Using Third-Party JDBC Drivers with WebLogic Server
Using Third-Party JDBC Drivers with WebLogic Server
WebLogic Server works with third-party JDBC drivers that offer the following functionality:
Third-party JDBC drivers that do not implement Serializable or Remote interfaces cannot pass objects to a remote client application.
This section describes how to set up and use third-party JDBC drivers with WebLogic Server. It includes the following sections:
Third-Party JDBC Drivers Installed with WebLogic Server
The following third-party JDBC drivers are installed with WebLogic Server:
These drivers are installed in the WL_HOME\server\lib folder (where WL_HOME is the folder where WebLogic Server is installed) with weblogic.jar. The manifest in weblogic.jar lists these files so that they are loaded when weblogic.jar is loaded (when the server starts). Therefore, you do not need to add these JDBC drivers to your CLASSPATH. If you plan to use a third-party JDBC driver that is not installed with WebLogic Server, you must install the drivers, which includes updating your CLASSPATH with the path to the driver files, and may include updating your PATH with the path to database client files. See “Supported Database Configurations” in Supported Configurations for WebLogic Server.
| Note: | The WebLogic Type 4 JDBC drivers from DataDirect are also installed with WebLogic Server. See Type 4 JDBC Drivers for more information. |
If you plan to use a different version of any of the drivers installed with WebLogic Server, you can replace the driver file in WL_HOME\server\lib with an updated version of the file or add the new file to the front of your CLASSPATH.
Copies of the drivers installed with WebLogic Server and other supporting files are installed in WL_HOME\server\ext\jdbc\. There is a subdirectory in this folder for each DBMS. If you need to revert to the version of the driver installed with WebLogic Server, you can copy the file from WL_HOME\server\ext\jdbc\DBMS to WL_HOME\server\lib.
| Note: | WebLogic Server also includes the PointBase 5.7 JDBC driver and an evaluation version of the PointBase DBMS installed with the WebLogic Server examples in WL_HOME\common\eval\pointbase. PointBase Server is an all-Java DBMS product included in the WebLogic Server distribution solely in support of WebLogic Server evaluation, either in the form of custom trial applications or through packaged sample applications provided with WebLogic Server. Non-evaluation development or production use of the PointBase Server requires a separate license be obtained by the end user directly from PointBase. |
Setting the Environment for a Type-4 Third-Party JDBC Driver
If you plan to use a third-party JDBC driver that is not installed with WebLogic Server, you need to update the WebLogic Server’s classpath to include the location of the JDBC driver classes. Edit the commEnv.cmd/sh script in WL_HOME/common/bin and prepend your classes as described in “Modifying the Classpath” in the WebLogic Server Command Reference.
Globalization Support for the Oracle 11g Thin Driver
For Globalization Support with the 11g version of the Oracle Thin driver, Oracle supplies the orai18n.jar file, which replaces nls_charset.zip. If you use character sets other than US7ASCII, WE8DEC, WE8ISO8859P1 and UTF8 with CHAR and NCHAR data in Oracle object types and collections, you must include orai18n.jar in your CLASSPATH. orai18n.jar is included with the WebLogic Server installation in the WL_HOME\server\ext\jdbc\oracle\11g folder. The file is not referenced by the weblogic.jar manifest file, so you must add it to your CLASSPATH before you can use it.
Using the Oracle Thin Driver in Debug Mode
The WL_HOME\server\ext\jdbc\oracle\11g folder includes the ojdbc6_g.jar (for JDK 6) and ojdbc5_g.jar (for JDK 5) files, which are the versions of the Oracle Thin driver with classes to support debugging and tracing. To use the Oracle Thin driver in debug mode, add the path to these files at the beginning of your CLASSPATH.