Impala Client Access
Application developers have a number of options to interface with Impala. The core development language with Impala is SQL. You can also use Java or other languages to interact with Impala through the standard JDBC and ODBC interfaces used by many business intelligence tools. For specialized kinds of analysis, you can supplement the Impala built-in functions by writing user-defined functions in C++ or Java.
You can connect and submit requests to the Impala through:
- The impala-shell interactive command interpreter
- The Hue web-based user interface
- JDBC
- ODBC
Impala clients can connect to the Coordinator Impala Daemon (impalad
) via
HiveServer2 over HTTP or over the TCP binary. Both HTTP and binary support the Kerberos
SPNEGO and LDAP for authentication to Impala. See below for the default ports and the
Impala flags to change the ports.
Protocol | Default Port | Flag to Specify an Alternate Port |
HTTP | 28000 | ‑‑hs2_http_port
|
Binary TCP | 21050 | ‑‑hs2_port
|
Each impalad
daemon process, running on separate nodes in a cluster,
listens to several ports for incoming requests:
-
Requests from
impala-shell
and Hue are routed to theimpalad
daemons through the same port. -
The
impalad
daemons listen on separate ports for JDBC and ODBC requests.
Impala Startup Options for Client Connections
Use the following flags when starting Impala Daemon coordinator to control client connections to Impala.
- --accepted_client_cnxn_timeout
-
Controls how Impala treats new connection requests if it has run out of the number
of threads configured by
--fe_service_threads
.If
--accepted_client_cnxn_timeout > 0
, new connection requests are rejected if Impala can't get a server thread within the specified (in seconds) timeout.If
--accepted_client_cnxn_timeout=0
, i.e. no timeout, clients wait indefinitely to open the new session until more threads are available.The default timeout is 5 minutes.
The timeout applies only to client facing thrift servers, i.e., HS2 and Beeswax servers.
- --disconnected_session_timeout
-
When a HiveServer2 session has had no open connections for longer than this value,
the session will be closed, and any associated queries will be unregistered.
Specify the value in hours.
The default value is 1 hour.
This flag does not apply to Beeswax clients. When a Beeswax client connection is closed, Impala closes the session associated with that connection.
- --fe_service_threads
-
Specifies the maximum number of concurrent client connections allowed. The default
value is 64 with which 64 queries can run simultaneously.
If you have more clients trying to connect to Impala than the value of this setting, the later arriving clients have to wait for the duration specified by
--accepted_client_cnxn_timeout
. You can increase this value to allow more client connections. However, a large value means more threads to be maintained even if most of the connections are idle, and it could negatively impact query latency. Client applications should use the connection pool to avoid need for large number of sessions. - --hs2_http_port
-
Specifies the port for clients to connect to Impala server over HTTP.
The default port is 28000.
You can disable the HTTP end point for clients by setting the flag to
0
.To enable TLS/SSL for HiveServer2 HTTP endpoint use
--ssl_server_certificate
and--ssl_private_key
. See Configuring TLS/SSL for Impala for detail. - --idle_client_poll_period_s
-
The value of this setting specifies how frequently Impala polls to check if a client
connection is idle and closes it if the connection is idle. A client connection is
idle if all sessions associated with the client connection are idle.
By default,
--idle_client_poll_period_s
is set to 30 seconds.If
--idle_client_poll_period_s
is set to 0, idle client connections stay open until explicitly closed by the clients.The connection will only be closed if all the associated sessions are idle or closed. Sessions cannot be idle unless either the flag
--idle_session_timeout
or theIDLE_SESSION_TIMEOUT
query option is set to greater than 0. If idle session timeout is not configured, a session cannot become idle by definition, and therefore its connection stays open until the client explicitly closes it. - --max_cookie_lifetime_s
-
Starting in Impala 3.4.0, Impala uses cookies for authentication when clients
connect via HiveServer2 over HTTP. Use the
--max_cookie_lifetime_s
startup flag to control how long generated cookies are valid for.Specify the value in seconds.
The default value is 1 day.
Setting the flag to
0
disables cookie support.When an unexpired cookie is successfully verified, the user name contained in the cookie is set on the connection.
Each
impalad
uses its own key to generate the signature, so clients that reconnect to a differentimpalad
have to re-authenticate.On a single
impalad
, cookies are valid across sessions and connections.