JDBC MYSQL localhost vs. over the internet

Question

I am new to java so please take it easy on me. I have a little bit of a crisis here and want to make sure I understand what it is that I am trying to accomplish.
I have a Java application that I want people to run from their machine that access my web server over the internet and connects to my MYSQL database. It uses webstart to download application to their machine where they run it locally. Here is how I have this setup. Is this not a standard practice? Or should I have used a different Java technology to have them run the application directly from my server using localhost instead of mywebsite?
So, am I using java in a practical way using mywebsite.com:3306 and the user running it locally on their machine. Or do I have to set this up so they run in on my server using localhost?
try
               String userName = "testuser";
               String password = "testpass";
               String url = "jdbc:mysql://mywebsite.com:3306/test";
               Class.forName ("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance ();
               conn = DriverManager.getConnection (url, userName, password);
               System.out.println ("Database connection established");
           catch (Exception e)
               System.err.println ("Cannot connect to database server");
           }Edited by: crusherdestroyer on Jan 20, 2010 10:28 AM
Edited by: crusherdestroyer on Jan 20, 2010 10:29 AM

Answer 1

Good evening, CD.
As the others have said, you should not have your SQL server exposed to the public. If you use ACLs or similar and allow only trusted hosts to access your MySQL server, you should be fine to continue as-is (Java client connecting to TCP port 3306 of your server if I understand your explanation correctly.) If you want to convert your simple application to a server-side app, you could also use something like procrun if your server is running Windows or jsvc for UNIX/Linux. This will enable you to run your app as a service/daemon and you could configure it to listen on an arbitrary port for incoming connections and use the app as an intermediary for interfacing connecting clients with your MySQL database. This is just another idea opposed to installing and configuring Tomcat, Jetty, or the like and possibly a webserver in front of that.
Regards,
Lloyd Dilley