Oracle SQL Developer is a much-appreciated tool for designing, building, documenting, managing and enhancing software systems. It’s also good for testing databases and deploying/administering Oracle Rest Data Services (ORDS). It’s useful for APEX developers, too. It allows them to browse, import or export applications or pages, as well as modify or deploy them. No doubt about it, it’s a great all-around swiss-army-knife kind of tool. Did you know you could use it for SQL Developer SSH Connections?
Security
SQL Developer has built-in security capability. It allows the creation and use of SSH tunnels to completely secure connections to your database. However, while this capability is especially valuable, understanding it is a challenge. Part of the reason is that SQL Developer UI for configuring connections isn’t quite as clear as it could be and the documentation on this doesn’t tell you the “why” of using certain features of SSH connections. Also, most any blogs you’ll find on the subject of configuring and using the tunnels fall short of being helpful. In fact, they often read more like simplified bad practices than anything else (with the notable exception of Anton Nielsen’s blog called SQL Connection via an Encrypted SSH Tunnel).
A White Paper to Clarify
No one wants to potentially jeopardize all their hard work simply because they use a feature for secure connections in an insecure way. Basically, I’d like to show you the best way to configure SQL Developer SSH connections in the real world. This includes the creation of SSH Key files and the configuration of the SSH daemon on an SSH server.
Ideally, you’d be able to share this white paper with the networking team at your company. This way, they’ll be able to configure access to your database servers while protecting any data sent across the wire. With SQL Developer SSH connections correctly configured to leverage a properly configured SSH server and firewalls the security of information sent between SQL Developer and your database can be guaranteed.
After filling in a short Form, you’ll be able to download Richard Soule’s White Paper on SQL Developer SSH connections.
Enjoy!
