Register a Databricks Unity Catalog Connection

Public preview

This feature is public preview and available to select accounts. Reach out to your Immuta support professional to enable it on your tenant.

Requirements

The following permissions and personas are used in the registration process.

An Immuta user with the CREATE_DATA_SOURCE Immuta permission must register the Databricks Unity Catalog connection.

A Databricks user authorized to create a Databricks service principal must create one for Immuta. This service principal is used continuously by Immuta to orchestrate Unity Catalog policies and maintain state between Immuta and Databricks. This service principal needs the following Databricks privileges:

• USE CATALOG and MANAGE on all catalogs containing securables registered as Immuta data sources and USE SCHEMA on all schemas containing securables registered as Immuta data sources.

• MODIFY and SELECT on all securables registered as Immuta data sources. MANAGE and MODIFY are required so that the service principal can apply row filters and column masks on the securable; to do so, the service principal must also have SELECT on the securable as well as USE CATALOG on its parent catalog and USE SCHEMA on its parent schema. Since privileges are inherited, you can grant the service principal the MODIFY and SELECT privilege on all catalogs or schemas containing Immuta data sources, which automatically grants the service principal the MODIFY and SELECT privilege on all current and future securables in the catalog or schema. The service principal also inherits MANAGE from the parent catalog for the purpose of applying row filters and column masks, but that privilege must be set directly on the parent catalog in order for grants to be fully applied.

See the Databricks documentation for more details about Unity Catalog privileges and securable objects.

Optionally, to include audit, the service principal needs the following additional privileges:

• USE CATALOG on system catalog

• USE SCHEMA on system.access schema

• SELECT on system.access.audit table

• SELECT on system.access.table_lineage table

• SELECT on system.access.column_lineage table

Access to system tables is governed by Unity Catalog. No user has access to these system schemas by default. To grant access, a user that is both a metastore admin and an account admin must grant USE and SELECT permissions on the system schemas to the service principal. See Manage privileges in Unity Catalog. The system.access schema must also be enabled on the metastore before it can be used.

Prerequisites

• Unity Catalog metastore created and attached to a Databricks workspace. See the Databricks Unity Catalog reference guide for information on workspaces and catalog isolation support with Immuta.

• Unity Catalog enabled on your Databricks cluster or SQL warehouse. All SQL warehouses have Unity Catalog enabled if your workspace is attached to a Unity Catalog metastore. Immuta recommends linking a SQL warehouse to your Immuta tenant rather than a cluster for both performance and availability reasons.

Register a connection

1. Click Data and select the Connections tab in the navigation menu.

2. Click the + Add Host button.

3. Select the Databricks data platform tile.

4. Enter the connection information:

   • Host: The hostname of your Databricks workspace.

   • Port: Your Databricks port.

   • HTTP Path: The HTTP path of your Databricks cluster or SQL warehouse.

   • Immuta Catalog: The name of the catalog Immuta will create to store internal entitlements and other user data specific to Immuta. This catalog will only be readable for the Immuta service principal and should not be granted to other users. The catalog name may only contain letters, numbers, and underscores and cannot start with a number.

   • Connection Key: The connection key represents the unique name of your connection and will be used as prefix in the name for all data objects associated with this connection. It will also appear as the display name in the UI and will be used in all API calls made to update or delete the connection.

5. Click Next.

6. Select Access Token authentication method from the dropdown menu.

7. Enter the Access Token in the Immuta System Account Credentials section. This is the access token for the Immuta service principal. This service principal must have the metastore privileges listed in the requirements section for the metastore associated with the Databricks workspace. If this token is configured to expire, update this field regularly for the integration to continue to function. This authentication information will be included in the script populated later on the page.

8. Copy the provided script and run it in Databricks as a user with the CREATE CATALOG privilege on the Unity Catalog metastore.

9. Click Validate Connection.

10. If the connection is successful, click Next. If there are any errors, check the connection details and credentials to ensure they are correct and try again.

11. Ensure all the details are correct in the summary and click Complete Setup.