/solr to verify the Insight server is running. The <server:port> default values are localhost:8983. Change <your server>  to the server name and <your port> to the port the Insight server is running on if they are different than the defaults. Do not include the angle brackets <>. You will see the Insight server (Solr) dashboard with the current status:
      

   

   If you close the Insight server (Solr) startup window, the server will stop running. Leave the window open or set up Live Forms and the Insight Server to run as Windows services.

   Linux:

   1. Ensure that the scripts are executable: chmod 755 <frevvo-home>/tomcat/bin/*.sh
   2. Navigate to <frevvo-home>/solr-5.4.1/bin. Run this command to make the solr startup file executable:
      
      chmod +x solr
      
   3. Navigate back to the solr-5.4.1 directory.
   4. Start the Insight server by typing:
      
      bin/solr start - this starts the Insight server in the background, listening on the default port 8983.
      
   5. Browse http;<your server:your port>/solr to verify the Insight server is running. The <server:port> default values are localhost:8983. Change <your server>  to the server name and <your port> to the port the Insight server is running on if they are different than the defaults. Do not include the angle brackets <>. You will see the Insight server (Solr) dashboard with the current status:

   

      

     You do not have to restart the Insight server every time you restart .

7. Test the connector installation by copying this URL directly into your browser:
   
   http://localhost:8082/database/status
   

   After performing these steps you will have:

   • Successfully installed the  database connector and retrieved data from the built-in test database
8. Create a tenant.
9. Create a designer user in the tenant
10. Download the Database Connector Application and upload it to the designer user for some example forms that demonstrate the power of the Database Connector using built-in databases.

Standalone Mode:

1. Download the Standalone connector zipfile here.
2. Unzip the database.zip file to a location of your choice. We will refer to this directory as <db-home>
3. Start the connector using plain java command or execute one of the files in this directory to install the DB Connector as a Windows service or *nix console instance:
   1. Choose one of these methods to start the connector:
      1. Method 1: Using java in a command window
         
         1. Navigate to the <db-home> directory.
         2. Type java -jar database.war
            
      2. Method 2: for Windows OS
         
         1. Install the DB Connector as a Windows service by double clicking the Install-Service.bat file. Click the Start DBConnector Service.bat to start the service.
      3. Method 2 for *nix OS
         1. Execute the  DB Connector.sh shell script for *nix operating systems.
4. Test the connector installation by copying this URL directly into your browser:
   

   http://localhost:8081/database/status

   • Note the standalone connector runs on port 8081 by default. The port number can be changed when you configure the DB Connector in the next step. Use port 8081 to verify that the Db Connector is up and running for now. 
   • Verify that query validation page is loaded with status Passed for the built-in database BIRT and myStore querysets.
     
     
     
     
5. Download the Database Connector Application and upload it to the designer user in your Cloud tenant for some example forms that demonstrate the power of the Database Connector using built-in databases.