Last week Xojo announced new features for Xojo Cloud. They now support MySQL and PostgreSQL database servers in addition to SQLite that they have supported since day one. One of the interesting features with the database support is that db admin tools that support SSL tunnels can connect to the database as if it was running locally. In my testing it was surprisingly easy to setup and use.
The first thing to do is log into your Xojo Cloud account control panel. Then simply enable either the MySQL or PostgreSQL database and enable the SSL Tunnel. In each case you will receive a username and password that you’ll need to copy before moving on to the next step.
Our MySQL admin tool of choice is NaviCat. Setting it up was pretty easy to do. Create a new connection and then navigate to the SSH tab. Enter your server IP address, the username and password.
Then navigate to the General tab and enter a Name for this connection (I used Xojo Cloud). Because you’re using the SSL Tunnel you need to enter ‘localhost’ into the Host field. Enter your Xojo supplied username and password and then test your connection.
After that, everything acts just as if the server were local to you. In this example I created a sample database named ‘bkeeney’ and a table called ’t_temp’.
Your Xojo web application, then, will connect to it via the localhost parameter along with username and password suppled to you from Xojo. Because it’s inside the firewall your web app needs to do nothing more.
Setting up a database server in Xojo Cloud really is that simple. It just works. From start to finish it only takes a few minutes to get up and running. It’s a great addition to Xojo Cloud.