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MySQL 5.5 Reference Manual :: 22 Connectors and APIs :: 22.3 MySQL Connector/J :: 22.3.3 Connector/J Installation :: 22.3.3.2 Installing the Driver and Configuring the CLASSPATH
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22.3.3.2. Installing the Driver and Configuring the CLASSPATH

Once you have extracted the distribution archive, you can install the driver by placing mysql-connector-java-version-bin.jar in your classpath, either by adding the full path to it to your CLASSPATH environment variable, or by directly specifying it with the command line switch -cp when starting the JVM.

To use the driver with the JDBC DriverManager, use com.mysql.jdbc.Driver as the class that implements java.sql.Driver.

You can set the CLASSPATH environment variable under Unix, Linux or Mac OS X either locally for a user within their .profile, .login or other login file. You can also set it globally by editing the global /etc/profile file.

For example, add the Connector/J driver to your CLASSPATH using one of the following forms, depending on your command shell: 

# Bourne-compatible shell (sh, ksh, bash, zsh):
shell> export CLASSPATH=/path/mysql-connector-java-ver-bin.jar:$CLASSPATH

# C shell (csh, tcsh):
shell> setenv CLASSPATH /path/mysql-connector-java-ver-bin.jar:$CLASSPATH

Within Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista, you set the environment variable through the System Control Panel.

To use MySQL Connector/J with an application server such as GlassFish, Tomcat or JBoss, read your vendor's documentation for more information on how to configure third-party class libraries, as most application servers ignore the CLASSPATH environment variable. For configuration examples for some J2EE application servers, see Section 22.3.7, “Connection Pooling with Connector/J” Section 22.3.8, “Load Balancing with Connector/J”, and Section 22.3.9, “Failover with Connector/J”. However, the authoritative source for JDBC connection pool configuration information for your particular application server is the documentation for that application server.

If you are developing servlets or JSPs, and your application server is J2EE-compliant, you can put the driver's .jar file in the WEB-INF/lib subdirectory of your webapp, as this is a standard location for third party class libraries in J2EE web applications.

You can also use the MysqlDataSource or MysqlConnectionPoolDataSource classes in the com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional package, if your J2EE application server supports or requires them. Starting with Connector/J 5.0.0, the javax.sql.XADataSource interface is implemented using the com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlXADataSource class, which supports XA distributed transactions when used in combination with MySQL server version 5.0.

The various MysqlDataSource classes support the following parameters (through standard set mutators):

  • user

  • password

  • serverName (see the previous section about fail-over hosts)

  • databaseName

  • port

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User Comments

Posted by Matt Ludlum on August 13 2007 7:30pm[Delete] [Edit]

For JDK releases, I found a way to get it working by placing the .jar into the %insertPathToJava%/jre/lib/ext/. I tried this with 1.6.0u2 on XP and the program began compiling, without the class path workaround.

Posted by Richard B on September 9 2007 6:48pm[Delete] [Edit]

Copying the connector jar into your Java installation does work, but is not ideal because it will probably break if you install a java update (since that installs a whole new VM).

If you don't want to mess around with CLASSPATH, you could always include the code directly with your application; the 'unjar' Ant task is useful for this. Create a target which unjars library classes into your build tree before your jar/war target, and you'll be all done.

Posted by Pierre Morin on May 25 2008 9:41am[Delete] [Edit]

For Mac OS X, it seems that copying the MySQL driver .jar file into /Library/Java/Extensions is the only thing to do.

Posted by William Arens on January 5 2010 8:19pm[Delete] [Edit]

What finally worked for me, I was trying to get OpenOffice to connect to MySQL DB, was to place a symbolic link in the jre1.6.0_17/lib/ext/ directory.

On Linux, untar or unzip, mysql-connector-java-5.0.X any where on the system, I used /usr/java. I then created a symbolic link 'ln -s /usr/java/mysql-connector-java-5.0.8/mysql-connector-java-5.0.8-bin.jar /usr/java/latest/lib/ext/'. Once OpenOffice was pointed to the currect version of java, everything worked.

The trick for me was learning about the extensions directory. In this case /usr/java/jre1.6.0_17/lib/ext/.

Posted by Jim Winter on January 28 2010 10:44am[Delete] [Edit]

For Mac OS X, I was getting 'Driver not suitable' exception. I've noticed the extracted jar file permissions were set to 655 and should be 755 which has fixed the problem for me.

Posted by Gregoy Jones on May 21 2013 7:48pm[Delete] [Edit]

In addition to altering the CLASSPATH if you are using Windows 7 or above during the installation of the JConnnector to MySQL, insure the UNBLOCK button at the bottom of the properties dialog box is clicked while coping the correct path for ue. Find the file, then copy and paste it's location during this process locate the Advance button underneath lies the UNBLOCK button. By default the file usage is blocked due to the security elements involved. It will state "this file is from another computer" therefore it's in a blocked state after installation. The .jar file and the MySQL JConnector file are in this state. This will cause the code or functions not to return the desired response if not unblocked.

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