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Authorize user access to Databricks with OAuth

This article explains how to authorize user access to Databricks resources when using the Databricks CLI or Databricks REST APIs.

Databricks uses OAuth 2.0 as the preferred protocol for user authorization and authentication outside of the UI. Unified client authentication automates token generation and refresh. After a user signs in and grants consent, OAuth issues an access token for the CLI, SDK, or other tool to use on the user’s behalf. Each access token is valid for one hour, after which a new token is automatically requested.

In this article, authorization refers to using OAuth to grant access to Databricks resources, while authentication refers to validating credentials through access tokens.

For more high-level details, see Authorizing access to Databricks resources.

Ways to authorize access to Databricks resources​

Databricks supports two ways to authorize user accounts with OAuth:

  • Automatic (recommended): Use unified authentication if you're working with supported tools and SDKs, such as the Databricks Terraform SDK. This approach handles token generation and refresh automatically.

  • Manual: Generate a code verifier and challenge, then exchange them for an OAuth token. Use this method if your tool doesn't support unified authentication. For details, see Manually generate OAuth U2M access tokens.

Automatic authorization with unified authentication​

note

Before you configure authorization, review the ACL permissions for the type of workspace operations you plan to perform and confirm that your account has the required access level. For details, see Access control lists.

To perform OAuth authorization with Databricks SDKs and tools that support unified authentication, integrate the following within your code:

To use environment variables for a specific Databricks authentication type with a tool or SDK, see Authorizing access to Databricks resources or the tool's or SDK's documentation. See also Environment variables and fields for unified authentication and the Authentication method priority.

For account-level operations, set the following environment variables:

  • DATABRICKS_HOST, set to the value of your Databricks account console URL, https://accounts.gcp.databricks.com.
  • DATABRICKS_ACCOUNT_ID

For workspace-level operations, set the following environment variables:

  • DATABRICKS_HOST, set to the value of your Databricks workspace URL, for example https://1234567890123456.7.gcp.databricks.com.

Manually generate OAuth U2M access tokens​

This section is for users working with third-party tools or services that don't support the Databricks unified authentication standard. If you need to manually generate, refresh, or use Databricks OAuth tokens for OAuth U2M authentication, follow the steps in this section.

Step 1: Generate a code verifier and challenge​

To generate OAuth U2M access tokens manually, start by creating a code verifier and a matching code challenge. You'll use the challenge in Step 2 to get an authorization code, and the verifier in Step 3 to exchange that code for an access token.

note

Follow the OAuth PKCE standard:

  • The code verifier is a cryptographically random string (43–128 characters) using characters A–Z, a–z, 0–9, -._~.
  • The code challenge is a Base64 URL-encoded SHA256 hash of the verifier.

For more information, see Authorization Request.

The following Python script generates a verifier and challenge. Although you can use them multiple times, Databricks recommends generating a new pair each time you manually generate access tokens.

Python
import hashlib, base64, secrets, string

# Allowed characters for the code verifier, per PKCE spec
allowed_chars = string.ascii_letters + string.digits + "-._~"

# Generate a secure code verifier (43–128 characters)
code_verifier = ''.join(secrets.choice(allowed_chars) for _ in range(64))

# Create the SHA256 hash of the code verifier
sha256_hash = hashlib.sha256(code_verifier.encode()).digest()

# Base64-url-encode the hash and strip any trailing '=' padding
code_challenge = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(sha256_hash).decode().rstrip("=")

# Output values
print(f"code_verifier:  {code_verifier}")
print(f"code_challenge: {code_challenge}")

Step 2: Generate an authorization code​

To get a Databricks OAuth access token, you must first generate an OAuth authorization code. This code expires immediately after use. You can generate the code at either the account or workspace level:

  • Account level: Use to call both account-level and workspace-level REST APIs across all workspaces that your user can access.
  • Workspace level: Use to call REST APIs within a single workspace.
note

These examples use databricks-cli as the client ID. If you're not using a built-in Databricks tool such as the CLI or SDKs, you must enable a custom OAuth application and use its client_id in your requests. See Enable or disable partner OAuth applications.

Generate an account-level authorization code​

  1. Locate your account ID.

  2. In your browser, navigate to the URL with the following replacements:

    • <account-id>: Your Databricks account ID
    • <redirect-url>: A local redirect URI (for example, http://localhost:8020)
    • <state>: Any plain-text string to validate the response
    • <code-challenge>: The code challenge from Step 1
    https://accounts.gcp.databricks.com/oidc/accounts/<account-id>/v1/authorize
    ?client_id=databricks-cli
    &redirect_uri=<redirect-url>
    &response_type=code
    &state=<state>
    &code_challenge=<code-challenge>
    &code_challenge_method=S256
    &scope=all-apis+offline_access

  3. Log in when prompted to access your Databricks account.

  4. Copy the authorization code from your browser’s address bar. It’s the value after code= and before & in the redirect URL:

    http://localhost:8020/?code=dcod...7fe6&state=<state>

    Verify that the state value matches what you originally provided. If it doesn’t, discard the code.

  5. Continue to Generate an account-level access token.

Generate a workspace-level authorization code​

  1. In your browser, navigate to the URL with the following replacements:

    • <databricks-instance>: Your <databricks-instance> with the Databricks workspace instance name, for example 1234567890123456.7.gcp.databricks.com
    • <redirect-url>: A local redirect (e.g., http://localhost:8020)
    • <state>: Any plain-text value for response validation
    • <code-challenge>: The challenge string from Step 1
    https://<databricks-instance>/oidc/v1/authorize
    ?client_id=databricks-cli
    &redirect_uri=<redirect-url>
    &response_type=code
    &state=<state>
    &code_challenge=<code-challenge>
    &code_challenge_method=S256
    &scope=all-apis+offline_access

  2. Log in when prompted to access your Databricks account.

  3. Copy the authorization code from your browser’s address bar. It’s the value after code= and before & in the redirect URL:

    http://localhost:8020/?code=dcod...7fe6&state=<state>

    Verify that the state value matches what you originally provided. If it doesn’t, discard the code.

  4. Continue to Generate a workspace-level access token.

Step 3: Exchange the authorization code for an access token​

To exchange the authorization code for a Databricks OAuth access token, choose the appropriate level:

  • Account level: Use to call both account-level and workspace-level REST APIs across all workspaces your user can access.
  • Workspace level: Use to call REST APIs within a single workspace.

Generate an account-level access token​

  1. Use curl to exchange the account-level authorization code for an OAuth access token.

    Replace the following in the request:

    • <account-id>: Your Databricks account ID
    • <redirect-url>: The redirect URL from the previous step
    • <code-verifier>: The verifier you generated earlier
    • <authorization-code>: The authorization code from the previous step
    Bash
    curl --request POST \
    https://accounts.gcp.databricks.com/oidc/accounts/<account-id>/v1/token \
    --data "client_id=databricks-cli" \
    --data "grant_type=authorization_code" \
    --data "scope=all-apis offline_access" \
    --data "redirect_uri=<redirect-url>" \
    --data "code_verifier=<code-verifier>" \
    --data "code=<authorization-code>"

  2. Copy the access_token value from the response. For example:

    JSON
    {
      "access_token": "eyJr...Dkag",
      "refresh_token": "doau...f26e",
      "scope": "all-apis offline_access",
      "token_type": "Bearer",
      "expires_in": 3600
    }

    The token is valid for one hour.

  3. Continue to Step 4: Call a Databricks REST API.

Generate a workspace-level access token​

  1. Use curl to exchange the workspace-level authorization code for an OAuth access token.

    Replace the following in the request:

    • <databricks-instance>: Your <databricks-instance> with the Databricks workspace instance name, for example 1234567890123456.7.gcp.databricks.com
    • <redirect-url>: The redirect URL from the previous step
    • <code-verifier>: The verifier you generated earlier
    • <authorization-code>: The workspace-level authorization code
    Bash
    curl --request POST \
    https://<databricks-instance>/oidc/v1/token \
    --data "client_id=databricks-cli" \
    --data "grant_type=authorization_code" \
    --data "scope=all-apis offline_access" \
    --data "redirect_uri=<redirect-url>" \
    --data "code_verifier=<code-verifier>" \
    --data "code=<authorization-code>"

  2. Copy the access_token value from the response. For example:

    JSON
    {
      "access_token": "eyJr...Dkag",
      "refresh_token": "doau...f26e",
      "scope": "all-apis offline_access",
      "token_type": "Bearer",
      "expires_in": 3600
    }

    The token is valid for one hour.

Step 4: Call a Databricks REST API​

Use the access token to call account-level or workspace-level REST APIs, depending on its scope. To call account-level APIs, your Databricks user must be an account admin.

Example account-level REST API request​

This example uses curl along with Bearer authentication to get a list of all workspaces associated with an account.

  • Replace <oauth-access-token> with the account-level OAuth access token.
  • Replace <account-id> with your account ID.
Bash
export OAUTH_TOKEN=<oauth-access-token>

curl --request GET --header "Authorization: Bearer $OAUTH_TOKEN" \
"https://accounts.gcp.databricks.com/api/2.0/accounts/<account-id>/workspaces"

Example workspace-level REST API request​

This example uses curl along with Bearer authentication to list all available clusters in the specified workspace.

  • Replace <oauth-access-token> with the account-level or workspace-level OAuth access token.
  • Replace <databricks-instance> with the Databricks workspace instance name, for example 1234567890123456.7.gcp.databricks.com.
Bash
export OAUTH_TOKEN=<oauth-access-token>

curl --request GET --header "Authorization: Bearer $OAUTH_TOKEN" \
"https://<databricks-instance>/api/2.0/clusters/list"
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