Connecting to the SQL Database

Upon startup, the SQL accounting module connects to the database, based on a connect string specified in your accounting configuration file. The connect string contains information such as the name and location of the database, and the password required to connect. The connect string is passed to the database client to establish the connection.

While a sample connect string is provided in the original configuration file, you must configure the Connect entry of the configuration file with a connect string appropriate to your database.

The password for database access must be provided as part of the connect string or the connection fails.

If the initial attempt to connect to the database fails, or if a processing error occurs that the SQL accounting module interprets as a database connection failure, the SQL accounting module drops the connection and attempts to establish a new connection after a period of time. In the interim, all authentication requests are ignored.

The SQL accounting module uses an exponential back-off strategy in determining how long to wait before attempting a new connection, as well as how frequently this attempt should be made. After the first dropped connection, it waits a certain amount of time before attempting to reconnect. If this attempt to reconnect also fails, it waits for twice the amount of time before trying again; and so on, up to some maximum wait time. The initial and maximum wait times are configurable.