Establishing a Connection

Configure a Connection Profile

From the CData ribbon, click Get Data and select From Apache CouchDB connection/s to launch the CData Query window. To setup a new connection, you will have to click the New Apache CouchDB Connection button. Here you can set the connection settings, test the connection, and save the connection profile.

Connecting to Apache CouchDB

Set the URL connection property to the URL of your Apache CouchDB instance. For example: http://localhost:5984

If you want your users (or JWTs) to have access only to specific databases, configure the admin_only_all_dbs option in your Apache CouchDB instance to grant all users access to the "/_all_dbs" endpoint, which is required by the add-in for listing tables.

Authenticating to Apache CouchDB

Apache CouchDB supports three types of authentication:

Basic: Basic username/password authentication.
JWT: Authentication with a JWT.
None: Anonymous access for databases that are public.

Basic Authentication

Set the following to connect to data:

AuthScheme: Basic.
User The Apache CouchDB user account used to authenticate.
Password The Apache CouchDB password associated with the authenticating user.

JWT Authentication

Set AuthScheme to JWT.

You can either automatically generate (and, if applicable, refresh) a JWT or manually generate one:

Automatic Token Generation

Configure the add-in to automatically generate the tokens:

Required

JWTSubject: The name of the user to assign to the JWT.
JWTAlgorithm: The algorithm to use for the JWT signature.
JWTKeyType: The encryption key's type.
JWTKey: The encryption key used to sign the JWT generated by the add-in.

Optional

JWTIssuer: The issuer of the JWT.
JWTExpiration: The duration for which the JWT remains valid, in seconds.
JWTHeaders: A collection of extra headers to include in the JWT header.
JWTClaims: A collection of extra claims to include in the JWT payload.
CredentialsLocation: The filepath of the settings file containing the JWT. If a settings file does not exist in this location, the add-in creates a new settings file when it retrieves a JWT.

Manual Token Generation

You can generate the tokens yourself manually and pass them to the add-in by using the JWTToken connection property.

Generating the Key Pair

When using asymmetric algorithms to sign the tokens, you must generate a private/public key pair. For that, a cryptographic library like OpenSSL can be used. For example:

# generate private key
openssl genrsa --out private_rsa256.pem 2048

# extract public key
openssl rsa -in private_rsa256.pem -pubout > public_rsa256.pem

JWT Configurations

Refer to CouchDB JWT Authentication Documentation for the following.

The alg and sub are required claims and will always be validated by the Apache CouchDB instance. Other required claims can be configured in the server (see required_claims). In that case, you must use JWTHeaders and JWTClaims so that the add-in can include those additional claims when generating the JWT.

You can use roles_claim_name or the roles_claim_path options to assign roles to the JWTs.

An example configuration of the server and corresponding sample connection string are shown below:

Example Server Configuration

[chttpd]
...
authentication_handlers = {chttpd_auth, jwt_authentication_handler}, {chttpd_auth, cookie_authentication_handler}, {chttpd_auth, default_authentication_handler}
admin_only_all_dbs = false
...

[jwt_auth]
...
required_claims = exp
roles_claim_path = my.nested._couchdb\.roles
rsa:rsa_256 = -----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\nYOUR_PUBLIC_KEY\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----\n
...

Example Connection String

Url=http://localhost:5984;
JWTSubject=JWT User 1;
JWTAlgorithm=RS256;
JWTKeyType=PEMKEY_FILE;
JWTKey=PATH_TO_FOLDER\private_rsa256.pem;
JWTHeaders=kid : rsa_256 | Custom Header 1 : Test 1;
JWTClaims= my : eyJuZXN0ZWQiOnsiX2NvdWNoZGIucm9sZXMiOlsidXNlcjIiXX19 | Custom Claim 1 : Test 1;

Anonymous Authentication