MySQL Database Best Practices

For best results, configure and maintain your MySQL database according to the vendor's requirements and use the Jive best practices.

UTF-8 Requirement

Jive requires the UTF-8 character set. Use the following steps to ensure it's correctly set up:

Use the following command to set the database default character set to UTF-8:
ALTER DATABASE jivecoredb DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8;
After installation, add the following to the <database> section of the jive_startup.xml file:
```
 <mysql><useUnicode>true</useUnicode></mysql>
```
Ensure that the Character Set setting in the Admin Console under System > Management > Locale is set to UTF-8.

The core application and the Activity Engine will run using the MySQL JDBC Connector/J Driver. The Analytics database is not supported by MySQL.
Set your classpath to include the MySQL JDBC Connector/J Driver by typing the following from a command line as the jive user:
```
jive set webapp.custom_classpath_additions path/JDBC_Driver.jar
```
where path/to/driver is the path to the MySQL JDBC driver and JDBC_Driver.jar is the name of the JAR file.

Default configuration can vary significantly by version, so it is important to consider the following:

The default storage engine and all jive tables should use the InnoDB storage engine. Earlier versions of MySql used BDB\MyISAM as the default storage engine.
Ensure that the InnoDB Buffer is adequately sized. For dedicated installations with InnoDB storage engines, the buffer is typically set to 80% of the total server available memory.
Storing attachments in your Jive database is not recommended. If you must do this, ensure that the maximum attachment size is allowed in the MySql configuration. See Packet Too Large in the MySQL 5.1 Reference Manual for more information.
Case Sensitivity - To avoid upgrade problems, use lower-case table names in MySQL and set the lower_case_table_namessystem variable to 1 in the MySQL configuration. See Server System Variables in the MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual for more information.