Metabase Impala Driver

The Metabase Impala driver allows Metabase v0.32.0 or above to connect to Impala databases. This driver uses Impala's JDBC driver but due to license restrictions it's not possible to include the JDBC here. But this driver can be easily downlowded following instructions below.

Downloading and Installing Impala Driver

Downloading the Impala JDBC Driver

You can download the JDBC driver from Impala's JDBC driver downloads page. The downloaded archive files contains ImpalaJDBC41_[Version].zip

Downloading Impala Metabase Driver

Click here to view the latest release of the Metabase Impala driver; click the link to download impala.metabase-driver.jar.

How to Install it

Metabase will automatically make the Impala driver if it finds the driver JAR in the Metabase plugins directory when it starts up.

Follow steps shown bellow to install the driver properly:

1. Create the directory (if it's not already there)
2. Move the Impala metabase driver JAR you just downloaded into it ("impala.metabase-driver.jar")
3. Move the Impala JDBC driver JAR you just downloaded into it ("ImpalaJDBC41.jar")
4. Restart Metabase

By default, the plugins directory is called plugins, and lives in the same directory as the Metabase JAR.

For example, if you're running Metabase from a directory called /app/, you should move the Impala driver JAR to /app/plugins/:

# example directory structure for running Metabase with Impala support
./metabase.jar
./plugins/impala.metabase-driver.jar
./plugins/ImpalaJDBC41.jar

If you're running Metabase from the Mac App, the plugins directory defaults to ~/Library/Application Support/Metabase/Plugins/:

# example directory structure for running Metabase Mac App with Impala support
/Users/camsaul/Library/Application Support/Metabase/Plugins/impala.metabase-driver.jar
/Users/camsaul/Library/Application Support/Metabase/Plugins/ImpalaJDBC41.jar

If you are running the Docker image or you want to use another directory for plugins, you should specify a custom plugins directory by setting the environment variable MB_PLUGINS_DIR.

Building the Impala Driver Yourself

Prereq: Install Metabase as a local maven dependency, compiled for building drivers

Clone the Metabase repo first if you haven't already done so.

cd /path/to/metabase/
lein install-for-building-drivers

Build it

cd /path/to/metabase-impala-driver
lein clean
DEBUG=1 LEIN_SNAPSHOTS_IN_RELEASE=true lein uberjar

This will build a file called target/uberjar/impala.metabase-driver.jar; copy this to your Metabase ./plugins directory.