夜深了还在为关于jsp+tomcat+mysql数据库连接的问题头痛!请高手帮忙

我在tomcat容器编译时DOS中提示 java.lang.ClassNotFoundException
   com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
message description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.exception org.apache.jasper.JasperException
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:372)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:292)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:236)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
root cause java.lang.NullPointerException
org.apache.jsp.first_jsp._jspService(first_jsp.java:98)
org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:94)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:324)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:292)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:236)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/5.0.28 logs.下面是数据库的连接代码
package com.netshop;import java.sql.*;public class OpenDB
{
    
    String userName="root";
    String userPassword="123456";  
    private String driverName = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";//"org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver";(两种加载驱动程序方式都不行)
    private String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/netshop?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=gb2312";    Connection dbConn;
    public OpenDB()
    {    }
    public Connection getConnection()
    {
        try
        {
            Class.forName(driverName);
            dbConn=DriverManager.getConnection(url,userName,userPassword);
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
            System.out.println(ex.toString());
            dbConn = null;
        }
       
        return dbConn;
    }}
MySQL 版本是5.0.21 不知道是不是驱动器的原因还是?如果是的话应该要哪个版本的驱动器,该在哪里存放驱动的什么文件呢?  麻烦武林高手 在这深夜能出手相助,小弟在此感激不尽!