# Using the Derby tools and startup utilities

There are several tools and utilities that you might want to use as you begin to work with Derby.

The tools that are included with Derby are dblook, ij, and sysinfo. You can use the Derby scripts to start the Derby tools.

There are Derby utilities that are system procedures that you can call by using the ij tool. . For example, there are system procedures that you can use to import and export external files. Instructions on how to use these system procedures are included in the Java DB Tools and Utilities Guide and the Java DB Reference Manual.

The scripts that run these tools are in the DERBY_HOME/bin directory. These scripts also help you set up your classpath.

The scripts in DERBY_HOME/bin directory are setup to run in the embedded mode. To run these tools with the Network Server, use the following commands:

- For the dblook tool, call the script and specify the -d option and the full URL to the Network Server database. For example: `dblook -d 'jdbc:derby://localhost/myDB;user=usr'`
- For the ij tool, issue the command `set DERBY_OPTS=-Dij.protocol=jdbc:derby://localhost/` and then start ij by issuing the command `ij`.
- For the sysinfo tool, issue the command `NetworkServerControl sysinfo`.

To show how to use the Derby scripts to launch the Derby tools, the examples in the Getting Started with Java DB assume that you are using the embedded mode of the Derby database engine.

- Using the sysinfo tool
  The Derby sysinfo tool displays information about your Java environment and your version of Derby.
- Running ij
  You can use the ij tool to connect to a Derby database.
- Setting the classpath
  The classpath is a list of the class libraries that are needed by the JVM and other Java applications to run your program. The scripts that are included with Derby set up their own classpath for running the tools. However, to call the tools directly using Java and not using the scripts, you need to manually set the CLASSPATH environment variable.

Parent topic: Installing and working with Derby
Related tasks
Setting up your environment