Specifying MySQL provider through config.

In my Rackspace CloudSites shared hosting environment, you cannot use the latest MySQL .NET Connector, because it has some (stupid) permission demands that don't fly in a medium-trust environment. I don't want to recompile and deploy customized MySQL assemblies from source, so I use Rackspace's GAC'd assemblies, which are a slightly older version.

In other .NET applications, rather than deploying the MySQL assemblies in the bin folder of my website, I specify the MySQL assembly to use with a web.config entry like so:

<system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories>
        <clear />
        <add name="MySQL Data Provider" invariant="MySql.Data.MySqlClient"
             description=".Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL"
             type="MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data, Version=5.2.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d" />
    </DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

Is this the same way that I would tell LightSpeed what version of the MySQL Connector to use? If not, how would I go about providing this information to LightSpeed's context?

Tony

We don't go through the ADO.NET provider factory API, so you'd need to do an assembly binding redirect in your web.config, from the version LightSpeed expects to the version Rackspace allows you to have. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/twy1dw1e%28v=vs.80%29.aspx for info and an example. Note that the oldVersion would be the version expected by LightSpeed (currently 6.3.6.0) and the newVersion the one that Rackspace gives you, even though the LightSpeed version may be the higher version number!

Also you might want to specify a range in oldVersion so that you don't need to update it when we update the version of MySql.Data.dll that LightSpeed is built against.

Thanks, that gives me what I need.

On a side note, given that you ship supported MySQL assemblies and you support a medium-trust environment, would you know if your MySQL assemblies have been tweaked to not require the permission demands that fail in most medium-trust environments?

Here's an example of what GoDaddy documented: http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/1496

It's no big deal if you have not - I can do it as well.

Tony

The MySQL assembly we ship is just the MySql.Data DLL taken from the MySQL distributions. We haven't tweaked it in any way; we just provide it so that customers can easily reference it without having to find, install and maintain the correct version themselves.