Connecting PostgreSQL 8.1 & ColdFusion MX 7

So far ColdFusion does not have a default driver to connect to a PostgreSQL Database. However you can manually create a connection using a JDBC driver.

1. Download the JDBC driver http://jdbc.postgresql.org/
   You need to know what is your JDK version so that you can select the proper driver. To check your JDK version open Terminal and type:
   
   java --version

   In my case I have "1.4.2", therefore I downloaded JDBC 3 for PostgreSQL 8.1
2. Copy the driver (jar file) to your coldfusion location at:
   
   [cf root folder]/servers/cfusion/cfusion-ear/cfusion-war/WEB-INF/cfusion/lib

   in my case this was:
/opt/jrun4/servers/cfusion/cfusion-ear/cfusion-war/WEB-INF/cfusion/lib
   
3. Restart ColdFusion:
   cd into /opt/jrun4/bin/ and type:
   
./jrun -restart
   NOTE: for some reason when I execute this command it my system won't complete the restart process so I had to do a Stop and Start like ./jrun -stop and then ./jrun -start


4. Now go to your ColdFusion admin add a new Data Source of type "Other"
5. Enter your JDBC URL as: jdbc:postgresql://localhost/[your database name]
6. Set Driver Class and Driver Name as: org.postgresql.Driver
7. Enter the user name and password.
   Note: You can use your "postgres" user account. I have instead created a specific account for coldfusion, you can create users through pgAdmin.
8. Submit. You should get an "ok" in the status.