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
To use MySql with dbFront you need to download and install the MySql drivers.
dbFront supports the latest 8.x drivers.
Installing the 6.10.x connector
- The 6.10.x connector is downloaded from Connector Download at MySQL.com
- To find the correct version, look for and click on the link "Looking for previous GA versions?"
- The driver installation is straightforward.
Installing the 8.x connector
Many versions of the 8.x connector have issues. The latest Known Good version of the Oracle connector is 8.0.32.
- The 8.x connector is downloaded from Connector Download at MySQL.com
- The driver installation is straightforward.
Note: Specific versions of the 8.x are broken and will cause errors.
- The early versions of the 8.x connector had issues finding their own components.
- 8.0.33 - Dies with the error "Could not load file or assembly 'System.Threading.Tasks.Extensions, Version=4.2.0.1"
Database Connections
Connecting to a default install of MySql is normally straight forward. If the install is on a different server then you would just 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 will most likely be terrible 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.