Configure the CData JDBC Driver for FTP in a Connection Pool in Tomcat

The CData JDBC Drivers support standard JDBC interfaces to integrate with Web applications running on the JVM. This article details how to connect to FTP data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Connect to FTP Data through a Connection Pool in Tomcat

1. Copy the CData JAR and CData .lic file to $CATALINA_HOME/lib. The CData JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
2. Add a definition of the resource to the context. Specify the JDBC URL here.

   To connect to FTP or SFTP servers, specify at least RemoteHost and FileProtocol. Specify the port with RemotePort.

   Set User and Password to perform Basic authentication. Set SSHAuthMode to use SSH authentication. See the Getting Started section of the data provider help documentation for more information on authenticating via SSH.

   Set SSLMode and SSLServerCert to secure connections with SSL.

   The data provider lists the tables based on the available folders in your FTP server. Set the following connection properties to control the relational view of the file system:

   • RemotePath: Set this to the current working directory.
   • TableDepth: Set this to control the depth of folders to list as views.
   • FileRetrievalDepth: Set this to retrieve and list files recursively from the root table.

   Stored Procedures are available to download files, upload files, and send protocol commands. See the Data Model chapter of the FTP data provider documentation for more information.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the FTP JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.ftp.jar
   

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   You can see the JDBC URL specified in the resource definition below.

   <Resource name="jdbc/ftp" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.ftp.FTPDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:ftp:RemoteHost=MyFTPServer;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access FTP data, add the code above to the context.xml in the application's META-INF directory.

   For a shared resource configuration, add the code above to the context.xml located in $CATALINA_BASE/conf. A shared resource configuration provides connectivity to FTP for all applications.

3. Add a reference to the resource to the web.xml for the application.

    FTP data JSP
    jdbc/FTP
    javax.sql.DataSource
    Container
   
   

4. Initialize connections from the connection pool:

   Context initContext = new InitialContext();
   Context envContext = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
   DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/FTP");
   Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
    

More Tomcat Integration

The steps above show how to connect to FTP data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.