There is one important exception to the search order for properties described above: When you set the derby.database.propertiesOnly property to true, database-wide properties cannot be overridden by system-wide properties.

This property ensures that a database's environment cannot be modified by the environment in which it is booted. Any application running in an embedded environment can set this property to true for security reasons.

See the " properties" section of the for details on the derby.database.propertiesOnly property.