Prerequisites

Please note that SQL Workbench/J has no relation to the product MySQL Workbench which is maintained and owned by Oracle. If you are looking for MySQL Workbench support please contact Oracle.

SQL Workbench/J needs a Java runtime.
You have to install Java 6 before you can run SQL Workbench/J.

Installation

After downloading SQL Workbench/J, unzip the archive into a directory of your choice.

The application is now ready to be run, no further installation steps are necessary.

Starting the application

Microsoft Windows

If you are using Windows® start the application by double-clicking the SQLWorkbench.exe executable (Windows Vista users please read this).

SQLWorkbench.exe is a 32bit application and will not work on a 64bit Windows system.
Please use the supplied SQLWorkbench.vbs script to start SQL Workbench in that case.

The supplied script MakeShortcut.vbs can be used to create a Windows shortcut to start SQL Workbench without the .exe. The shortcut will use the default Java installation on the system.

Linux and other Unix-style operating systems

If you are running Linux (or another Unix® like operating system) you can use the supplied shell script sqlworkbench.sh to start the application.

Configuring the database (JDBC) drivers

When starting SQL Workbench/J for the first time, you will need to configure the JDBC drivers for your database system.

When the initial connection dialog is displayed ("Select Connection Profile"), click on the "Manage Drivers" button to specify the location of the driver's JAR file(s).

To define the driver, select the JAR file(s) that is supplied by your database system. The driver definition dialog has a list of pre-defined drivers and the name of their jar file.

To select the driver's JAR file, click on the "..." button next to the input field labelled "Library". After you have selected the JAR file, SQL Workbench/J will search for the approriate driver class to be used. If a JDBC driver implementation is found in the JAR file(s), it is automatically entered in the input field labeled "Classname". If more than one class is found you will have to select one.

Specifying the database connection

If you have specified the driver's location, you can close the "Manage drivers" dialog. In the "Select Connection Profile" dialog, you have to specify the details for your database connection. You can find more details on how to define the JDBC driver in the manual.

To setup the connection to your database, select the JDBC driver from the dropdown, then fill out the JDBC connection URL (a sample URL has been inserted into the input field) and most importantly: the username and password. Click OK to connect to the database.

For further details, please refer to the manual