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

Connect to SFTP 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.

   SFTP can be used to transfer files to and from SFTP servers using the SFTP Protocol. To connect, specify the RemoteHost;. service uses the User and Password and public key authentication (SSHClientCert). Choose an SSHAuthMode and specify connection values based on your selection.

   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 subfolders to report as views.
   • FileRetrievalDepth: Set this to retrieve files recursively and list them in the Root table.
   Stored Procedures are available to download files, upload files, and send protocol commands. See gdatamodel for more on using SQL to interact with the server.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.sftp.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/sftp" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.sftp.SFTPDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:sftp:RemoteHost=MyFTPServer;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

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

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

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

More Tomcat Integration

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