diff --git a/backend/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/controllers/login/LoginController.java b/backend/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/controllers/login/LoginController.java
index 9a30e7a..18f1389 100644
--- a/backend/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/controllers/login/LoginController.java
+++ b/backend/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/controllers/login/LoginController.java
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ public class LoginController implements LoginApi {
     private static final ConcurrentMap<String, CacheEntry> cache = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
 
     @Scheduled(fixedRate = 300000) // 5 minutes in milliseconds
-    private void clearExpiredCacheEntries() {
+    protected void clearExpiredCacheEntries() {
         Instant now = Instant.now();
         int initialCacheSize = cache.size();
         cache.entrySet().removeIf(entry -> entry.getValue().expiry().isBefore(now));
diff --git a/database/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/setup/Connection.java b/database/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/setup/Connection.java
index 4ef04a4..aba2fda 100644
--- a/database/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/setup/Connection.java
+++ b/database/src/main/java/com/alttd/altitudeweb/setup/Connection.java
@@ -163,10 +163,24 @@ public class Connection {
     private static @NotNull Configuration getConfiguration(DatabaseSettings settings) {
         PooledDataSource dataSource = new PooledDataSource();
         dataSource.setDriver("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver");
-        dataSource.setUrl(String.format("jdbc:mysql://%s:%d/%s", settings.host(),
-                settings.port(), settings.name()));
+
+        String url = String.format(
+                "jdbc:mysql://%s:%d/%s?useSSL=true&tcpKeepAlive=true&socketTimeout=60000&connectTimeout=10000&autoReconnect=false&useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8",
+                settings.host(),
+                settings.port(),
+                settings.name()
+                                  );
+        dataSource.setUrl(url);
         dataSource.setUsername(settings.username());
         dataSource.setPassword(settings.password());
+
+        dataSource.setPoolMaximumActiveConnections(10);
+        dataSource.setPoolMaximumIdleConnections(5);
+        dataSource.setPoolTimeToWait(20000);
+        dataSource.setPoolPingEnabled(true);
+        dataSource.setPoolPingQuery("SELECT 1");
+        dataSource.setPoolPingConnectionsNotUsedFor(300000); // 5 min
+
         Environment environment = new Environment("production", new JdbcTransactionFactory(), dataSource);
         return new Configuration(environment);
     }