17.8. Database connect string

Due to its use of a database abstraction layer, privacyIDEA can work with several databases with the help of corresponding database drivers.

The database and corresponding diver are specified in the connect string SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI in The Config File

17.8.1. Tested database versions

The continuous integration runs the full test suite against MariaDB 10.11 (the LTS most installations run) and PostgreSQL 17. On every change to the database models or migrations it additionally runs the migration test suite, which verifies that the schema migrations apply cleanly in both directions (upgrade and downgrade) starting from the v3.9 schema — against MariaDB 10.11 and 11 and PostgreSQL 17. A single-node MariaDB Galera cluster is covered as well, to catch cluster-specific DDL constraints.

SQLite is the default for development and small, single-node installations.

17.8.2. MySQL / MariaDB

While there are several database driver packages for MySQL, we recommend PyMySQL which is a pure Python package and does not require external libraries or a build environment on the server.

PyMySQL is already installed in the virtual environment as a requirement for privacyIDEA.

connect string: mysql+pymysql://<user>:<password>@<host>/<database>

17.8.3. PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is tested using the psycopg2 driver which can be installed into the privacyIDEA virtual environment with:

(privacyidea) $ pip install psycopg2_binary

The corresponding connect string looks like this:

connect string: postgresql+psycopg2://<user>:<password>@<host>/<database>

17.8.4. Other databases

While we recommend MySQL as the backend database we regularly test MariaDB and PostgreSQL as well.

Other databases like Oracle or MSSQL are working as well but not all functionality can be assured, so be aware that “Your mileage may vary”.