Since KMIME Analytic Platform 4 arrival, I’ve been solving problems connectoed to a password configuration of new DB Connector nodes. And I’ve learned I’m not the only one. There is a number of topics in this forum solving similar issues. People who used to configure their DB connection params on the fly suffers from the fact that new DB Connectors no longer support plain text passwords.
Well, Credentials Configuration and Credential Inputs are available for this. But there are drawbacks with this preventing us as developers and data analysts from what we are supposed to do.
Reading DB Connector Node password configuration related topics here leads me to a wish: Please, make it possible to configure a DB connection password by picking a flow variable in the DB Connector (or its more specialized descendants like PostgreSQL Connector and so on) Node configuration.
Hi @thor, thanks for your reply.
Well, drawbacks. I wouldn’t like making this topic solve these issues one by one. So just briefly.
Using credentials brings some additional complexity to workflow compared to plain-text-password way. For example: In my case, I read connection parameters from an external config file. I need to create credentials to get DB connection which makes me use Credentials Configuration Node which doesn’t work in a Component properly. I reported this here: Recommended way of configuring a database connectors
I need to re-invoke Credentials Configuration nodes after I re-open already invoked workflow as described here: DB nodes - can't continue with workflow after it is re-loaded
Also, using credentials in a workflow brings a special effort to spare. If you load a workflow, KNIME opens Credentials Configuration dialog obviously expecting you to configure credentials. It’s even more inconvenient in batch mode. I haven’t already elaborated this enough to find out whether adding credentials to batch command resolve this or it doesn’t.
I’ve spent an enormous effort and lots of time by solving issues related to new DB Nodes and Credentials what I wouldn’t have to if there was still available the option to configure DB Connector picking a plain-text password holding flow variable in the configuration dialog of the node as it was possible with legacy nodes.
