This is draft version of "Frequently Asked Questions", more information will be added soon

General

Why "DBeaver"?

DBeaver is named in contrast to SQuirreL, the popular java-based database client. It's something like "database beaver versus SQL squirrel". DBeaver is pronounced as dee-beaver.

What is "JKISS"?

It's our company name. It's an acronym ("Just Keep It Straight and Simple" or "Just Keep It Simple, Stupid"). JKISS is pronounced as jey-kiss.

Who makes it and for what reason?

Check Team page to see who we are.

For now there is no any certain goal of this project. We just want to make a good (better than ony other) universal tool to work with databases.

This is a completely non-commercial project, nobody pays us for the job, there are no donations or any kind of funding. This project is powered by our pleasure, 100%.

So far.

May I access DBeaver source code?

You can checkout DBeaver sources using SVN anonymous read-only access.

Trunk lives here: https://svn.jkiss.org/dev/dbeaver/trunk/

Installing and running

DBeaver doesn't start

A1: You have old Java or no Java VM installed. DBeaver requires Java 1.6. You may get the newest Java from http://java.com or you may use the automatic installer (Windows version) which will check and install Java 1.6 on demand. If you have different versions of JVM on your computer then you may specify particular one in the command line (check readme file for command line arguments description).

A2: You chose the wrong DBeaver version (e.g. 64bit on 32bit OS)

A3: You have extracted an archive with a newer version of DBeaver in the folder where an older version has been installed. Sometimes it may cause file versions' conflicts. You may fix it by removing all contents of folder "configuration" except the file "config.ini".

Where does DBeaver store its configuration and how can I change it?

By default DBeaver stores all of its data in user's home ".dbeaver" folder. E.g. "C:\Users\<UserName>\.dbeaver" or "/home/<UserName>/.dbeaver". This folder won't be deleted upon uninstall or reinstall so the new version of DBeaver will use existing configuration/data. You may freely replace this folder - DBeaver will just start with default settings.

You may change default configuration location using the command line parameter "-data". Check readme.txt file for command line parameter information and description.

Database driver not found

If you use a custom driver then check the driver's properties in driver manager. Make sure that all driver's libraries (jars) are valid and that driver's class could be found by DBeaver (use "Find Class" button). If DBeaver can't locate any driver class in specified libraries then it's likely you have invalid or broken libraries.

Browse metadata

...

View/edit data

...