ODBC/JDBC Connector Guide

Kinetica provides a SQL interface through its ODBC & JDBC drivers, which run on Linux, Mac, & Windows. For details on the extent of SQL compliance, see the SQL section.

Connecting

KiSQL

KiSQL is a Kinetica JDBC-based SQL CLI client that is available on GitHub. Details can be found on the Kinetica SQL (KiSQL) page.

JDBC Applications

Java applications which use JDBC can reference the Kinetica JDBC driver in the Maven Central Repository as a pom.xml dependence:

Dependency

<dependencies>
	<dependency>
		<groupId>com.kinetica</groupId>
		<artifactId>kinetica-jdbc</artifactId>
		<version>[7.2.0.0,7.3.0.0-SNAPSHOT)</version>
		<type>jar</type>
	</dependency>
</dependencies>

Gradle users may need to add the Kinetica Nexus Repository to their configuration:

https://nexus.kinetica.com/repository/releases/

To create a connection, using a connection string:

Class.forName("com.kinetica.jdbc.Driver");

String connStr = "jdbc:kinetica:URL=http://<db.host>:9191";

kdb = DriverManager.getConnection(connStr, "<username>", "<password>");

To create a connection, using properties:

Class.forName("com.kinetica.jdbc.Driver");

Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("URL", "http://<db.host>:9191");
props.put("UID", "<username>");
props.put("PWD", "<password>");

kdb = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:kinetica://", props);

JDBC Clients

JDBC connections require the Kinetica JDBC driver. Acquire the JDBC client JAR, kinetica-jdbc-7.2.<X>.<Y>-jar-with-dependencies.jar, from either:

the JDBC Client Project on GitHub
under /opt/gpudb/connectors/jdbc on default Kinetica installations

The following is the general driver and connection information that should be used when configuring a client.

Driver: <point to the downloaded JAR file>
Connection String:

jdbc:kinetica:URL=http://<db.host>:9191;CombinePrepareAndExecute=1[[;<parameter>=<value>]*]

Class Name: com.kinetica.jdbc.Driver

See ODBC/JDBC Configuration for additional configuration parameters.

Secure Connections

When connecting to a Kinetica instance over HTTPS, the connection string should reference the database’s secure address.

See SSL Parameters for additional parameters that may be necessary to use when connecting over SSL.

Set the URL parameter on the JDBC connection string to use the HTTPS-enabled database endpoint.

jdbc:kinetica:URL=https://<db.host>:8082/gpudb-0

Failover Connections

When connecting to a Kinetica instance with one or more failover clusters, the connection string should be updated to contain a comma-delimited list of head node addresses for all clusters. The URL of the primary cluster can also be specified. Add a URL parameter to the JDBC connection string to contain all cluster head node addresses and add a PrimaryURL parameter designating the cluster that should be tried first.

jdbc:kinetica:URL=http://<database1.host>:<database1.port>,...,http://<databaseN.host>:<databaseN.port>;PrimaryURL=http://<databaseX.host>:<databaseX:port>

ODBC

The ODBC Client must be installed for the environment in which it will be used. The following sections will detail how to install & configure the client in Windows. Kinetica provides both a 32-bit & 64-bit Windows ODBC Client driver. The 32-bit version of Windows requires the 32-bit driver. The 64-bit version of Windows can use either the 32-bit or 64-bit driver, or both, as needs warrant. For instance, a user running 64-bit Windows and wanting to make ODBC connections to Kinetica from a 32-bit version of Excel will need the 32-bit driver. A user with the same OS using the 64-bit Tableau will need the 64-bit driver. A user wanting to use both will need both drivers.

Download & install the ODBC Client for Windows following the instructions provided there
Launch ODBC Data Source Administrator (64-bit or 32-bit, as needed)
Click the System DSN tab
Click the Add button to add a DSN
Choose Kinetica ODBC Client, and click Finish
Fill in the DSN Setup parameters (the following settings are examples - you may have to change some for your environment):
- Description: Kinetica
- URL:
http://<db.host>:9191;CombinePrepareAndExecute=1[[;<parameter>=<value>]*]
- Leave User and Password blank
Click OK

See ODBC/JDBC Configuration for additional configuration parameters.

Secure Connections

When connecting to a Kinetica instance over HTTPS, the connection string should reference the database’s secure address.

See SSL Parameters for additional parameters that may be necessary to use when connecting over SSL.

Set the URL parameter to use the HTTPS-enabled database endpoint.

https://<db.host>:8082/gpudb-0

Failover Connections

When connecting to a Kinetica instance with one or more failover clusters, the connection string should be updated to contain a comma-delimited list of head node addresses for all clusters. The URL of the primary cluster can also be specified. Modify the URL parameter to contain all cluster head node addresses and add a PrimaryURL parameter designating the cluster that should be tried first. URL:

http://<database1.host>:<database1.port>,...,http://<databaseN.host>:<databaseN.port>

PrimaryURL:

http://<databaseX.host>:<databaseX:port>

Tableau

Install the ODBC Client - see ODBC Installation above
In Tableau, connect to Other Databases (ODBC)
- DSN: Kinetica
- Click Connect
- Click Sign In
- Database: KINETICA
- Schema: <choose one>
  - To use the user’s default schema, don’t choose a schema (leave as Select Schema)
- Pick your table

Tableau may give a warning about not all features being supported by the ODBC driver; this should be able to be safely ignored for most applications.

Excel

Install the ODBC Client - see ODBC Installation above
In Excel, click the Data tab at the top
Click the Get External Data > From Other Sources button, then click From Data Connection Wizard
In the Connection Wizard, choose ODBC DSN and click Next >
Select one of the ODBC data sources (i.e., DSNs) you created above (e.g., Kinetica), and click Next >
Continue with the wizard to create a link to all the tables or a specific table, and save an ODC file, etc.
Click the Finish button

To read in data using the ODC file created above:

In Excel, click the Data tab at the top
Click Get External Data > Existing Connections
Choose the ODC file you created above, and click Open
Select a Table to import
Select where you want the data to appear, and click the OK button

DBeaver

Acquire the JDBC Driver
Download & install DBeaver
Configure DBeaver with the Kinetica JDBC driver
1. On the Database menu, select Driver Manager
2. Click New to create a new driver connection
3. Complete the driver configuration page:
  - Driver Name: Kinetica
  - Class Name: com.kinetica.jdbc.Driver
4. Click the Libraries tab; then click Add File and select the downloaded JAR:
  kinetica-jdbc-7.2.<X>.<Y>-jar-with-dependencies.jar
5. Click OK
6. Click Close to exit Driver Manager
Configure a connection:
1. On the File menu, select New
2. Ensure that Database Connection is selected and click Next >
3. Select Kinetica and click Next >
4. Click Connection Details and name the connection
  - Connection name: name for the connection
5. Click Back
6. Complete the connection configuration
  - JDBC URL:
  jdbc:kinetica:URL=http://<db.host>:9191;CombinePrepareAndExecute=1[[;<parameter>=<value>]*]
7. Enter authentication credentials
  - Username/password style authentication
    - Username: name of connecting user (admin for database administrator connection)
    - Password: password for connecting user
  - OIDC/OAuth style authentication
    1. Disable username/password auth
      - Save password: check this box, leaving Username & Password blank
    2. Click the Driver Properties tab
    3. Enter OAuth credentials
      - OAuthToken: OAuth token to use for authentication
8. Click Finish to complete the connection configuration

Other JDBC Clients

For other clients, see JDBC Applications for the general setup to use.

There are many Java SQL clients available; a list can be found here.

ODBC/JDBC Configuration

Unless noted, the configuration parameters are the same for ODBC & JDBC, though the locations of the configurations are not.

Windows ODBC - Settings are stored in the registry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\<DSN NAME>
JDBC - Settings are passed on the connection string, separated by semicolons; e.g.:

jdbc:kinetica:URL=http://<db.host>:9191;CombinePrepareAndExecute=1[[;<parameter>=<value>]*]

Some settings of note follow.

Standard Parameters

Config Parameter	Default Value	Description
URL	`http://127.0.0.1:9191`	URL of Kinetica database server to connect to—this may be a comma-delimited list of multiple clusters in an HA configuration
CombinePrepareAndExecute	`0`	Whether or not to combine the JDBC/ODBC prepare and execute phases, when appropriate. This can improve the performance of static queries (those that lack parameterized values). * `0` = Don’t combine prepare and execute phases * `1` = Combine prepare and execute phases This parameter should be set to `1` whenever possible. Some JDBC clients may return odd errors when this is active, however; and may need to be set to `0` to function properly. This parameter is not needed when using KiSQL .
UID		User ID for database connection
PWD		Password for database connection If the password contains special characters, they must be encoded using URL-style encoding; e.g., encode a semicolon as `%3B`
OAuthToken		OAuth token used in OIDC-enabled environments; when using, leave UID & PWD blank
Timeout	`0`	Minutes to wait for a response from the database; `0` for no timeout
Schema	<user default>	Default schema to use within the session
ImpersonateUser		Impersonate another user for this session. Only available when connected as an admin.
PrimaryURL		URL of a cluster to always attempt to go to first (if URL is a list)
TokenNameClaim		Name of the claim token identifying the username; `sub` is the default claim token name used.

Server Override Parameters

The following are optional parameters that could be used to override the default settings, which are set by the server. See the Configuration Reference for more information on configuring the SQL Engine server-side. The default value for each of these options is 0.

Config Parameter	Description
CostBasedOptimization	Whether or not to use the cost-based optimizer * `0` = Disable cost-based optimizations * `1` = Enable cost-based optimizations
DistributedJoins	Whether or not to process operations that would require resharding of data to complete successfully * `0` = Disable distributed operations, failing any queries requiring resharding of data to succeed * `1` = Enable distributed operations, resharding data to meet sharding requirements, if necessary
IgnoreExistingPk	Whether or not to suppress errors for record collisions when inserting into or updating a table with a primary key; if the specified table does not have a primary key or UpdateOnExistingPk is `1`, then this parameter is ignored * `0` = Treat as errors any inserted or updated records whose primary keys collide with those of existing records * `1` = Ignore inserted or updated records whose primary key values collide with those of existing records
LateMaterialization	Whether or not to avoid materializing intermediary result sets when processing a complex query * `0` = Materialize intermediary result sets * `1` = Avoid materializing intermediary result sets
PagingTableTtl	TTL for the result set paging table, in minutes; other possible values: * `-1` = no TTL (temp sets will not expire) * `0` = expire immediately (at next clean-up interval)
ParallelExecution	Whether or not to execute independent portions of a query in parallel * `0` = Execute each component of a query in series, regardless of intra-query dependencies * `1` = Enable parallel execution of independent portions of a query
PlanCache	Whether or not to cache query plans, as derived by the rule-based/cost-based optimizer * `0` = Disable caching of query plans * `1` = Enable caching of query plans
ResultsCaching	Whether or not to cache result sets, which happens automatically for certain queries that have only materialized views as sources * `0` = Disable caching of result sets * `1` = Enable caching of result sets
RuleBasedOptimization	Whether or not to use the rule-based optimizer * `0` = Disable rule-based optimizations * `1` = Enable rule-based optimizations
SsqOptimization	Whether or not to use scalar subquery optimizations, in which non-correlated single-value-returning subqueries will be evaluated first and then those result constants will be used in the remainder of the query processing * `0` = Disable scalar subquery optimizations * `1` = Enable scalar subquery optimizations
TTL	TTL for temporary result tables, in minutes. Other possible values: * `-2` = use server’s default TTL * `-1` = no TTL (temp sets will not expire) * `0` = expire immediately (at next clean-up interval)
UpdateOnExistingPk	Whether or not to handle primary key collisions using an upsert scheme for inserts and overwrite scheme for updates when operating on a table with a primary key; if the specified table does not have a primary key, then this parameter is ignored * `0` = Reject any `INSERT` or `UPDATE` that results in a primary key collision with an existing record * `1` = Use the inserted or updated record to replace an existing record with the same primary key when there is a primary key collision between the two
UseApproxCountDistinct	When issuing any `COUNT (DISTINCT x)` query, it will be computed using the faster but less accurate `APPROX_COUNT_DISTINCT()` aggregate function. * `0` = Compute and return accurate distinct count statistics * `1` = Return faster but less accurate distinct count values
ValidateChange	When issuing an `ALTER TABLE` that changes column types/sizes, verify that the column data can be contained losslessly in the target column type/size. If `1`, fail the request if the data will not fit; if `0`, truncate the data to fit. * `0` = Truncate any column data that won’t fit into the new type size on a column change request * `1` = Validate any column change and fail the request if column data is too large/long for the new type/size

Client Parameters

The following optional parameters may be used to change the ODBC/JDBC Client behavior.

Config Parameter	Default Value	Description
CombineResults	`0`	How to return the results of multiple DDL statements in a single Execute call. (JDBC only) * `0` = Return individual result counts for each DDL statement * `1` = Combine result counts into a single result
DisableAutoDiscovery	`0`	Whether to disable querying the server for its configuration. (JDBC only) Disabling auto-discovery will, in turn, disable both multi-head ingest & multi-head egress, as the client won’t have the list of URLs for the cluster nodes, required for distributed operations. Disabling auto-discovery will also disable high availability failover, preventing attempts at performing operations on another cluster after a failure. * `0` = Perform standard auto-discovery * `1` = Do not perform auto-discovery
DisableFailover	`0`	Whether to disable high availability failover, preventing attempts at performing operations on another cluster after a failure. (JDBC only) * `0` = Do attempt to perform the operation on another cluster after a failure, if another cluster is configured * `1` = Do not attempt to perform the operation on another cluster after a failure
DisableMultiheadInsert	`0`	Whether to use distributed ingest for supported `INSERT` statements. (JDBC only) * `0` = Use high-performance distributed ingest when possible, unless `KI_HINT_SERVER_SIDE_INSERT` is specified * `1` = Use normal `INSERT` processing
DisableSnappy	`0`	Whether to disable Snappy compression when transmitting data to the server. * `0` = Compress data using Snappy * `1` = Don’t compress data using Snappy
ErrorMode	`Skip`	What to do when an error is encountered when inserting data by default, via either INSERT INTO … VALUES or INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE. Can be overridden on the SQL Command. * `Permissive` = If an error is encountered parsing a source record, attempt to insert as much of the valid fields from the record as possible. * `Skip` = If an error is encountered parsing a source record, skip the record. * `Abort` = If an error is encountered parsing a source record, stop the data load process. Primary key collisions are considered abortable errors in this mode.
FailbackPollInterval	`5`	Number of seconds to wait between fail-back service polls of the primary cluster when failed over.
FailoverOrder		Controls the order in which the cluster to fail over to is selected. * `RANDOM` = Choose a random cluster to fail over to. * `SEQUENTIAL` = Use the order in which the clusters were defined by the user in the connection configuration, or if not defined, the order in which the server defines the clusters, to choose the cluster to fail over to.
FakeTransactions	`0`	Whether to throw exceptions when the client attempts to start or rollback a transaction; useful for 3rd party tools, such as JPA or Hibernate, that expect transaction support. (JDBC only) * `0` = Throw an exception when client attempts to control a transaction * `1` = Do not throw an exception, but still ignore, if client attempts to control a transaction Kinetica does not support transactions; this will only affect how the JDBC driver responds to transactional requests it can’t fulfill.
FileReadComment	`#`	When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, this character at the start of a line indicates a commented line to ignore.
FileReadDelimiter	`,`	When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, this character separates values If reading from a “.tsv” or “.psv” file, the default will be <tab> or `\|`, respectively.
FileReadEscapeChar		When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, this character can be placed before other special characters to not treat them specially. Default is no escape character.
FileReadHasHeader		When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, whether to assume the first line in the file is a header line. * `0` = The first line in the file is not a header line, treat it as data * `1` = The first line in the file is a header line, and indicates column names * If unspecified, the first line will be read and treated as a header if it looks like a header
FileReadInitialClear	`0`	When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, delete any existing data in the destination table before inserting new data.
FileReadLimit		When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, stop reading the file after this many lines. Default is no limit.
FileReadNullString	`\N`	When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, this string represents data that should be inserted as NULL values.
FileReadQuoteChar	`"`	When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, this character is used to delimit string literals.
FileReadSkip	`0`	When inserting data from a file with INSERT INTO … SELECT … FROM FILE, skip this number of lines after the header (if any).
Limit	`-1`	Limit number of records returned for each query issued; `-1` for no limit, i.e., all records will be returned for each query.
LogLevel	`0`	Controls the amount of debug logging done by driver. * `0` = Off * `1` = Fatal * `2` = Error * `3` = Warning * `4` = Info * `5` = Debug * `6` = Trace
ReadOnly	`0`	Whether the driver will report itself as being in a read-only mode, even though it is in full-access mode; useful for 3rd party tools that expect and enforce a read-only connection. * `0` = Driver will not report itself as being in a read-only mode when queried via the JDBC/ODBC API * `1` = Driver will report itself as being in a read-only mode, even though this is not enforced
Replication		Controls the HA replication mode for all requests made through this connection. * `NONE` = Do not replicate requests. * `SYNC` = Executes the query locally, sends an http request directly to each cluster, sequentially, and returns the response. * `ASYNC` = Executes the query locally, queues a request to RMQ for each cluster, and returns to the user. * `SYNC_PARALLEL` = Sends a http request directly to each cluster, executes the query locally, and waits for the response from each cluster. * `ASYNC_PARALLEL` = Queues a request to RMQ for each cluster, executes the query locally, and returns to the user.
RowsPerFetch	`10000`	Number of records to request from the server at a time.
RowsPerInsertion	`10000`	Number of records to send to the server in a batch.
Schema		Use the specified schema as the default schema for all object references
TimeZoneOverride	`UTC`	Time zone that client should assume time coming from the server are in. (JDBC only) All times in Kinetica are assumed to be in UTC (GMT). Java clients should call: `TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));` so that times will be displayed in UTC and match other clients. When this is not possible (e.g., when using a Java utility that does not have such an option) Java clients will usually display times in the local time (set in Java and/or the OS), which will look different from the times displayed by other clients. I.e., the Java client will display the UTC times from Kinetica converted to the local time zone. The TimeZoneOverride option can be used to report times coming from Kinetica as being in the specified time zone, rather than in UTC. If this is set to the current Java/OS time zone then no conversions will be done, and displayed times should match UTC times as stored in Kinetica. Valid options include `system` and time zone codes such as `EST` and `PST`. Use `system` to match the current Java client time zone and avoid needing to look up the time zone code for your area.
TruncateStrings	`0`	Whether to truncate strings when processing an `INSERT`. * `0` = Do not truncate strings — if a string is too long, it will not be inserted * `1` = Truncate strings when needed so they will fit in a restricted target string column
UseKeyLookup	`0`	Whether to process supported `SELECT` statements using high-performance distributed key lookup; using this may cause some additional overhead to determine if the table will support key lookups. * `0` = By default, use standard processing for all `SELECT` statements; this can be overridden with `KI_HINT_KEY_LOOKUP` on individual statements * `1` = Use high-performance distributed key lookup for supported `SELECT` statements, when possible

SSL Parameters

The following optional parameters should be used when connecting over SSL.

Config Parameter	Default Value	Description
BypassSslCertCheck	`0`	Whether or not to validate the SSL certificate presented by the Kinetica server * `0` = Do not accept SSL server certificates that fail validation checks * `1` = Accept SSL server certificates regardless of whether they pass validation checks
SslCACertPath		Path to client’s CA store, used to validate the certificate from the Kinetica server
TrustedStorePath		Path to client’s trust store, used to validate the certificate from the Kinetica server (JDBC only)
SslCACertPassword		Password to the certificate store specified by TrustedStorePath (JDBC only)

Logging

Kinetica logs inbound SQL requests, internal calls made on behalf of those requests, and other debugging information. These logs can be found in the following log files:

/opt/gpudb/core/logs/host-manager-<hostname>-<datetime>.log: Contains all endpoint calls, including the initial call to /execute/sql and any endpoint calls made as a result of servicing the request
/opt/gpudb/sql/logs/sql-engine-<kinetica-hostname>.log: Contains detailed error messages

​Connecting

​KiSQL

​JDBC Applications

​JDBC Clients

​Secure Connections

​Failover Connections

​ODBC

​Secure Connections

​Failover Connections

​Tableau

​Excel

​DBeaver

​Other JDBC Clients

​ODBC/JDBC Configuration

​Standard Parameters

​Server Override Parameters

​Client Parameters

​SSL Parameters

​Logging

Connecting

KiSQL

JDBC Applications

JDBC Clients

Secure Connections

Failover Connections

ODBC

Secure Connections

Failover Connections

Tableau

Excel

DBeaver

Other JDBC Clients

ODBC/JDBC Configuration

Standard Parameters

Server Override Parameters

Client Parameters

SSL Parameters

Logging