How to install and use DBeaver in Ubuntu aarch64

DBeaver is a free, open-source database management tool for personal projects. Manage and explore SQL databases like MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Apache Family, and more.

I have Ubuntu running in Virtual Machine in macOS with Apple M4 Silicon, therefore I have ARM-based Ubuntu (aarch64). 

In this blog post I will show DBeaver installation install and basic usage.

System update and upgrade 

First of all update and upgrade your Ubuntu operating system. 

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

When system is updated, we can continue. 

Download 

Download stable Linux ARM64 tarball of DBeaver ...

wget https://dbeaver.io/files/25.2.2/dbeaver-ce-25.2.2-linux.gtk.aarch64.tar.gz 

Install

In this section, DBeaver installation process is described.

Extract archive file

tar -xzf dbeaver-ce-25.2.2-linux.gtk.aarch64.tar.gz

Move the extracted folder to an appropriate system location

sudo mv dbeaver /opt/

Change owner to root

sudo chown -R root:root /opt/dbeaver

Create a symbolic link to make the command executable system-wide

sudo ln -s /opt/dbeaver/dbeaver /usr/local/bin/dbeaver

Launch DBeaver

dbeaver

Pin DBeaver into Ubuntu Application Dock

Create following file ... 

sudo vi /usr/share/applications/dbeaver.desktop 

... and add following text into the file

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/opt/dbeaver/dbeaver
Name=DBeaver Community
Comment=Universal Database Manager
Icon=/opt/dbeaver/icon.xpm
Categories=Development;
Terminal=false 

Once the .desktop file is correct, you should be able to search for "DBeaver" in your Ubuntu Applications menu (the grid of nine dots) and pin it into the dock. 

Pin DBeaver to Dock

After successful installation, you should be able to launch and use DBeaver.

DBeaver Community Edition in Ubuntu aarch64

Usage

In this section I will deploy MySQL as a docker container and use DBeaver to design and deploy database for my software project.

Dockerized MySQL Server

Let's use Docker Compose.

Switch to root shell.

sudo /bin/bash 

We need MySQL Docker Compose directory

mkdir -p /opt/mysql/ 

You need following Docker Compose file ...

cat > /opt/mysql/docker-compose.yml <<EOF
volumes:
  db_data: {}
 
networks:
  proxy:
    external: false
 
services:
  db:
    image: mysql:8.0
    container_name: mysql_db
    restart: always # Ensure the container restarts if it fails or the system reboots
    environment:
      # Required environment variables
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: password 
      MYSQL_DATABASE: dev-db
      MYSQL_USER: dev-user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: dev-password
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"
    volumes:
      # Named volume for data persistence
      - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
EOF

Switch to MySQL directory and start Docker Compose Stack ...

cd /opt/mysql 

docker-compose up -d

Docker Compose Stack, including only MySQL service, should be up and running.

Native MySQL Client

To work with dockerized MySQL Server we need MySQL client. We will install native client in Ubuntu by following command ...  

sudo apt install mysql-client 

Now we can connect to MySQL database server as dev-db user ...

mysql -u dev-user -p -h 127.0.0.1 dev-db

or as DB admin (root) ...

mysql -u root -p -h 127.0.0.1

Note: -h has to be used otherwise mysql client would use sockets and not tcp. We must use TCP because our MySQL Server runs in docker and not in local system. 

DBeaver

Now we can create connections and work with various database systems.

Established Connection to localhost:3306 (MySQL Server) and we can connect others. 

Conclusion 

DBeaver is very good tool for database management and even design. Any software project leveraging database should be documented and managed. DBeaver is open-source tool which anyone can use.