Application Managed data connectors which use Oracle JDBC Thin driver seem to be losing connections after an idle period. This results in an exception, reported in the idp-access.log, such as

11:59:29.339 - ERROR [edu.internet2.middleware.shibboleth.....RDBMSDataConnector:...]
- RDBMS data connector [.., SELECT * FROM ...] - Unable to execute SQL query java.sql.SQLException:
An SQLException was provoked by the following failure: com.mchange.v2.resourcepool.ResourcePoolException:
Attempted to use a closed or broken resource pool

Switching to a Container Managed connection seems to solve the problem.

Configure an Oracle DB Data Connector

To configure a Container Managed connection with Tomcat 6, operate as follow:

• copy the Oracle JDBC Thin driver .jar file into $TOMCAT_HOME/lib
• if you use a Context Deployment Fragment such as $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost/idp.xml, add a Resource section to it:

  <Context docBase="/opt/shibboleth-idp/war/idp.war"
           privileged="true"
           antiResourceLocking="false"
           antiJARLocking="false"
           unpackWAR="false"
           swallowOutput="true" >
    <Resource name="jdbc/ORAIDP"
       type="javax.sql.DataSource"
       driverClassName="oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver"
       url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@127.0.0.1:1521:mysid"
       validationQuery="SELECT 1 FROM dual"
       username="scott" password="tiger"
       maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
  </Context>
  

  Oracle JNDI Datasource configuration is covered by the Tomcat documentation
• in the connector use (note that the resource named jdbc/ORAIDP in the Deployment Fragment becomes java:comp/env/jdbc/ORAIDP in the connector definition):

  <resolver:DataConnector xsi:type="dc:RelationalDatabase" id="UNIQUE_ID">
  
       <!-- Dependency and Failover information would go here -->
  
       <dc:ContainerManagedConnection resourceName="java:comp/env/jdbc/ORAIDP" />
       ...
  

• restart Tomcat

More information on the Apache Commons DBCP wiki.