This documentation relates to Confluence 3.1.x
If you are using an earlier version, please view the previous versions of the Confluence documentation and select the relevant version.

Configuring a MySQL Datasource in Apache Tomcat

Instructions on setting up a MySQL DataSource connection for Confluence Standalone or EAR/WAR.

autoReconnect=true is required
The Confluence database connection URL must have autoReconnect=true added to the end to prevent disconnection issues.

Shut down Tomcat

  • Run bin/shutdown.sh or bin/shutdown.bat to bring Tomcat down while you are making these changes

Install the Drivers

  • download the MySQL JDBC drivers from http://www.mysql.com/downloads/api-jdbc-stable.html.
  • After unpacking the file you have downloaded, you'll find a file called something like mysql-connector-java-3.0.10-stable-bin.jar.
  • Copy this file into the common/lib directory of your Tomcat installation. Be aware that this directory may be just lib for Tomcat version 6 and beyond.

Configure Tomcat

The configuration is different for Conflence 2.2 onwards due to an upgrade to Tomcat 5.5

For users of Confluence 2.2 and later

  • If you are using the Standalone distribution. edit the conf/server.xml file in your Tomcat installation. Users running their own Tomcat instance must edit the xml file where they declared the Confluence Context descriptor.
  • If editing conf/server.xml, find the following lines:
    <Context path="" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="true">
                        <!-- Logger is deprecated in Tomcat 5.5. Logging configuration for Confluence is specified in confluence/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties -->
    
  • Within the Context tags, directly after the opening <Context.../> line, insert the DataSource Resource tag:
    <Resource name="jdbc/confluence" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"
             username="yourusername"
             password="yourpassword"
             driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
             url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/confluence?autoReconnect=true"
             maxActive="15"
             maxIdle="7"
             validationQuery="Select 1" />
    
    ** Replace the username and password parameters with the correct values for your database
    • In the url parameter, replace the word 'confluence' with the name of the database your confluence data will be stored in.
    • If you plan to use non-latin characters, you will also need to add "&useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8" on the end of the above URL. These options are not required for any database other than MySQL.

The configuration properties for Tomcat's standard data source resource factory (org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory) are as follows:

  • driverClassName - Fully qualified Java class name of the JDBC driver to be used.
  • maxActive - The maximum number of active instances that can be allocated from this pool at the same time.
  • maxIdle - The maximum number of connections that can sit idle in this pool at the same time.
  • maxWait - The maximum number of milliseconds that the pool will wait (when there are no available connections) for a connection to be returned before throwing an exception.
  • password - Database password to be passed to our JDBC driver.
  • url - Connection URL to be passed to our JDBC driver. (For backwards compatibility, the property driverName is also recognized.)
  • user - Database username to be passed to our JDBC driver.
  • validationQuery - SQL query that can be used by the pool to validate connections before they are returned to the application. If specified, this query MUST be an SQL SELECT statement that returns at least one row.

For users of Confluence 2.1.x and earlier

  • Edit the conf/server.xml file in your Tomcat installation
  • Find the following lines:
    <Context path="" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="true">
           <Logger className="org.apache.catalina.logger.FileLogger" prefix="atlassian-confluence."
           suffix=".log" timestamp="true"/>
    
  • Directly after the <Logger.../> line, (before the next </Context> line), insert the following:
    <Resource name="jdbc/confluence" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
    <ResourceParams name="jdbc/confluence">
        <parameter>
             <name>factory</name>
             <value>org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
             <name>maxActive</name>
             <value>20</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
             <name>maxIdle</name>
             <value>10</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
            <name>maxWait</name>
            <value>10000</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
            <name>username</name>
            <value>yourusername</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
            <name>password</name>
            <value>yourpassword</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
            <name>driverClassName</name>
            <value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
        </parameter>
        <parameter>
            <name>url</name>
            <value>jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/confluence?autoReconnect=true</value>
        </parameter>
    </ResourceParams>
    
    ** You may want to choose different maxActive and maxIdle values: these are how many total database connections will be allowed at one time, and how many will be kept open even when there is no database activity
    • Replace the username and password parameters with the correct values for your database
    • In the url parameter, replace the word 'confluence' with the name of the database your confluence data will be stored in.
    • If you plan to use non-latin characters, you will also need to add &useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8 on the end of the above URL. These options are not required for any database other than MySQL.

Configure the Confluence web application

  • Edit confluence/WEB-INF/web.xml in your confluence installation
  • Go to the end of the file and just before </web-app>, insert the following:
    <resource-ref>
            <description>Connection Pool</description>
            <res-ref-name>jdbc/confluence</res-ref-name>
            <res-type>javax.sql.Datasource</res-type>
            <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
        </resource-ref>
    

Configure Confluence

  • If you have not yet set up Confluence
    • Follow the steps in the Confluence Setup Guide
    • In the Database Setup section, choose the "Datasource Connection" option.
    • Set the JNDI name to java:comp/env/jdbc/confluence
    • Set the Database dialect to MySQL.
  • If you are changing an existing Confluence installation over to using a Tomcat datasource
    • Find your ConfluenceHome directory (see: Confluence Home Directory if you don't know where it is).
    • Edit the confluence.cfg.xml file
    • Delete any line that contains a property that begins with hibernate.
    • Insert the following at the start of the <properties> section.
      <property name="hibernate.setup"><![CDATA[true]]></property>
          <property name="hibernate.dialect"><![CDATA[net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect]]></property>
          <property name="hibernate.connection.datasource"><![CDATA[java:comp/env/jdbc/confluence]]></property>
      

Restart Confluence

  • Run bin/startup.sh or bin/startup.bat to start Tomcat with the new settings.

F.A.Q.

I see "Can't call commit when autocommit=true" during an upgrade of Confluence or otherwise.

Check out http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-1710 This error can be fixed by adding:
&relaxAutoCommit=true
to the end of your JDBC url.

Example:
jdbc:mysql://localhost/confdb?autoReconnect=true&relaxAutoCommit=true

This JDBC url can be found in your confluence.cfg.xml file located in your confluence home folder.

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  1. Aug 19, 2004

    William Crighton says:

    The Configure the Confluence web application instructions give me an error with ...

    The Configure the Confluence web application instructions give me an error with Tomcat. Specifically, when I add my resource-ref section such that it appears directly under the <description> line I get an error on startup saying the xml file could not be parsed. To resolve this I moved the <resource-ref> section to the end of the file and it starts up/works fine.

  2. Oct 07, 2006

    Jeff Brooks says:

    With tomcat 5.0.22 and jdk1.5.0_09 against RHEL 4 update 3, I was having problem...

    With tomcat 5.0.22 and jdk1.5.0_09 against RHEL 4 update 3, I was having problems with multiple parameters to the context/resource/url paramater.  The instructions above sayto add additional parameters with "&".  If you are having errors that complain about proper delimeter ';', then try to replace "&" with "&" instead.

    1. Oct 08, 2006

      Ivan Benko says:

      Jeff, you meant to say : then try to replace ";" with "&" instead. Right?

      Jeff, you meant to say : then try to replace ";" with "&" instead. Right?

      1. Oct 08, 2006

        Jeff Brooks says:

        Whoops! No, I was trying to show that you should try the escaped version, but i...

        Whoops! No, I was trying to show that you should try the escaped version, but it was fully parsed in my comment above. That comment was supposed to say:
        ...try to replace "&" with "& a m p ;" without the spaces

        The example listed above in the FAQ is:
        jdbc:mysql://localhost/confdb?autoReconnect=true&relaxAutoCommit=true

        If I did that in my install, I would get an error complaining about the need of ';' delimeter for the second paramter. So instead, I used:
        jdbc:mysql://localhost/confdb?autoReconnect=true& a m p ;relaxAutoCommit=true

        (and again, you will have to remove the spaces between the & and a and m and p and ;

        1. Oct 08, 2006

          Jeff Brooks says:

          Okay, I finally became smart enough to try this with a code macro: Instead of: ...

          Okay, I finally became smart enough to try this with a code macro:

          Instead of:

          jdbc:mysql://localhost/confdb?autoReconnect=true&relaxAutoCommit=true

          You would use:

          jdbc:mysql://localhost/confdb?autoReconnect=true&amp;relaxAutoCommit=true
          
          1. May 22, 2007

            Andy Jones says:

            Jeff :- THANK YOU for this. Atlassian :- could you please incorporate t...

            Jeff :- THANK YOU for this.

            Atlassian :- could you please incorporate this information into the body of the page?
            I was having problems with exact error, and ended up on this page but with the "?showComments=false" option on.  By a stroke of luck, I chose to view the comments, and voila.

  3. Oct 08, 2006

    Ivan Benko says:

    Thanks Jeff, I made a mistake too, not ';' yet &amp

    Thanks Jeff, I made a mistake too, not ';' yet

     &amp 
  4. Dec 05, 2006

    amyoung says:

    I have a few databases, confluencedb, which stores the confluence stuff, and web...

    I have a few databases, confluencedb, which stores the confluence stuff, and webdb, which stores some web-related stuff. I would like to put some of the things in the webdb on the wiki, too. I thought/think that's possible with the sql plugin.

    However, I keep getting "sql: Security restricted macro with parameter 'datasource' and parameter value 'databasename' is not allowed on this page".

    Is there a way to find out more about the error? The logs don't look like Confluence is even attempting to access webdb. I tried changing the names of the datasource to various configurations (for example, connecting to confluencedb, which I know it's using b/c I can login and see content on the wiki), and commented out the restrictions in macro-security.properties just for testing, but I keep getting the same error.

    1. Dec 10, 2006

      Don Willis says:

      Because running arbitrary SQL on a server is not something you want to allow eve...

      Because running arbitrary SQL on a server is not something you want to allow everybody to do, the sql macro, when installed, is disabled by default for security.

      See http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFEXT/Scripting+and+External+Content+Macros

  5. Jul 29, 2008

    Karsten Landwehr says:

    Hi guys, I'm having some big trouble to set up a MySQL DataSource for conf...

    Hi guys,

    I'm having some big trouble to set up a MySQL DataSource for confluence-2.8.1 with Tomcat-5.5.26.

    Tomcat is located here: D:\Confluence\apache-tomcat-5.5.26
    Confluence-Installation here: D:\Confluence\confluence-2.8.1\confluence-2.8.1
    Confluence-Home-Path here: D:\Confluence\data

    I followed the steps obove but I alwas get this error:

    29.07.2008 12:36:52 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
    SCHWERWIEGEND: Error listenerStart
    29.07.2008 12:36:52 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
    SCHWERWIEGEND: Context [/confluence-2.8.1] startup failed due to previous errors
    

    (SCHWERWIEGEND means FATAL)

    I've done the following things:

    First I edited my D:\Confluence\apache-tomcat-5.5.26\conf\context.xml because in the server.xml was no <context.../> section. I've put in this:

    <Context path="/confluence-2.8.1" docBase="D:\Confluence\confluence-2.8.1\confluence-2.8.1\confluence" debug="0" reloadable="true">
    
    <Resource name="jdbc/confluence" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" username="root" password="password" driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/confluence?autoReconnect=true&relaxAutoCommit=true" validationQuery="Select 1" maxActive="25" maxIdle="5" maxWait="10000" />
    
    </Context>
    

    Then i added the following to D:\Confluence\confluence-2.8.1\confluence-2.8.1\confluence\WEB-INF\web.xml

    <resource-ref>
            <description>Connection Pool</description>
            <res-ref-name>jdbc/confluence</res-ref-name>
            <res-type>javax.sql.Datasource</res-type>
            <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
    </resource-ref>
    

    And finally I deleted these lines from the D:\Confluence\data\confluence.cfg.xml

    <property name="hibernate.c3p0.acquire_increment">1</property>
        <property name="hibernate.c3p0.idle_test_period">100</property>
        <property name="hibernate.c3p0.max_size">15</property>
        <property name="hibernate.c3p0.max_statements">0</property>
        <property name="hibernate.c3p0.min_size">0</property>
        <property name="hibernate.c3p0.timeout">30</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.password">1</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/confluence?autoReconnect=true</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.username">root</property>
        <property name="hibernate.database.lower_non_ascii_supported">true</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dialect">net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
        <property name="hibernate.setup">true</property>
    

    and replaced them with

    <property name="hibernate.setup"><![CDATA[true]]></property>
        <property name="hibernate.dialect"><![CDATA[net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect]]></property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.datasource"><![CDATA[java:comp/env/jdbc/confluence]]></property>
    

    All like its mentioned in the guide above, but I dont get it to work. I read this guide soooo many times...I NEED HELP PLZ!!!!

     I also mentioned that when I start my Tomcat after I made this changes, that the "[CDATA[true]]" thing have disappeard. It looks then like this after the first start

    <property name="hibernate.connection.datasource">java:comp/env/jdbc/confluence</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dialect">net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
        <property name="hibernate.setup">true</property>
    

    I would be very very happy if someone can help me with this.

    Karsten

    1. Jul 29, 2008

      Azwandi Mohd Aris [Atlassian] says:

      Hi Karsten, Would you be able to raise a support ticket at http://support.atlas...

      Hi Karsten,

      Would you be able to raise a support ticket at http://support.atlassian.com? Please include all of this information and your logs to the ticket. Thanks.

      Cheers,
      Azwandi

    2. Nov 10

      Anonymous says:

      Hallo Karsten wie hast du das gelöst bekommen? Ich habe gerade das selbe Proble...

      Hallo Karsten

      wie hast du das gelöst bekommen? Ich habe gerade das selbe Problem!

      Gruß

      Heino

  6. Sep 26, 2008

    Benjamin White says:

    When configuring Confluence, the instructions direct to remove all properties th...

    When configuring Confluence, the instructions direct to remove all properties that begin with '''hibernate'''. We have properties begining with '''hibernate.3cp0'''. Will the '''3cp0''' statements removal cause a problem?

  7. Dec 01, 2008

    Roy Hartono says:

    Relevant documentations: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/config/context....
  8. May 20, 2009

    Erik Ellestad says:

    After upgrading from confluence 2.9.2 to 2.10.3 this seems to no longer be worki...

    After upgrading from confluence 2.9.2 to 2.10.3 this seems to no longer be working.

    I just get the following error about, "sql: Unexpected program error: com.atlassian.renderer.v2.macro.MacroException: org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.SQLNestedException: Cannot create PoolableConnectionFactory (Could not create connection to database server. Attempted reconnect 3 times. Giving up.)"

  9. May 20, 2009

    Tim Eddelbuettel says:

    Have you copied the MySQL Java Connector to \...\confluence\WEB-INF\lib ? Regar...

    Have you copied the MySQL Java Connector to \...\confluence\WEB-INF\lib ?

    Regards

    1. May 22, 2009

      Erik Ellestad says:

      Yes, we are using a MySQL backend for confluence which is working fine.  It...

      Yes, we are using a MySQL backend for confluence which is working fine.  It's just the data source that isn't.

      1. May 22, 2009

        Erik Ellestad says:

        I figured it out.  The MySQL host cache needed to be cleared on the databas...

        I figured it out.  The MySQL host cache needed to be cleared on the database server.

  10. Jan 13

    Jeff Kirby says:

    Could you explain what the sentence, "Be aware that this directory may be just l...

    Could you explain what the sentence, "Be aware that this directory may be just lib for Tomcat version 6 and beyond" means?

    1. Jan 14

      Azwandi Mohd Aris [Atlassian] says:

      Hi, Jeff. It means the folder <tomcat-install>/common/lib in Tomcat 5.x an...

      Hi, Jeff. It means the folder <tomcat-install>/common/lib in Tomcat 5.x and older is now moved to folder <tomcat-install>/lib in Tomcat 6.x. Depending on the Tomcat version, you have to install the MySQL JDBC driver inside the corresponding folder.

      1. Jan 22

        Jeff Kirby says:

        thanks

        thanks

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