Configure the CData JDBC Driver for Salesforce 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 Salesforce data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Getting Started

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Connect to Salesforce 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.

   There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: OAuth, Login (or basic), and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.

   OAuth Authentication (default)

   The default authentication mechanism (and the one preferred by Salesforce) is OAuth. To use OAuth with CData's embedded OAuth application, leave the connection properties blank. If you have configured your own custom OAuth application with Salesforce (see the Help documentation for more information), set OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL to the properties for you application. Set InitiateOAuth to the desired OAuth flow ("GETANDREFRESH" will have the connector manage the entire OAuth flow).

   Login (or Basic) Authentication

   If you do not wish do not wish to use OAuth authentication, you can use Login (or basic) authentication. Set AuthScheme to Basic, and set the User, Password, and SecurityToken properties. You can configure your security token in Salesforce.

   SSO (single sign-on) Authentication

   SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and SSOExchangeURL connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for more information.

   Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

   If your Salesforce org has MFA enforcement enabled, set MFACode to the time-based one-time passcode (TOTP) generated by your authenticator app (such as Salesforce Authenticator or Google Authenticator). MFACode applies to both OAuth and Login authentication flows.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.salesforce.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/salesforce" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.salesforce.SalesforceDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:salesforce:InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;MFACode=YourMFACode" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access Salesforce 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 Salesforce for all applications.

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

    Salesforce data JSP
    jdbc/Salesforce
    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/Salesforce");
   Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
    

More Tomcat Integration

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