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.
Access Server database compatibility
We've tested and confirmed that the latest Access Server version works on these operating systems with the following relational database management system (RDBMS) versions:
OS vs RDBMS | MySQL 5.7.36 | MySQL 8.0.27 | MariaDB 10.11.5 | MariaDB 11.0.3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ubuntu 20.04 (x86_64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 20.04 (ARM64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 22.04 (x86_64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 22.04 (ARM64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 24.04 (X86_64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ubuntu 24.04 (ARM64) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Debian 11 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Debian 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Red Hat 8 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | * only with an updated connector |
Red Hat 9 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Important
For MariaDB, we recommend using MariaDB 10.5.8 or newer. A known issue exists in MariaDB 10.4.3 due to a bug in the MariaDB code that causes connectivity issues. If you plan to use a version of the MariaDB server that is newer than available in repositories on the host where Access Server is installed, you may need to update the MariaDB connector. For more details, refer to the official MariaDB connector documentation.
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.