What does it do? How does it work? Why am I supposed to test the database connection before "borrowing it from the pool"?
I was not able to find any related information as to why I should be using it. Just how to use it. And it baffles me.
Can anyone provide some meaningful definition and possibly resources to find out more?
"test-on-borrow" indicates that a connection from the pool has to be validated usually by a simple SQL validation query defined in "validationQuery". These two properties are commonly used in conjunction to make sure that the current connections in the pool are not stale (no longer connected to the DB actively as a result of a DB restart, or timeouts enforced by the DB, or whatever other reason that might cause stale connections). By testing the connections on borrow, the application can automatically reconnect to the DB using new connections (and dropping the invalid ones) without a manual restart of the app and thus preventing DB connection errors in the app.
You can find more information on jdbc connection pool attributes here:
https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/jdbc-pool.html#Common_Attributes
Related
I have this 'issue' since a long time and I am really wondering if this is just me or if there actually is a way of preventing the following:
UPDATED
In Visual Studio, when using the Server Explorer on a .mdf database, in a Entity Framework Code first approach project whenever I am opening the Database manually to see the data of certain tables (clicking on Show table data), it seems that even when I close the connection like this:
the database connection stays open somehow in the background.
I am getting "... the Database is currently in use ..." error if wanting to debug afterwards, after closing the connection, even when restarting the solution.
When I close all sqlservr.exe process(es) in the Task manager that does the trick.
Note that this is a local solution and a local database (.mdf) i am using for testing purposes. Nothing or no one else is using this solution.
I am quite sure this is not the behavior it should have right?
What am I doing wrong or what can I do to not have this behavior if this is not by default?
Thank you in advance for any feedback!
Include the "Pooling" flag in the connect string set to false:
Pooling=False
However, this might not be the best option in a productive environment:
Connection pooling reduces the number of times that new connections must be opened. The pooler maintains ownership of the physical connection. It manages connections by keeping alive a set of active connections for each given connection configuration. Whenever a user calls Open on a connection, the pooler looks for an available connection in the pool. If a pooled connection is available, it returns it to the caller instead of opening a new connection. When the application calls Close on the connection, the pooler returns it to the pooled set of active connections instead of closing it. Once the connection is returned to the pool, it is ready to be reused on the next Open call. (...) SQL Server Connection Pooling (ADO.NET)
We are experiencing what I believe to be an issue with connection pooling when using Amazon RDS database instances to back our web application running on ECS.
Using https://github.com/npgsql/Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL ("Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL": "1.1.0").
The error specifically occurs when we roll-back the RDS instance to a previous point in time. The connection string remains unchanged, but I suspect the Npgsql driver believes it still has active connections open, even though they have been terminated server side (by the rollback).
Restarting our application obviously fixes the problem as it creates new connections after launch, but is an undesirable solution.
Is this a bug within Npgsql? Should it be timing out on a connection that has been forcibly closed? Maybe there is something we can put in the connection string to force it to retry? (Although I'd like to avoid turning off connection pooling completely if possible.)
When user logs in. I Open connection 'conn' which is a public static member my dbclass which has all functions related to database. Then conn remains open until application is closed
It does not degrade the application performance measurably but enhances the database queries performance remarkably.
Is there any security issue? If the database is centralized and two or 3 PC's using it with independent applications, Then what security issue can be there due to opening connection on log in?
Or any other problem to be faced in future?
Edit in reply to first comment
I checked by timespan.totalmilliseconds. It takes bit lesser than twice time when involves open and executing query than just executing query when connection is already open
Edit --- The Actual answer required.
If some one with good reason tells me that no there is no security issue or with a good reason tells yes this one is the major security issue. That will be accepted answer after waiting others responses.
By Google search i did not find any article/answer which would be to the point to my question.
The first issue I can think of is the case where for whatever reason the connection closes (firewall ?).
If you are keeping the connection open and for some reason the connection is forced to close, your program will need to be restarted in order to be usable again. But, if you only open the connection when a query needs to be made then close it again. Even if the connection is closed then your program will try to reconnect when a new query needs to be made.
This is assuming we are talking about a single computer accessing a single database. If we are talking about a database that more people can access then never closing the connection will cause issues with the host (maximum connections reached) at some point. Not to mention how prone it will be to attacks that cause your connection numbers to reach maximum in just a few seconds.
The risk is that connection string may be stolen. Even if you declare your SqlConnection object as private. You should minimize user privileges. Also it's possible to encrypt connection string. But in any case I think it's unsafe.
I have 3 servers set up for SQL mirroring and automatic failover using a witness server. This works as expected.
Now my application that connects to the database, seems to have a problem when a failover occurs - I need to manually intervene and change connection strings for it to connect again.
The best solution I've found so far involves using Failover Partner parameter of the connection string, however it's neither intuitive nor complete: Data Source="Mirror";Failover Partner="Principal" found here.
From the example in the blog above (scenario #3) when the first failover occurs, and principal (failover partner) is unavailable, data source is used instead (which is the new principal). If it fails again (and I only tried within a limited period), it then comes up with an error message. This happens because the connection string is cached, so until this is refreshed, it will keep coming out with an error (it seems connection string refreshes ~5 mins after it encounters an error). If after failover I swap data source and failover partner, I will have one more silent failover again.
Is there a way to achieve fully automatic failover for applications that use mirroring databases too (without ever seeing the error)?
I can see potential workarounds using custom scripts that would poll currently active database node name and adjust connection string accordingly, however it seems like an overkill at the moment.
Read the blog post here
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spike/archive/2010/12/15/running-a-database-mirror-setup-with-the-sqlbrowser-service-off-may-produce-unexpected-results.aspx
It explains what is happening, the failover partner is actually being read from the sql server not from your config. Run the query in that post to find out what is actually being used as the failover server. It will probably be a machine name that is not discoverable from where your client is running.
You can clear the application pool in the case a failover has happened. Not very nice I know ;-)
// ClearAllPools resets (or empties) the connection pool.
// If there are connections in use at the time of the call,
// they are marked appropriately and will be discarded
// (instead of being returned to the pool) when Close is called on them.
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.ClearAllPools();
We use it when we change an underlying server via SQL Server alias, to enforce a "refresh" of the server name.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient.sqlconnection.clearallpools.aspx
The solution is to turn connection pooling off Pooling="false"
Whilst this has minimal impact on small applications, I haven't tested it with applications that receive hundreds of requests per minute (or more) and not sure what the implications are. Anyone care to comment?
Try this connectionString:
connectionString="Data Source=[MSSQLPrincipalServerIP,MSSQLPORT];Failover Partner=[MSSQLMirrorServerIP,MSSQLPORT];Initial Catalog=DatabaseName;Persist Security Info=True;User Id=userName; Password=userPassword.; Connection Timeout=15;"
If you are using .net development, you can try to use ObjAdoDBLib or PigSQLSrvLib and PigSQLSrvCoreLib, and the code will become simple.
Example code:
New object
ObjAdoDBLib
Me.ConnSQLSrv = New ConnSQLSrv(Me.DBSrv, Me.MirrDBSrv, Me.CurrDB, Me.DBUser, Me.DBPwd, Me.ProviderSQLSrv)
PigSQLSrvLib or PigSQLSrvCoreLib
Me.ConnSQLSrv = New ConnSQLSrv(Me.DBSrv, Me.MirrDBSrv, Me.CurrDB, Me.DBUser, Me.DBPwd)
Execute this method to automatically connect to the online database after the mirror database fails over.
Me.ConnSQLSrv.OpenOrKeepActive
For more information, see the relevant links.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ObjAdoDBLib/
https://www.nuget.org/packages/PigSQLSrvLib/
https://www.nuget.org/packages/PigSQLSrvCoreLib/
Can jdbc connections which are closed due to database un-availability be recovered.
To give back ground I get following errors in sequence. It doesn't look to be manual re-start. The reason for my question is that I am told that the app behaved correctly without
the re-start. So if the connection was lost, can it be recovered, after a DB re-start.
java.sql.SQLException: ORA-12537: TNS:connection closed
java.sql.SQLRecoverableException: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist
IBM AIX RISC System/6000 Error: 2: No such file or directory
java.sql.SQLRecoverableException: ORA-01033: ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress
No. The connection is "dead". Create a new connection.
A good approach is to use a connection pool, which will test if the connection is still OK before giving it to you, and automatically create a new connection if needed.
There are several open source connection pools to use. I've used Apache's JDCP, and it worked for me.
Edited:
Given that you want to wait until the database comes back up if it's down (interesting idea), you could implement a custom version of getConnection() that "waits a while and tries again" if the database doesn't respond.
p.s. I like this idea!
The connection cannot be recovered. What can be done is to failover the connection to another database instance. RAC and data guard installations support this configuration.
This is no problem for read-only transactions. However for transactions that execute DML this can be a problem, especially if the last call to the DB was a commit. In case of a commit the client cannot tell if the commit call completed or not. When did the DB fail; before executing the commit, or after executing the commit (but not sending back the acknowledgment to the client). Only the application has this logic and can do the right thing. If the application after failing over does not verify the state of the last transaction, duplicate transactions are possible. This is a known problem and most of us experienced it buying tickets or similar web transactions.