Connect to a Database

Many of the advanced features of Ignition, such as the Transaction Groups and SQLTags Historian require a connection to an external database. If you don't have a database, like Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, or Oracle installed, don't worry - you can come back to this step later.

Add a Database Connection

Make sure you are in the Gateway Configuration section of the Gateway's web interface. To connect to a database, use the left-hand side configuration menu to go to the Databases > Connections section. Once at the Database  Connections page, click on the Create new Database Connection... link at the bottom of the table.

Pick a JDBC Driver

Database connections in Ignition are powered by JDBC drivers. Ignition ships with drivers for Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. Adding a new JDBC driver for other databases, like IBM DB2, is not very difficult, see Adding a JDBC driver.

Pick the JDBC driver your database, and click on the "Next >" button.

Configure the Connection

Each database connection needs a name, which should consist of letters, numbers and underscores.

The Connect URL parameter is the most important parameter of the connection. This parameter defines where the database server is on the network, and what database to connect to. Each database's connect URL is slightly different. Follow the instructions given for the driver you chose.

The Extra Connection Properties field is used less frequently, but is important for some drivers, such as SQL Server's driver. It is a semi-colon separated list of key-value pairs. Each driver has its own set of property keys that it accepts.

The Username and Password fields are used to supply credentials to the database connection.

For example, suppose we wanted to connect to a database named "ProcessDB" on the server at IP address 10.0.25.122. Here are some examples for the different databases:

When you are done configuring your database connection, click on the "Create New Database Connection" button to continue. You can check the status of your database connection in the Gateway Status section under Database Connections.