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

Connect to Zendesk 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.

   Connecting to Zendesk

   To connect, set the URL and provide authentication. The URL is your Zendesk Support URL: https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com.

   Authenticating to Zendesk

   You can authenticate using the Basic or OAuth methods.

   Using Basic Authentication

   To use Basic authentication, specify your email address and password or your email address and an API token. Set User to your email address and follow the steps below to provide the Password or ApiToken.

   • Enable password access in the Zendesk Support admin interface at Admin > Channels > API.
   • Manage API tokens in the Zendesk Support Admin interface at Admin > Channels > API. More than one token can be active at the same time. Deleting a token deactivates it permanently.

   Using OAuth Authentication

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for an authentication guide.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.zendesk.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/zendesk" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.zendesk.ZendeskDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:zendesk:URL=https://subdomain.zendesk.com;[email protected];Password=test123;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

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

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

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

More Tomcat Integration

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