Generic JDBC Interpreter for Apache Zeppelin

Overview

JDBC interpreter lets you create a JDBC connection to any data sources seamlessly.

Inserts, Updates, and Upserts are applied immediately after running each statement.

By now, it has been tested with:

Postgresql - JDBC Driver

Mysql - JDBC Driver

MariaDB - JDBC Driver

Redshift - JDBC Driver

Apache Hive - JDBC Driver

Apache Phoenix itself is a JDBC driver

Apache Drill - JDBC Driver

Apache Tajo - JDBC Driver

If you are using other databases not in the above list, please feel free to share your use case. It would be helpful to improve the functionality of JDBC interpreter.

Create a new JDBC Interpreter

First, click + Create button at the top-right corner in the interpreter setting page.

Fill Interpreter name field with whatever you want to use as the alias(e.g. mysql, mysql2, hive, redshift, and etc..). Please note that this alias will be used as %interpreter_name to call the interpreter in the paragraph. Then select jdbc as an Interpreter group.

The default driver of JDBC interpreter is set as PostgreSQL. It means Zeppelin includes PostgreSQL driver jar in itself. So you don't need to add any dependencies(e.g. the artifact name or path for PostgreSQL driver jar) for PostgreSQL connection. The JDBC interpreter properties are defined by default like below.

If you want to connect other databases such as Mysql, Redshift and Hive, you need to edit the property values. You can also use Credential for JDBC authentication. If default.user and default.password properties are deleted(using X button) for database connection in the interpreter setting page, the JDBC interpreter will get the account information from Credential.

The below example is for Mysql connection.

The last step is Dependency Setting. Since Zeppelin only includes PostgreSQL driver jar by default, you need to add each driver's maven coordinates or JDBC driver's jar file path for the other databases.

That's it. You can find more JDBC connection setting examples(Mysql, MariaDB, Redshift, Apache Hive, Apache Phoenix, and Apache Tajo) in this section.

JDBC Interpreter Datasource Pool Configuration

The Jdbc interpreter uses the connection pool technology, and supports users to do some personal configuration of the connection pool. For example, we can configure default.validationQuery='select 1' and default.testOnBorrow=true in the Interpreter configuration to avoid the "Invalid SessionHandle" runtime error caused by Session timeout when connecting to HiveServer2 through JDBC interpreter.

The Jdbc Interpreter supports the following database connection pool configurations:

More properties

There are more JDBC interpreter properties you can specify like below.

You can also add more properties by using this method. For example, if a connection needs a schema parameter, it would have to add the property as follows:

Binding JDBC interpter to notebook

To bind the interpreters created in the interpreter setting page, click the gear icon at the top-right corner.

Select(blue) or deselect(white) the interpreter buttons depending on your use cases. If you need to use more than one interpreter in the notebook, activate several buttons. Don't forget to click Save button, or you will face Interpreter *** is not found error.

How to use

Run the paragraph with JDBC interpreter

To test whether your databases and Zeppelin are successfully connected or not, type %jdbc_interpreter_name(e.g. %mysql) at the top of the paragraph and run show databases.

%jdbc_interpreter_name
show databases

If the paragraph is FINISHED without any errors, a new paragraph will be automatically added after the previous one with %jdbc_interpreter_name. So you don't need to type this prefix in every paragraphs' header.

Multiple SQL statements

You can write multiple sql statements in one paragraph, just separate them with semi-colon. e.g

USE zeppelin_demo;

CREATE TABLE pet (name VARCHAR(20), owner VARCHAR(20),
       species VARCHAR(20), sex CHAR(1), birth DATE, death DATE);

Apply Zeppelin Dynamic Forms

You can leverage Zeppelin Dynamic Form inside your queries. You can use both the text input and select form parametrization features.

%jdbc_interpreter_name
SELECT name, country, performer
FROM demo.performers
WHERE name='${performer=Sheryl Crow|Doof|Fanfarlo|Los Paranoia}'

Usage precode

You can set precode for each data source. Code runs once while opening the connection.

Properties

An example settings of interpreter for the two data sources, each of which has its precode parameter.

Usage

Test of execution precode for each data source.

%jdbc
show search_path

Returns value of search_path which is set in the default.precode.

%mysql
select @v

Returns value of v which is set in the mysql.precode.

Examples

Here are some examples you can refer to. Including the below connectors, you can connect every databases as long as it can be configured with it's JDBC driver.

Postgres

Properties

Postgres JDBC Driver Docs

Dependencies

Maven Repository: org.postgresql:postgresql

Mysql

Properties

Mysql JDBC Driver Docs

Dependencies

Maven Repository: mysql:mysql-connector-java

MariaDB

Properties

MariaDB JDBC Driver Docs

Dependencies

Maven Repository: org.mariadb.jdbc:mariadb-java-client

Redshift

Properties

AWS Redshift JDBC Driver Docs

Dependencies

Maven Repository: com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-redshift

Apache Hive

Properties

Apache Hive 1 JDBC Driver Docs Apache Hive 2 JDBC Driver Docs

Dependencies

Maven Repository : org.apache.hive:hive-jdbc

Impersonation

When Zeppelin server is running with authentication enabled, then the interpreter can utilize Hive's user proxy feature i.e. send extra parameter for creating and running a session ("hive.server2.proxy.user=": "${loggedInUser}"). This is particularly useful when multiple users are sharing a notebook.

To enable this set following:

• zeppelin.jdbc.auth.type as SIMPLE or KERBEROS (if required) in the interpreter setting.
• ${prefix}.proxy.user.property as hive.server2.proxy.user

See User Impersonation in interpreter for more information.

Sample configuration

Apache Phoenix

Phoenix supports thick and thin connection types:

• Thick client is faster, but must connect directly to ZooKeeper and HBase RegionServers.
• Thin client has fewer dependencies and connects through a Phoenix Query Server instance.

Use the appropriate default.driver, default.url, and the dependency artifact for your connection type.

Thick client connection

Properties

Dependencies

Maven Repository: org.apache.phoenix:phoenix-core

Thin client connection

Properties

Dependencies

Before Adding one of the below dependencies, check the Phoenix version first.

Maven Repository: org.apache.phoenix:phoenix-queryserver-client

Apache Tajo

Properties

Apache Tajo JDBC Driver Docs

Dependencies

Maven Repository: org.apache.tajo:tajo-jdbc

Object Interpolation

The JDBC interpreter also supports interpolation of ZeppelinContext objects into the paragraph text. The following example shows one use of this facility:

In Scala cell:

z.put("country_code", "KR")
    // ...

In later JDBC cell:

%jdbc_interpreter_name
select * from patents_list where 
priority_country = '{country_code}' and filing_date like '2015-%'

Object interpolation is disabled by default, and can be enabled for all instances of the JDBC interpreter by setting the value of the property zeppelin.jdbc.interpolation to true (see More Properties above). More details of this feature can be found in the Spark interpreter documentation under Zeppelin-Context

Bug reporting

If you find a bug using JDBC interpreter, please create a JIRA ticket.