Use Oracle Database with Liferay

NOTE: We are in the process of modifying the file structure and configuration for many Bitnami stacks. On account of these changes, the file paths stated in this guide may change depending on whether your Bitnami stack uses native Linux system packages (Approach A), or if it is a self-contained installation (Approach B). To identify your Bitnami installation type and what approach to follow, run the command below:

 $ test ! -f "/opt/bitnami/common/bin/openssl" && echo "Approach A: Using system packages." || echo "Approach B: Self-contained installation."

The output of the command indicates which approach (A or B) is used by the installation, and will allow you to identify the paths, configuration and commands to use in this guide. Refer to the FAQ for more information on these changes.

Liferay natively allows the use of OracleDB as main data source. If you ever wanted to use this database server for your Liferay installation, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Install JDBC drivers

If you haven’t installed the JDBC driver corresponding to the database server you want to connect, please follow the instructions on how to install the OracleDB driver.

Step 2: Change Liferay DB configuration

Edit the portal-ext.properties file and set the following options:

    jdbc.default.driverClassName=oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
    jdbc.default.url=jdbc:oracle:thin:@DB_HOST:1521:DB_NAME
    jdbc.default.username=DB_USERNAME
    jdbc.default.password=DB_PASSWORD

Don’t forget to substitute all the database parameter placeholders with the corresponding values.

NOTE: Depending on your installation type, the portal-ext.properties file can be found in the following locations:

• Approach A (Bitnami installations using system packages): /opt/bitnami/tomcat/webapps/liferay/WEB-INF/classes/portal-ext.properties

• Approach B (Self-contained Bitnami installations): /opt/bitnami/apache-tomcat/webapps/liferay/WEB-INF/classes/portal-ext.properties

Step 3: Test the connection

Restart the Tomcat server for the changes to take effect:

    $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart tomcat

If everything was configured correctly, you should be able to log in to Liferay.

Step 4 (Optional): Disable the original database

To permanently disable the database included in the stack, so that it is never started and does not waste any resource, execute the commands below:

* Approach A (Bitnami installations using system packages):

        $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh stop mariadb
        $ sudo mv /etc/monit/conf.d/mariadb.conf /etc/monit/conf.d/mariadb.conf.disabled
        $ sudo gonit reload

* Approach B (Self-contained Bitnami installations):

        $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh stop mysql
        $ sudo mv /opt/bitnami/mysql/scripts/ctl.sh /opt/bitnami/mysql/scripts/ctl.sh.disabled