Driver setup

Setup with default configuration, this automatically loads a properties file arangodb.properties if exists in the classpath:

// this instance is thread-safe
ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder().build();

The driver is configured with some default values:

To customize the configuration the parameters can be changed in the code…

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .host("192.168.182.50", 8888)
  .build();

… or with a custom properties file (my.properties)

InputStream in = MyClass.class.getResourceAsStream("my.properties");
ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .loadProperties(in)
  .build();

Example for arangodb.properties:

arangodb.hosts=127.0.0.1:8529,127.0.0.1:8529
arangodb.user=root
arangodb.password=

Network protocol

The drivers default used network protocol is the binary protocol VelocyStream which offers the best performance within the driver. To use HTTP, you have to set the configuration useProtocol to Protocol.HTTP_JSON for HTTP with JSON content or Protocol.HTTP_VPACK for HTTP with VelocyPack content.

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .useProtocol(Protocol.VST)
  .build();

In addition to set the configuration for HTTP you have to add the apache httpclient to your classpath.

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
  <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
  <version>4.5.1</version>
</dependency>

Note: If you are using ArangoDB 3.0.x you have to set the protocol to Protocol.HTTP_JSON because it is the only one supported.

SSL

To use SSL, you have to set the configuration useSsl to true and set a SSLContext (see example code).

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .useSsl(true)
  .sslContext(sc)
  .build();

No additional configuration is required to use TLSv1.3 (if available on the server side), but a JVM that supports it is required (OpenJDK 11 or later, or distributions of Java 8 with TLSv1.3 support).

Connection Pooling

The driver supports connection pooling for VelocyStream with a default of 1 and HTTP with a default of 20 maximum connections per host. To change this value use the method maxConnections(Integer) in ArangoDB.Builder.

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .maxConnections(8)
  .build();

The driver does not explicitly release connections. To avoid exhaustion of resources when no connection is needed, you can clear the connection pool (close all connections to the server) or use connection TTL.

arangoDB.shutdown();

Fallback hosts

The driver supports configuring multiple hosts. The first host is used to open a connection to. When this host is not reachable the next host from the list is used. To use this feature just call the method host(String, int) multiple times.

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .host("host1", 8529)
  .host("host2", 8529)
  .build();

Since version 4.3 the driver support acquiring a list of known hosts in a cluster setup or a single server setup with followers. For this the driver has to be able to successfully open a connection to at least one host to get the list of hosts. Then it can use this list when fallback is needed. To use this feature just pass true to the method acquireHostList(boolean).

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .acquireHostList(true)
  .build();

Load Balancing

Since version 4.3 the driver supports load balancing for cluster setups in two different ways.

The first one is a round robin load balancing where the driver iterates through a list of known hosts and performs every request on a different host than the request before.

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .loadBalancingStrategy(LoadBalancingStrategy.ROUND_ROBIN)
  .build();

Just like the Fallback hosts feature the round robin load balancing strategy can use the acquireHostList configuration to acquire a list of all known hosts in the cluster. Do so only requires the manually configuration of only one host. Because this list is updated frequently it makes load balancing over the whole cluster very comfortable.

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .loadBalancingStrategy(LoadBalancingStrategy.ROUND_ROBIN)
  .acquireHostList(true)
  .build();

The second load balancing strategy allows to pick a random host from the configured or acquired list of hosts and sticks to that host as long as the connection is open. This strategy is useful for an application - using the driver - which provides a session management where each session has its own instance of ArangoDB build from a global configured list of hosts. In this case it could be wanted that every sessions sticks with all its requests to the same host but not all sessions should use the same host. This load balancing strategy also works together with acquireHostList.

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .loadBalancingStrategy(LoadBalancingStrategy.ONE_RANDOM)
  .acquireHostList(true)
  .build();

Connection time to live

Since version 4.4 the driver supports setting a TTL (time to life) in milliseconds for connections managed by the internal connection pool.

ArangoDB arango = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .connectionTtl(5 * 60 * 1000)
  .build();

In this example all connections will be closed/reopened after 5 minutes.

Connection TTL can be disabled setting it to null:

.connectionTtl(null)

The default TTL is null (no automatic connection closure).

VST Keep-Alive

Since version 6.8 the driver supports setting keep-alive interval (in seconds) for VST connections. If set, every VST connection will perform a no-op request at the specified intervals, to avoid to be closed due to inactivity by the server (or by the external environment, e.g. firewall, intermediate routers, operating system, … ).

This option can be set using the key arangodb.connections.keepAlive.interval in the properties file or programmatically from the driver builder:

ArangoDB arangoDB = new ArangoDB.Builder()
  .keepAliveInterval(1800) // 30 minutes
  .build();

If not set or set to null (default), no keep-alive probes will be sent.