I was surprised to see that if I specify connection properties in a hibernate-configuration they seem to take precedence over a session provided connection. What I found was that if I create a hibernate session and specify a property and also specify connection properties that include user/password in a hibernate configuration.

In testing, it seems that I have to specify a connection driver/url with no password when using my own home grown connection.

Another unusual thing was that with a DB2 session-factory I have to specify a name. That name is used to do a JNDI lookup (I assume for a datasource) but on failure my db2 connection is used with no problems.

I am using my own connection because I am testing a datasource implementation and don't want hibernate to interfere until I am sure it works correctly. What is the minimum configuration when I supply my own connection and is it dialect specific? Should I provide any session-factory configuration when providing connections?

Thanks for any help.