Once you have extracted the distribution archive, you can install the driver by placing mysql-connector-java-[version]-bin.jar in your classpath, either by adding the full path to it to your CLASSPATH environment variable, or by directly specifying it with the command line switch -cp when starting your JVM.

If you are going to use the driver with the JDBC DriverManager, you would use com.mysql.jdbc.Driver as the class that implements java.sql.Driver.

You can set the CLASSPATH environment variable under UNIX, Linux or Mac OS X either locally for a user within their .profile, .login or other login file. You can also set it globally by editing the global /etc/profile file.

For example, under a C shell (csh, tcsh) you would add the Connector/J driver to your CLASSPATH using the following:

shell> setenv CLASSPATH /path/mysql-connector-java-[ver]-bin.jar:$CLASSPATH

Or with a Bourne-compatible shell (sh, ksh, bash):

shell> export set CLASSPATH=/path/mysql-connector-java-[ver]-bin.jar:$CLASSPATH

Within Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista, you must set the environment variable through the System Control Panel.

If you want to use MySQL Connector/J with an application server such as GlassFish, Tomcat or JBoss, you will have to read your vendor's documentation for more information on how to configure third-party class libraries, as most application servers ignore the CLASSPATH environment variable. For configuration examples for some J2EE application servers, see Section 22.3.5.2, “Using Connector/J with J2EE and Other Java Frameworks”. However, the authoritative source for JDBC connection pool configuration information for your particular application server is the documentation for that application server.

If you are developing servlets or JSPs, and your application server is J2EE-compliant, you can put the driver's .jar file in the WEB-INF/lib subdirectory of your webapp, as this is a standard location for third party class libraries in J2EE web applications.

You can also use the MysqlDataSource or MysqlConnectionPoolDataSource classes in the com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional package, if your J2EE application server supports or requires them. Starting with Connector/J 5.0.0, the javax.sql.XADataSource interface is implemented using the com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlXADataSource class, which supports XA distributed transactions when used in combination with MySQL server version 5.0.

The various MysqlDataSource classes support the following parameters (through standard set mutators):