PostgreSQL Tutorial: Setting up JDBC Driver in DBeaver

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to set up PostgreSQL JDBC driver in DBeaver.

You can use a pre-configured database driver or create a new driver.

DBeaver has a pre-configured PostgreSQL JDBC driver. But sometimes you need to connect to a database using a driver in a specified version, maybe older or newer than the version configured in DBeaver.

All you need is a JDBC driver of your database. The rest is easy.

Table of Contents

Obtaining JDBC driver

JDBC driver is a program (in Java) which can connect and operate with some local or remote database server. It usually provides all needed functionality to cover 100% of database functionality. The JDBC driver is usually provided by database vendors to allow customers to work with their databases.

The JDBC driver consists of one or multiple jar files. The Jar file is a library which contains program code and some other files. You need to visit the PostgreSQL JDBC driver’s download page, to get the driver’s jar files before adding them to DBeaver.

Adding driver configuration in DBeaver

Open driver manager dialog

You can open the Driver Manager from the main menu or Database Navigator drop-down menu:

enter into the Driver Manager dialog:

Add a new driver

Just click the button New and create a new driver. On the driver edit dialog you need to enter all required information:

Main parameters

Libraries

This is the list of jar files, binary libraries (dll or so) and any other files required by the driver. In most cases you only need the jar files. Click “Add File” to add a single jar file, “Add Folder” to add to the folder with Java classes/resources and “Add Artifact” to add the Maven artifact (see below).

After you add the jar files you will be able to find all JDBC driver classes which are found in these jars. Just click on the “Find Class” button and DBeaver will show all of them. In most cases there is just one driver class in the driver. If there are many of them, you need to refer to the driver’s documentation.

Maven artifacts

DBeaver can download driver jars directly from the Maven repository (it is a global public repository of Java libraries, usually an open-source). If your database driver is published on some public repository you can use this feature. Maven artifacts are better than plain jar files because you can see all existing driver versions and can change the driver version in runtime without any driver properties reconfiguration.

To add and edit artifacts in existing drivers, choose Database -> Driver Manager -> Select driver-> Libraries.

To edit the artifact in existing driver, double click on the library. To add artifacts in existing driver, click Add Artifact.

For add artifact, DBeaver supports two modes Dependency Declaration and Declare Artifacts Manually. The editing artifact only supports the second Declare Artifacts Manually.

Dependency Declaration

Mode parses the inputted text and creates artifacts out of the results of parsing. It supports the multiple input formats written below.

Supported formats:

• Short Gradle

  group:artifact_name:version

• Maven

  • For a single artifact

    <dependency>
        <groupId>group</groupid>
        <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
        <version>version</version>
    </dependency>
    

  • For multiple artifacts

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>group</groupid>
            <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
            <version>version</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>group</groupid>
            <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
            <version>version</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>group</groupid>
            <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
            <version>version</version>
        </dependency>
    <dependencies>
    

Declare Artifacts Manually

It allows you to manually set up parameters. It allows you to add only one item per dialog.

Saving driver, adding connection

After you have finished configuring your driver, just press the Ok button. Now you can Create Connection.

If you need to change some driver properties later you can access them directly from connection properties dialog:

URL Templates

JDBC drivers use URLs to identify remote servers - strings similar to classic web URLs. Usually, URL has form jdbc:vendor:host:port/database, for example ‘jdbc:postgresql:localhost:5432/postgres’. It is not very convenient to edit such a long and an unobvious string. DBeaver can construct this URL from connection parameters (like host, port, etc).

For example the above URL template is: jdbc:postgresql://{host}:{port}/{database}, host, port and database are parameters which you will need to enter on the connection configuration page.

Supported URL variables:

Advanced settings

For most drivers you do not need to change any advanced properties. But in some cases you can use this as driver tuning, e.g. for better performance or for structure fixing.

Main parameters

Queries - Custom driver queries

DDL - generation options

Formatting - SQL values formats