MySQL Connectivity
dbFront currently supports MySql versions 4, 5 and 8.0.
MySql Server connectivity is reasonably easy to set up but it does require a separate driver download.
Driver Installation
dbFront 1.4 and Newer
As of dbFront version 1.4, the MySQL Connector is now included, so connecting to a MySQL database should just work. For more details see: Included MySQL/MariaDB connector.
The included MySqlConnector provides stated support for: MySQL Server, MariaDB, Amazon Aurora, Azure Database for MySQL, Google Cloud SQL for MySQL, Percona Server and more.
dbFront 1.3 and Older
To use MySql with dbFront versions older then 1.4, you need to download and install specific MySql driver versions.
- The latest Known Good version of the MySQL connector is 8.0.32.
- The 6.10.x connectors are also supported.
- The connectors are downloaded from Connector Download at MySQL.com
- You need to click on the Archive tab to view the previous versions.
MySql has significantly altered the contents of the Connector Package over time and the latest releases, are missing core components needed by dbFront. You can download multiple connector versions and compare the package sizes and contents to see the difference.
Database Connections
Connecting to a default install of MySql is normally straightforward. If the install is on a different server then specify the server name or IP address. If the server is on the same server as the dbFront Application server then you can use the name LOCALHOST to connect to the local server install. The default settings for MySql are:
- Protocol: TCP/IP
- Port: 3306
Remote MySQL Databases
It may be tempting is to connect to an instance of MySql that is hosted offsite at an ISP. Although this will work, the performance might be slow because of the network latency between the application server and the database server.
To check the latency you could ping the database server and look at the response time.
Development MySQL Server Install
If you want to install a version of MySql on a Windows workstation for development or functionality testing then a good option to consider is WampServer. Just don't attempt to use this for production use.
Next Step
The next step would be connecting to a database and starting the setup of a web application.