Setting up an External Database

TeamCity stores build history, users, build results and some run time data in an SQL database. See also the description of what is stored where on the Manual Backup and Restore page.

If you evaluated TeamCity with the internal database which is not recommended for production, please refer to Migrating to an External Database.

The current database in use is shown on the "Administration | Global Settings" page in the " Database" field and also is mentioned in the teamcity-server.log on the server startup. "HSQL*" means that internal database is in use.

Default Internal Database

On the first TeamCity run, using an internal database based on the HSQLDB database engine is suggested by default. The internal database suits evaluation purposes only; it works out of the box and requires no additional setup.

However, we strongly recommend using an external database as a back-end TeamCity database in a production environment. An external database is usually more reliable and provides better performance: the internal database may crash and lose all your data (e.g. on the "out of disk space" condition). Also, the internal database may become extremely slow on large data sets (say, database storage files over 200Mb). Please also note that our support does not cover any performance or database data loss issues if you are using the internal database.

In short, do not EVER use internal HSQLDB database for production TeamCity instances. Migrate to an external database the moment you start to rely on the data stored in TeamCity server.

Selecting External Database Engine

As a general rule you should use the database that better suits your environment and that you can maintain/configure better in your organization. While we strive to make sure TeamCity functions equally well under all of the supported databases, issues can surface in some of them under high TeamCity-generated load.

You may also want to estimate the required database capacity.

Supported Databases

TeamCity supports the following databases:

MySQL
PostgreSQL
Oracle
MS SQL

General Steps

Configure the external database to be used by TeamCity (see the database-specific sections below).
Configure connection to the database via the form on the first TeamCity server start or by configuring database connection settings manually. Note that TeamCity assumes ownership over the the database schema. The database structure is created on the first start and actively modified during the upgrade to the new TeamCity version. The schema is not changed when TeamCity is working normally. The user account used by TeamCity should have permissions to create new, modify and delete existing tables in its schema, in addition to usual read/write permissions on all tables.
You may also need to download the JDBC driver for your database.
Due to licensing terms, TeamCity does not bundle driver jars for external databases. You will need to download the Java JDBC driver and put the appropriate .jar files (see driver-specific sections below) from it into the < <TeamCity Data Directory>/lib/jdbc directory. Please note that the .jar files should be compiled for the Java version not greater than the one used to run TeamCity, otherwise you might see "Unsupported major.minor version" errors related to the database driver classes.

Database-specific Steps

The section below describes the required configuration on the database server and the TeamCity server.

MySQL

Supported versions

On MySQL server side

Recommended database server settings:

use InnoDB storage engine
use UTF-8 character set
use case-sensitive collation
make sure that the time zone of the JVM running TeamCity and that of MySQL instance are the same using the my.cnf file or by configuring time zones at the OS level
see also recommendations for MySQL server settings

The MySQL user account that will be used by TeamCity must be granted all permissions on the TeamCity database. This can be done by executing the following SQL commands from the MySQL console:

create database <database-name> collate utf8_bin;
create user <user-name> identified by '<password>';
grant all privileges on <database-name>.* to <user-name>;
grant process on *.* to <user-name>;

On TeamCity server side (with MySQL)

JDBC driver installation:

Download the MySQL JDBC driver from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/. Please make sure that you use a version compatible with your server. For versions above 8, driver version 8 should be used. If the MySQL server version is 5.5 or newer, the JDBC driver version should be at least 5.1.23.
Place mysql-connector-java- * -bin.jar from the downloaded archive into the < >/lib/jdbc. Proceed with the TeamCity setup.

PostgreSQL

Supported versions

On PostgreSQL server side

Create an empty database for TeamCity in PostgreSQL.
- Make sure to set up the database to use UTF8.
- Grant permissions to modify this database to the user account used by TeamCity to work with the database.
See also recommendations for PostgreSQL server settings

TeamCity does not specify which schema will be used for its tables. By default, PostgreSQL creates tables in the 'public' schema ('public' is the name of the schema). TeamCity can also work with other PostgreSQL schemas. To switch to a different schema, do the following: Create a schema named exactly as the user name: this can be done using the pgAdmin tool or with the following SQL:

create schema teamcity authorization teamcity;

The schema has to be empty (it must not contain any tables).

On TeamCity server side (with PostgreSQL)

Download the required PostgreSQL JDBC42 driver and place it into the < <TeamCity Data Directory>/lib/jdbc. Proceed with the TeamCity setup. For TeamCity prior to 2018.1.2, set the connectionProperties.autosave=conservative in the database properties file to address this issue with PostgreSQL JDBC driver.

Oracle

Supported versions

On Oracle server side

Create an Oracle user account/schema for TeamCity.
TeamCity uses the primary character set (char, varchar, clob) for storing internal text data and the national character set (nchar2, nvarchar, nclob) to store the user input and data from external systems, like VCS, NTLM, etc.
- Make sure that the national character set of the database instance is UTF or Unicode.
- Grant the CREATE SESSION, CREATE TABLE, permissions to a user whose account will be used by TeamCity to work with this database. TeamCity, on the first connect, creates all necessary tables and indices in the user's schema. (Note: TeamCity never attempts to access other schemas even if they are accessible)
  Make sure TeamCity user has quota for accessing table space.

On TeamCity server side (with Oracle)

Get the Oracle JDBC driver. Supported driver versions are 11.1 and higher. Place the following files:
- ojdbc8.jar (or ojdbc6.jar, ojdbc7.jar depending on your database version)
- orai18n.jar (can be omitted if missing in the driver version) into the <TeamCity Data Directory>/lib/jdbc directory.
  The Oracle JDBC driver must be compatible with the Oracle server.
  It is strongly recommended to locate the driver in your Oracle server installation. Contact your DBA for the files if required. Alternatively, download the Oracle JDBC driver from the Oracle web site. Make sure the driver version is compatible with your Oracle server.
Proceed with the TeamCity setup.

settingUpMSSQLMicrosoft SQL Server

Supported versions

For step-by-step instructions, see the dedicated page. The current section provides key details required for the setup.

On MS SQL server side

Create a new database. As the primary collation, use the case-sensitive collation (collation name ending with '_CS_AS') corresponding to your locale.
Create a TeamCity user and ensure that this user is the owner of the database (grant the user dbo rights), which will give the user the ability to modify the database schema. For SSL connections, ensure that the version of MS SQL server and the TeamCity version of java are compatible. We recommend using the latest update of SQL server.
Allocate sufficient transaction log space depending on how intensively the server will be used. The recommended setup is not less then 1Gb.
Make sure SQL Server Browser is running.
Make sure TCP/IP protocol is enabled for SQL Server instance.

On TeamCity server side (with MS SQL)

Download the https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56615 (sqljdbc_6.*.x package) from the Microsoft Download Center.
Unpack the downloaded package into a temporary directory.
Copy the mssql-jdbc-*.jre8.jar from the just downloaded package into the TeamCity Data Directory/lib/jdbc directory. MS SQL integrated security (Windows authentication) requires installing sqljdbc_auth.dll from the driver package as per instructions.
Proceed with the TeamCity setup.

jTDS driver

It is not recommended to use jTDS JDBC driver. There are at least known issues with using Unicode characters when the driver is in use.

If you use the driver ("jtds" text appears in the connectionUrl of database.properties), it is highly recommended to switch the native driver.

The due procedure for the switch is to:

create the server backup including the database
stop the server and configure the server to use native Microsoft JDBC driver as noted in the section above
restore the database form the backup into a new MS SQL database
run the server

Database Configuration Properties

The database connection settings are stored in <TeamCity Data Directory>\config\database.properties file. The file is a Java properties file. You can modify it to specify required properties for your database connections.

For all supported databases there are template files with database-specific properties located in the <TeamCity Data Directory>/config directory. The files have the following naming format: database.<database_type>.properties.dist and can be used as a reference on the required settings.

TeamCity uses Apache DBCP for database connection pooling. Please refer to http://commons.apache.org/dbcp/configuration.html for detailed description of configuration properties.

Last modified: 20 April 2023