Tutorial: Change the Database Backend to MySQL or Amazon RDS with the Admin Web UI
How to change Access Server's database backend to a MySQL-type or Amazon RDS database server.
Overview
Access Server can store configuration in MySQL-type database systems such as Amazon RDS, MySQL, and MariaDB.
By default, Access Server creates configuration files in a SQLite3 database on the server. This tutorial shows you how to convert to a separate database server.
If you set up a cluster of Access Servers, all of your Access Servers will connect to one database system to share configuration. You may even set this up with a cluster of database servers to create a truly fault-tolerant system. Refer to Tutorial: How to Set Up an Access Server Cluster for details.
An installed Access Server.
A supported database server.
OS vs RDBMS Compatibility (Access Server 3.1.0)
Compatibility validated against representative patch releases within each version family.
OS | MySQL 5.7.x | MySQL 8.0.x | MySQL 8.4.x | MySQL 9.x | MariaDB 10.11.x | MariaDB 11.x |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ubuntu 22.04 (x86_64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 22.04 (ARM64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 24.04 (X86_64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 24.04 (ARM64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Debian 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Debian 13 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Red Hat 8 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Red Hat 9 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Red Hat 10 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Some RHEL releases shipped with MariaDB C and ODBC connector builds that exhibited compatibility issues. These have been resolved through subsequent updates or documented configuration adjustments. Refer to the MariaDB connector documentation for version-specific details.
Managed database services
Access Server 3.1.0 is also validated with the following managed database services:
AWS RDS MySQL 8.0.x
Azure Database for MySQL 8.0.x
DigitalOcean Managed MySQL 8.0.x
Google Cloud SQL MySQL 8.4.x
No compatibility issues were identified during validation.
Sign in to your Admin Web UI.
Click Tools > DB Convert.
Enter the connection information for your database server into the appropriate fields and click Convert DB.
This tool converts all SQLite database files to MySQL and stores them on the database server. When Access Server is installed from our software repository, the required libraries to make the connection are installed automatically.
Important
No caching happens on the Access Server side of things. This means that if the connection between Access Server and the remote database backend is interrupted, you may be unable to connect to Access Server. If you implement this, we recommend that the database server runs locally on the same system as Access Server (and maybe use database replication), or run the connection between Access Server and the database server on a reliable internal network and not over a far-reaching internet connection.