Establishing a Connection

Creating a JDBC Data Source

You can create a JDBC data source to connect from your Java application. Creating a JDBC data source based on the CData JDBC Driver for Airtable consists of three basic steps:

Add the driver JAR file to the classpath. The JAR file is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory. Note that the .lic file must be located in the same folder as the JAR file.
Provide the driver class. For example:
```
cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver
```
Provide the JDBC URL. For example:
```
jdbc:airtable:InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

or

jdbc:cdata:airtable:InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;
```
The second format above can be used whenever there is a conflict in your application between drivers using the same URL format to ensure you are using the CData driver. The URL must start with either "jdbc:airtable:" or "jdbc:cdata:airtable:" and can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

Connecting to Airtable

The driver requests tables and views from Airtable. Specify the following to connect.

BaseId (optional): You can optionally specify either this property or BaseName to limit the shown tables and views to a particular base. Set this to your base ID.
- To find this value, navigate to the Airtable API Reference and select a base. In the introduction section of the Airtable documentation for the selected base, note the value specified in The ID of this base is <Id>.
BaseName (optional): You can optionally specify either this property or BaseId to limit the shown tables and views to a particular base. Set this to the name of the schema, which corresponds to the name of the Base in Airtable, that you want to use.

Authenticating to Airtable

You can authenticate to Airtable using either a Personal Access Token or OAuth PKCE.

Personal Access Token

First, generate a personal access token, if you have not done so already:

Log in to your user account.
Navigate to the token creation page.
Click Create new token.
Under Scopes, click Add a scope to add each of the following:
- data.records:read
- data.records:write
- schema.bases:read
Under Access, add all the workspaces and bases that you want the token to have access to.
Click Create token to generate the token. Copy and save the generated token, as it will only be shown once.

Next, set the following:

AuthScheme: Set this to PersonalAccessToken.
OAuthAccessToken: Set this to the value of personal access token that you generated earlier.

OAuth PKCE

Set AuthScheme to OAuthPKCE.

Desktop Applications

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth desktop Authentication. Alternatively, you can create a custom OAuth application. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for information about creating custom applications and reasons for doing so.

Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
OAuthClientId (custom applications only): Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your app.
OAuthClientSecret (custom applications only): Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your app. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
CallbackURL (custom application only): Set this to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: http://localhost:3333

When you connect, the driver opens Airtable's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The driver then completes the OAuth process:

The driver obtains an access token from Airtable and uses it to request data.
The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation, to be persisted across connections.

The driver refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

Web Applications

When connecting via a Web application, you need to register a custom OAuth app with Airtable. You can then use the driver to get and manage the OAuth token values. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for more information.

Get an OAuth Access Token

Set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuthAccessToken:

OAuthClientId: Set this to the client Id in your app settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your app settings. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.

Then call stored procedures to complete the OAuth exchange:

Call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Set the CallbackURL input to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings. The stored procedure returns the URL to the OAuth endpoint as well as a PKCEVerifier value. Note the value of the PKCEVerifier for later use.
Navigate to the URL that the stored procedure returned in Step 1. Log in, and authorize the web application. After authenticating, the browser redirects you to the redirect URI.
Call the GetOAuthAccessToken stored procedure. Set the AuthMode input to WEB. Set the PKCEVerifier input of this procedure to the PKCEVerifier output from the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL procedure executed in Step 1.

After you have obtained the access and refresh tokens, you can connect to data and refresh the OAuth access token either automatically or manually.

Automatic Refresh of the OAuth Access Token

To have the driver automatically refresh the OAuth access token, set the following on the first data connection.

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthClientId: Set this to the client Id in your app settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your app settings. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
OAuthAccessToken: Set this to the access token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken.
OAuthRefreshToken: Set this to the refresh token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location where you want the driver to save the OAuth values, which persist across connections.

Manual Refresh of the OAuth Access Token

The only value needed to manually refresh the OAuth access token when connecting to data is the OAuth refresh token. Use the RefreshOAuthAccessToken stored procedure to manually refresh the OAuthAccessToken after the ExpiresIn parameter value returned by GetOAuthAccessToken has elapsed, then set the following connection properties:

OAuthClientId: Set this to the client Id in your app settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your app settings. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.

Then call RefreshOAuthAccessToken with OAuthRefreshToken set to the OAuth refresh token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken. After the new tokens have been retrieved, open a new connection by setting the OAuthAccessToken property to the value returned by RefreshOAuthAccessToken.

Finally, store the OAuth refresh token so that you can use it to manually refresh the OAuth access token after it has expired.

Headless Machines

To configure the driver, use OAuth with a user account on a headless machine. You need to authenticate on another device that has an internet browser.

Choose one of two options:
- Option 1: Obtain the OAuthVerifier and PKCEVerifier values as described in "Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code" below.
- Option 2: Install the driver on a machine with an internet browser and transfer the OAuth authentication values after you authenticate through the usual browser-based flow.
Then configure the driver to automatically refresh the access token on the headless machine.

Option 1: Obtain and Exchange Verifier Codes

To obtain a verifier code and PKCE verifier, you must authenticate at the OAuth authorization URL.

Follow the steps below to authenticate from the machine with an internet browser and obtain the OAuthVerifier connection property.

Choose one of these options:
- If you are using the Embedded OAuth Application, call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.
- If you are using a custom OAuth application, set the following properties:
  - InitiateOAuth: Set to OFF.
  - OAuthClientId: Set to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
  - OAuthClientSecret: Set to the client secret assigned when you registered your application. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
  Then call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure with the appropriate CallbackURL. The stored procedure returns the URL to the OAuth endpoint as well as a PKCEVerifier value. Note the value of the PKCEVerifier for later use. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.
Log in and grant permissions to the driver. You are then redirected to the redirect URI.

There will be a parameter called code appended to the redirect URI. Note the value of this parameter. Later you will set this in the OAuthVerifier connection property.

Next, you need to exchange the OAuth verifier code for OAuth refresh and access tokens.

On the headless machine, set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuth authentication values:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthVerifier: Set this to the noted verifier code (the value of the code parameter in the redirect URI).
PKCEVerifier: Set this to the PKCEVerifier value you noted earlier in Step 1.
OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id in your custom OAuth application settings.
OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret in the custom OAuth application settings. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to persist the encrypted OAuth authentication values to the specified location.

Test the connection to generate the OAuth settings file, then re-set the following properties to connect:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location containing the encrypted OAuth authentication values. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the driver to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.

Option 2: Transfer OAuth Settings

Prior to connecting on a headless machine, you need to install and create a connection with the driver on a device that supports an internet browser. Set the connection properties as described in "Desktop Applications" above.

After completing the instructions in "Desktop Applications", the resulting authentication values are encrypted and written to the location specified by OAuthSettingsLocation. The default filename is OAuthSettings.txt.

Test the connection to generate the OAuth settings file, then copy the OAuth settings file to your headless machine.

On the headless machine, set the following connection properties to connect to data:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location of the OAuth settings file you copied from the machine with the browser. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the driver to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.