Database configuration in context.xml or server.xml

This is more of a curiosity than a problem.

I have a server in our corporate network that runs RHELv6, with Tomcat 7.0.33 hosting Orbeon PE 4.8. We use SQL Server 2008 R2, with Microsoft's JDBC 4.1 libraries to connect Tomcat/Orbeon to SQL Server. To make it easier to manage, and in line with Apache's guidelines, I tried to define the JDBC connection using the 'local' context.xml in ../webapps/orbeon/META-INF, but never managed to get it to work. Erik Bruchez helped me before Christmas to get it working, and the workaround was to define it in the base Tomcat server.xml instead.

On a VM on my own laptop, I keep a separate instance of Orbeon 4.8.1 running on Tomcat 7.0.55 on OpenSUSE 13.2, so that I can try out changes to properties files, etc, and other global platform changes that would make life hard for the other developers if I played with our corporate dev platform. With that I have MariaDB 10.1 as the database.

I was able to get MariaDB to play nicely with Orbeon by configuring it as a mysql data source in the local context.xml when I had a single datasource. I now have a solution that uses 6 separate databases, and the only way I could get that to work was by defining all of the data sources in server.xml. As soon as I had more than one datasource, all datasources defined in orbeon's context.xml went unrecognised.

So I guess my questions are:

1. Am I just trying to do a dumb thing, because one database should be enough for anyone ?
2l. If the answer to (1.) is yes, how have others separated form definition/data from the master data that drives things like lookups on the form (which I would like to be able to alter at will without risking compromising the stored form data)
3. If multiple data sources should work, why can't I have multiple data sources defined in context.xml to make the configuration more portable ?
4. Is the problem with the distinction between server.xml and context xml a tomcat thing, or an orbeon thing ? I understand, I think, how the two configuration files are meant to work in combination for web applications, but in practice either I'm wrong (entirely likely), or Orbeon isn't handling context.xml properly.

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Sure.

<Resource
    name="jdbc/alphaco"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"
    initialSize="3"
    maxActive="10"
    maxIdle="20"
    maxWait="30000"
    driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
    poolPreparedStatements="true"
    validationQuery="select 1 from dual"
    testOnBorrow="true"
    username="alphaco"
    password="alphaco"
    url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/alphaco?useUnicode=true&amp;characterEncoding=UTF8"/>
<Resource
    name="jdbc/betaco"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"
    initialSize="3"
    maxActive="10"
    maxIdle="20"
    maxWait="30000"
    driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
    poolPreparedStatements="true"
    validationQuery="select 1 from dual"
    testOnBorrow="true"
    username="betaco"
    password="betaco"
    url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/betaco?useUnicode=true&amp;characterEncoding=UTF8"/>
<Resource
    name="jdbc/deltaco"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"
    initialSize="3"
    maxActive="10"
    maxIdle="20"
    maxWait="30000"
    driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
    poolPreparedStatements="true"
    validationQuery="select 1 from dual"
    testOnBorrow="true"
    username="deltaco"
    password="deltaco"
    url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/deltaco?useUnicode=true&amp;characterEncoding=UTF8"/>
<Resource
    name="jdbc/deltacoforms"
    auth="Container"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"
    initialSize="3"
    maxActive="10"
    maxIdle="20"
    maxWait="30000"
    driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
    poolPreparedStatements="true"
    validationQuery="select 1 from dual"
    testOnBorrow="true"
    username="deltacoforms"
    password="deltacoforms"
    url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/deltacoforms?useUnicode=true&amp;characterEncoding=UTF8"/>


alphaco, betaco, deltaco are the form data/definition databases, deltacoforms is a separate form master data db for holding the data to drive dropdowns. With this configuration in ../webapps/orbeon/META-INF/context.xml, Orbeon server refused to start. No meaningful error messages were issued, other than I once got a "[jdbc] is not defined in this context". That and Google led me to a solution that suggested putting the configuration in server.xml rather than context.xml, but I found just as many suggestions for resolving exactly the opposite problem (server.xml failing, putting the configuration in context.xml instead was the advice) with no guidance on whether or not they worked.

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Hi James,

Very succinctly, regarding your 1st point, you should be able to use multiple data sources. In fact, locally, for testing, I have one datasource defined for every type of database we support.

And regarding your 4th point, like Aaron, I am pretty sure this is a Tomcat thing, and I am not sure why things would be working for you with multiple datasources if they are defined in the server.xml but not in the context.xml. But let us know if you're stuck on this.

Alex

Finally found the problem, I believe, but it turns out that putting the database information in server.xml works better for our ops people.

The problem was simpler and more pernicious than expected; when the Context.xml file was created, it was created and later edited by someone logged in as root. Tomcat couldn't read it, so it simply ignored it.

Hi James,

Interesting, I certainly wouldn't have thought of that. I'm glad you found the source of the problem, and thanks for sharing.

Alex