Configure FMR Database Access Through JNDI¶

This page explains how to configure Fusion Metadata Registry (FMR) to use a database connection that is registered in JNDI.

Using JNDI means the application server manages the database connection details instead of storing the JDBC URL, driver, and credentials directly in FMR. This is often useful when:

you want Tomcat to manage connection pooling
you want to keep database credentials outside the FMR application configuration
you already manage shared database resources centrally in Tomcat

The setup has two parts:

Register a JNDI DataSource resource in Apache Tomcat 10.1.
Configure FMR to use that registered resource.

Before you start¶

Make sure that:

Apache Tomcat 10.1 is installed and running
the target database schema already exists
the JDBC driver JAR for your database is available to Tomcat, usually in the Tomcat lib directory

Step 1. Register the JNDI database resource in Tomcat 10.1¶

Tomcat must know about the database resource before FMR can use it.

Do this by adding a <Context> descriptor to the Tomcat configuration.

Example Tomcat `<Context>` descriptor¶

The example below defines a MySQL JNDI resource named fmrdatabase.

<Context>
  <Resource
    name="fmrdatabase"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"
    driverClassName="com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"
    url="jdbc:mysql://fmrdatabase:3306/fmr"
    username="root"
    password="password"
    maxTotal="10"
    minIdle="5"
    maxWaitMillis="-1"
    timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis="7200000"
    minEvictableIdleTimeMillis="3600000"
    defaultAutoCommit="false" />
</Context>

Required resource properties¶

The Resource should include these values:

Setting	Description
`name`	The JNDI resource name that FMR will use, for example `fmrdatabase`
`type`	Use `javax.sql.DataSource`
`driverClassName`	The JDBC driver class for the database
`url`	The JDBC connection URL
`username`	The database user, if required
`password`	The database password, if required

JDBC driver class names¶

Database	Driver class name
MySQL	`com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver`
Oracle	`oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver`
SQL Server	`com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver`

Recommended connection pool settings¶

For non-JNDI connections, FMR uses the following defaults. It is sensible to mirror these values in the Tomcat resource unless your environment needs different pool settings.

Setting	Value
`timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis`	`7200000`
`minEvictableIdleTimeMillis`	`3600000`
`maxTotal`	`10`
`minIdle`	`5`
`defaultAutoCommit`	`false`
`maxWaitMillis`	`-1`

Where to place the `<Context>` descriptor in the Tomcat configuration¶

There are several ways to add the <Context> descriptor to the Tomcat configuration depending on the desired behaviour. Two options are:

$CATALINA_BASE/conf/context.xml: the Context will be loaded by all web applications.
$CATALINA_BASE/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]/context.xml.default: the Context will be loaded by all web applications of that host.

Examples (assuming CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat):

/opt/tomcat/conf/context.xml
/opt/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/context.xml.default

Note

It is NOT recommended to place elements directly in the server.xml file. This is because it makes modifying the Context configuration more invasive since the main conf/server.xml file cannot be reloaded without restarting Tomcat.

Refer to the Apache Tomcat documentation for complete guidance.

Step 2. Configure FMR to use the JNDI resource¶

Once the JNDI resource has been registered in Tomcat, configure FMR to use it.

You can do this either:

during installation on the database setup page
later in Settings -> Server Settings -> Database

Select JNDI connection in the database type dropdown.

Enter the following values:

FMR field	Value
Database Platform	Choose the database platform type - this also automatically sets the Driver Class Name
JNDI Name	The JNDI resource name exactly as defined in Tomcat, for example `fmrdatabase`
JNDI Context	For Apache Tomcat, use `java:/comp/env`
Driver Class Name	The JDBC driver class name

FMR will combine these values to look up the registered Tomcat resource.

End-to-end example using Tomcat and MySQL¶

Determine the CATALINA_BASE¶

This is the base path for the Tomcat installation. For this example we'll assume CATALINA_BASE = /opt/tomcat

Create the Tomcat context¶

If it doesn't already exist, create the Tomcat context file /opt/tomcat/conf/context.xml, and add the following <Context> descriptor:

<Context>
  <Resource
    name="fmrdatabase"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"
    driverClassName="com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"
    url="jdbc:mysql://fmrdatabase:3306/fmr"
    username="root"
    password="password" 
  />
</Context>

Configure the FMR database connection¶

As an administrator, configure the FMR database connection to use the fmrdatabase named resource:

Troubleshooting¶

Error: Unable to determine Java Driver class from JNDI information¶

This may appear with messages such as:

Unable to determine Java Driver class from JNDI information.
Cannot create JDBC driver of class 'oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver' for connect URL 'jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521/orapdb1'
No suitable driver

Common causes:

the required JDBC driver JAR is not available to Tomcat
the JDBC url in the Tomcat Resource is incorrect

For example, if you are using Oracle, ensure the appropriate Oracle JDBC driver JAR is present in the Tomcat lib directory.