Authentication Options

Impala supports multiple authentication mechanisms. You must determine the authentication type that your server is using. The authentication methods available in the Simba Impala ODBC Driver are as follows:

  • No Authentication
  • Kerberos
  • SAML 2.0
  • SASL User Name
  • User Name And Password

Note:

  • The default configuration of Impala requires the Simba Impala ODBC Driver to be configured to use the No Authentication mechanism.
  • In addition to regular Kerberos authentication, the connector also supports an advanced configuration of Kerberos authentication that allows concurrent connections within the same process to use different Kerberos user principals.

In addition to authentication, you can configure the connector to connect over SSL or use SASL to handle authentication.

The Impala server uses SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) to support some of the authentication methods. Kerberos is supported with the SASL GSSAPI mechanism. SASL User Name and User Name And Password (with SASL enabled) are supported with the SASL PLAIN mechanism.

SASL mechanisms Non-SASL mechanisms
  • Kerberos
  • SASL User Name
  • User Name And Password (with SASL enabled)
  • No Authentication
  • SAML 2.0
  • User Name And Password (without SASL enabled)

Note:

Thrift (the layer for handling remote process communication between the Simba Impala ODBC Driver and the Impala server) has a limitation where it cannot detect a mix of non-SASL and SASL mechanisms being used between the connector and the server. If this happens, the connector will appear to hang during connection establishment.

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