you should just add your own connection string in user.config or web.config and read it from there, you should not add a separate web.config file in your feature folder.

ie we have this one for mojoPortal:

<add key="MSSQLConnectionString" value="server=localhost;UID=mojouser;PWD=mojo123;database=mojo" />

but nothing stops you from adding your own for your separate db:

<add key="MyFeatureConnectionString" value="server=localhost;UID=youruser;PWD=yourpassword;database=yourdb" />

public static string GetMyFeatureConnectionString()
        {
            return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MyFeatureConnectionString"];

        }

Hi,

Check out the Using a Different Database for a Feature documentation.

I think where you might be going wrong is that the name of the connection string must follow a certain pattern ([FeatureName]_ConnectionString). For instance, if your feature was named "CoolFeature" your connection string must be named "CoolFeature_ConnectionString".

 <add key="CoolFeature_ConnectionString" value="server=localhost;UID=youruser;PWD=yourpassword;database=yourdb" />

public static string GetMyFeatureConnectionString()
        {
            return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["CoolFeature_ConnectionString"];

        }

Also, your feature folder in the /Setup/Application folder must be named "CoolFeature". The logic in the setup page is to look for the convention based connection string "[FeatureName]_ConnectionString" based on the feature folder name, if it finds a value it passes this in as an override connection string when running the scripts, otherwise it just uses the main connection string.

HTH,
Joe D.

If the built in setup routine doesn't meet you needs then implement your own solution for running your scripts then you can use just one connection string.