All of Fedora's persistent content and metadata are stored on disk in an OCFL storage root. For performance reasons, Fedora maintains a cache of system and user metadata in a rebuildable database.

For quickly spinning up Fedora in a testing / experimental context, a default H2 database is available by default.

However, for production installations, it is recommended to use a MariaDB,  MySQL or PostgreSQL database.

Below are the steps to use MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL, as well as Docker instructions if you choose to run your database in a Docker container.

For the full list of database properties, please refer to the Database section of the Properties documentation.

Native Database Setup

MariaDB

1. Install an instance of MariaDB and create a database called fcrepo and a user account that can access it
2. Run Fedora with the following properties defined either in your properties file or in your JAVA_OPTS:

fcrepo.db.url=jdbc:mariadb://localhost:3306/fcrepo
fcrepo.db.user=<username>
fcrepo.db.password=<password>

Note, the fcrepo database must be manually created, but the tables will be automatically created.

PostgreSQL

1. Install an instance of PostgreSQL and create a database called fcrepo and a user account that can access it
2. Run Fedora with the following properties defined either in your properties file or in your JAVA_OPTS:

fcrepo.db.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/fcrepo
fcrepo.db.user=<username>
fcrepo.db.password=<password>

Note, the fcrepo database must be manually created, but the tables will be automatically created.

MySQL

1. Install an instance of MySQL and create a database called fcrepo and a user account that can access it
2. Run Fedora with the following properties defined either in your properties file or in your JAVA_OPTS:

fcrepo.db.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/fcrepo
fcrepo.db.user=<username>
fcrepo.db.password=<password>

Note, the fcrepo database must be manually created, but the tables will be automatically created.

Database Initialization

MySQL and MariaDB

To create a new database and user in MySQL, assuming a username of user1 and a password of xyz:

$ mysql -u root -p
> create database fcrepo;
> create user 'user1'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'xyz';
> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON fcrepo.* to 'user1'@'localhost';
> \q

PostgreSQL

To create a new database and user in PostgreSQL, assuming a username of user1 and a password of xyz:

$ sudo -u postgres psql
> create database fcrepo;
> create user user1;
> alter user user1 password 'xyz';
> grant all privileges on database fcrepo to user1;
> \q

Docker-based Database Setup

The following instructions detail how to run your database in a Docker container.

MariaDB

The following instructions use the database username of "fcrepo-user" and password of "fcrepo-pw". You will want to change these to something more secure.

docker run --name f6-mariadb -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=root-pw -e MYSQL_DATABASE=fcrepo -e MYSQL_USER=fcrepo-user -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=fcrepo-pw -p 3306:3306 -d mariadb:10.5.3 --character-set-server=utf8mb4 --collation-server=utf8mb4_bin

..when done with the database:
docker stop f6-mariadb
docker rm f6-mariadb

MariaDB CLI Client

To connect via the command line with the above database, the following command may be used:

docker exec -it f6-mariadb mysql -ufcrepo-user -pfcrepo-pw -Dfcrepo

In order for Fedora to connect with a database configured as above, the Fedora should be started with the following properties:

fcrepo.db.url=jdbc:mariadb://localhost:3306/fcrepo 
fcrepo.db.user=fcrepo-user 
fcrepo.db.password=fcrepo-pw

PostgreSQL

The following instructions use the database username of "fcrepo-user" and password of "fcrepo-pw". You will want to change these to something more secure.

docker run --name f6-postgres -e POSTGRES_USER=fcrepo-user -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=fcrepo-pw -e POSTGRES_DB=fcrepo -p 5432:5432 -d postgres:12.3

..when done with the database:
docker stop f6-postgres
docker rm f6-postgres

PostgreSQL CLI Client

To connect via the command line with the above database, the following command may be used:

docker exec -it f6-postgres psql -U fcrepo-user -d fcrepo

In order for Fedora to connect with a database configured as above, the Fedora should be started with the following properties:

fcrepo.db.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/fcrepo 
fcrepo.db.user=fcrepo-user 
fcrepo.db.password=fcrepo-pw

MySQL

The following instructions use the database username of "fcrepo-user" and password of "fcrepo-pw". You will want to change these to something more secure.

docker run --name f6-mysql -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=root-pw -e MYSQL_DATABASE=fcrepo -e MYSQL_USER=fcrepo-user -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=fcrepo-pw -p 3306:3306 -d mysql:8.0  --character-set-server=utf8mb4 --collation-server=utf8mb4_bin

..when done with the database:
docker stop f6-mysql
docker rm f6-mysql

MySQL CLI Client

To connect via the command line with the above database, the following command may be used:

docker exec -it f6-mysql mysql -ufcrepo-user -pfcrepo-pw -Dfcrepo

In order for Fedora to connect with a database configured as above, the Fedora should be started with the following properties:

fcrepo.db.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/fcrepo 
fcrepo.db.user=fcrepo-user 
fcrepo.db.password=fcrepo-pw