Build a PostgreSQL Interface for Jira Service Management Data using the CData JDBC Driver

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. From standard Drivers to BI and Analytics tools, PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. Using our JDBC Drivers, you can now create PostgreSQL entry-points that you can connect to from any standard client.

To access Jira Service Management data as a PostgreSQL database, use the CData JDBC Driver for Jira Service Management and a JDBC foreign data wrapper (FDW). In this article, we compile the FDW, install it, and query Jira Service Management data from PostgreSQL Server.

Connect to Jira Service Management Data as a JDBC Data Source

To connect to Jira Service Management as a JDBC data source, you will need the following:

• Driver JAR path: The JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

• Driver class:

  cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.JiraServiceDeskDriver
  

• JDBC URL: The URL must start with "jdbc:jiraservicedesk:" and can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

  You can establish a connection to any Jira Service Desk Cloud account or Server instance.

  Connecting with a Cloud Account

  To connect to a Cloud account, you'll first need to retrieve an APIToken. To generate one, log in to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

  Supply the following to connect to data:

  • User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
  • APIToken: Set this to the API token found previously.

  Connecting with a Service Account

  To authenticate with a service account, supply the following connection properties:

  • User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
  • Password: Set this to the password of the authenticating user.
  • URL: Set this to the URL associated with your JIRA Service Desk endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

  Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.

  Accessing Custom Fields

  By default, the connector only surfaces system fields. To access the custom fields for Issues, set IncludeCustomFields.

  Built-in Connection String Designer

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

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.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.)
  

  A typical JDBC URL is below:

  jdbc:jiraservicedesk:ApiKey=myApiKey;User=MyUser;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;
  

Build the JDBC Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The jdbc2_fdw extension is used as an example (downloadable here).

1. Add a symlink from the shared object for your version of the JRE to /usr/lib/libjvm.so. For example:

   ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjvm.so /usr/lib/libjvm.so
   

2. Start the build:

   make install USE_PGXS=1
   

Query Jira Service Management Data as a PostgreSQL Database

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Jira Service Management data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database:

   CREATE EXTENSION jdbc2_fdw;
   

3. Create a server object for Jira Service Management:

   CREATE SERVER JiraServiceDesk 
   FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER jdbc2_fdw OPTIONS (
   drivername 'cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.JiraServiceDeskDriver',
   url 'jdbc:jiraservicedesk:ApiKey=myApiKey;User=MyUser;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;',
   querytimeout '15',
   jarfile '/home/MyUser/CData/CData\ JDBC\ Driver\ for\ Salesforce MyDriverEdition/lib/cdata.jdbc.jiraservicedesk.jar'); 
   

4. Create a user mapping for the username and password of a user known to the MySQL daemon.

   CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER JiraServiceDesk OPTIONS (
   username 'admin', 
   password 'test');
   

5. Create a foreign table in your local database:

   postgres=# CREATE FOREIGN TABLE requests (
   requests_id text,
   requests_RequestId text,
   requests_ReporterName numeric) 
   SERVER JiraServiceDesk OPTIONS (
   table_name 'requests');
   

You can now execute read/write commands to Jira Service Management:

postgres=# SELECT * FROM requests;