JDBC and ODBC drivers and configuration parameters

You can connect business intelligence (BI) tools to Databricks clusters and SQL endpoints to query data in tables. This article describes how to get JDBC and ODBC drivers and configuration parameters to connect to Databricks clusters and SQL endpoints.

For tool-specific connection instructions, see Connect BI tools to Databricks or Connect BI tools to SQL endpoints.

Permission requirements

The permissions required to access compute resources using JDBC or ODBC depend on whether you are connecting to a Databricks cluster or SQL endpoint.

Cluster requirements

To access a cluster, you must have Can Attach To permission.

If you connect to a terminated cluster and have Can Restart permission, the cluster is started.

SQL endpoint requirements

To access a SQL endpoint, you must have Can Use permission.

If you connect to a stopped endpoint and have Can Use permission, the SQL endpoint is started.

Prepare to connect BI tools

This section describes the steps you typically follow to prepare to connect to BI tools:

Step 1: Download and install a JDBC or ODBC driver

For some BI tools, you use a JDBC or ODBC driver to make a connection to Databricks compute resources.

  1. Go to the Databricks JDBC or ODBC driver download page and download it. For ODBC, pick the right driver for your operating system.
  2. Install the driver. For JDBC, a JAR is provided which does not require installation. For ODBC, an installation package is provided for your chosen platform.

Step 2: Collect JDBC or ODBC connection information

To configure a JDBC or ODBC driver, you must collect connection information from Databricks. Here are some of the parameters a JDBC or ODBC driver might require:

Parameter Value
Authentication See Username and password authentication.
Host, port, HTTP path, JDBC URL See Get server hostname, port, HTTP path, and JDBC URL.

The following are usually specified in the httpPath for JDBC and the DSN conf for ODBC:

Parameter Value
Spark server type Spark Thrift Server
Schema/Database default
Authentication mechanism AuthMech See Username and password authentication.
Thrift transport http
SSL 1

Username and password authentication

This section describes how to collect the credentials for authenticating BI tools to Databricks compute resources.

When you configure authentication from your BI tool to Databricks resources the fields you set are labeled Username and Password. If SSO is enabled, set Username to the string token and Password to a personal access token. If SSO is disabled, you can either set Username to token and Password to a personal access token or set Username to your Databricks username and Password to your password.

Get server hostname, port, HTTP path, and JDBC URL

The procedure for retrieving JDBC and ODBC parameters depends on whether you are using Databricks clusters and SQL endpoints.

Get connection details for cluster

  1. Click compute icon Compute in the sidebar.

  2. Click a cluster.

  3. Click the Advanced Options toggle.

  4. Click the JDBC/ODBC tab.

    JDBC-ODBC tab

  5. Copy the parameters required by your BI tool.

Get connection details for SQL endpoint

  1. Click Endpoints Icon SQL Endpoints in the sidebar.

  2. Click an endpoint.

  3. Click the Connection Details tab.

    Connection details

  4. Copy the parameters required by your BI tool.

Configure JDBC URL

The steps for configuring the JDBC URL depend on whether you are using a Databricks cluster or a SQL endpoint.

Configure JDBC URL for cluster

In the following URL, replace <personal-access-token> with the token you created in Username and password authentication. For example:

jdbc:spark://<server-hostname>:443/default;transportMode=http;ssl=1;httpPath=sql/protocolv1/o/0/xxxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx;AuthMech=3;UID=token;PWD=<personal-access-token>

Configure JDBC URL for SQL endpoint

Replace <personal-access-token> with the token you created in Username and password authentication. For example:

jdbc:spark://<server-hostname>:443/default;transportMode=http;ssl=1;httpPath=sql/protocolv1/o/0/xxxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx;AuthMech=3;UID=token;PWD=<personal-access-token>

Configure connection for native query syntax

JDBC and ODBC drivers accept SQL queries in ANSI SQL-92 dialect and translate the queries to Spark SQL. If your application generates Spark SQL directly or your application uses any non-ANSI SQL-92 standard SQL syntax specific to Databricks, Databricks recommends that you add ;UseNativeQuery=1 to the connection configuration. With that setting, drivers pass the SQL queries verbatim to Databricks.

Configure ODBC Data Source Name for the Simba ODBC driver

The Data Source Name (DSN) configuration contains the parameters for communicating with a specific database. BI tools like Tableau usually provide a user interface for entering these parameters. If you have to install and manage the Simba ODBC driver yourself, you might need to create the configuration files and also allow your Driver Manager (ODBC Data Source Administrator on Windows and unixODBC/iODBC on Unix) to access them. Create two files: /etc/odbc.ini and /etc/odbcinst.ini.

/etc/odbc.ini

  1. Set the content of /etc/odbc.ini to:

    [Databricks-Spark]
Driver=Simba
Server=<server-hostname>
HOST=<server-hostname>
PORT=<port>
SparkServerType=3
Schema=default
ThriftTransport=2
SSL=1
AuthMech=3
UID=token
PWD=<personal-access-token>
HTTPPath=<http-path>

  2. Set <personal-access-token> to the token you retrieved in Username and password authentication.

  3. Set the server, port, and HTTP parameters to the ones you retrieved in Get server hostname, port, HTTP path, and JDBC URL.

/etc/odbcinst.ini

Set the content of /etc/odbcinst.ini to:

[ODBC Drivers]
Simba = Installed
[Simba Spark ODBC Driver 64-bit]
Driver = <driver-path>

Set <driver-path> according to the operating system you chose when you downloaded the driver in Step 1:

  • MacOs /Library/simba/spark/lib/libsparkodbc_sbu.dylib
  • Linux (64-bit) /opt/simba/spark/lib/64/libsparkodbc_sb64.so
  • Linux (32-bit) /opt/simba/spark/lib/32/libsparkodbc_sb32.so

Configure paths of ODBC configuration files

Specify the paths of the two files in environment variables so that they can be used by the Driver Manager:

export ODBCINI=/etc/odbc.ini
export ODBCSYSINI=/etc/odbcinst.ini
export SIMBASPARKINI=<simba-ini-path>/simba.sparkodbc.ini # (Contains the configuration for debugging the Simba driver)

where <simba-ini-path> is

  • MacOS /Library/simba/spark/lib
  • Linux (64-bit) /opt/simba/sparkodbc/lib/64
  • Linux (32-bit) /opt/simba/sparkodbc/lib/32