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Glue Data Connector

The Glue Data Connector enables federated SQL querying on tables in an AWS Glue Data Catalog.

datasets:
  - from: glue:tpch.lineitem
    name: lineitem
    params:
      glue_region: us-east-1
      glue_key: ${env:SPICE_AWS_KEY} # Optional.
      glue_secret: ${env:SPICE_AWS_SECRET} # Optional.

Configuration​

from​

Specify a table using the format, glue:<database>.<table> by replacing <database> with the name of the Glue database and <table>with the name of the table inside of the <database>.

name​

The dataset name. This will be used as the table name within Spice.

Example:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM lineitem;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 6001215  |
+----------+

The dataset name cannot be a reserved keyword.

params​

The following parameters are supported for configuring the connection to the Glue Data Catalog:

Parameter NameDefinition
glue_regionThe AWS region for the Glue Data Catalog. E.g. us-west-2.
glue_keyAccess key (e.g. AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID for AWS). If not provided, credentials will be loaded from environment variables or IAM roles.
glue_secretSecret key (e.g. AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY for AWS). If not provided, credentials will be loaded from environment variables or IAM roles.
glue_session_tokenSession token (e.g. AWS_SESSION_TOKEN for AWS) for temporary credentials

Authentication​

If AWS credentials are not explicitly provided in the configuration, the connector will automatically load credentials from the following sources in order. These credentials will be used to connect to the S3 bucket as well as the Glue catalog.

  1. Environment Variables:

    • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
    • AWS_SESSION_TOKEN (if using temporary credentials)

  2. Shared AWS Config/Credentials Files:

    • Config file: ~/.aws/config (Linux/Mac) or %UserProfile%\.aws\config (Windows)

    • Credentials file: ~/.aws/credentials (Linux/Mac) or %UserProfile%\.aws\credentials (Windows)

    • The AWS_PROFILE environment variable can be used to specify a named profile, otherwise the [default] profile is used.

    • Supports both static credentials and SSO sessions

    • Example credentials file:

      # Static credentials
      [default]
      aws_access_key_id = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
      aws_secret_access_key = YOUR_SECRET_KEY

      # SSO profile
      [profile sso-profile]
      sso_start_url = https://my-sso-portal.awsapps.com/start
      sso_region = us-west-2
      sso_account_id = 123456789012
      sso_role_name = MyRole
      region = us-west-2
    tip

    To set up SSO authentication:

    1. Run aws configure sso to configure a new SSO profile
    2. Use the profile by setting AWS_PROFILE=sso-profile
    3. Run aws sso login --profile sso-profile to start a new SSO session

  3. AWS STS Web Identity Token Credentials:

    • Used primarily with OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth
    • Common in Kubernetes environments using IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA)

  4. ECS Container Credentials:

    • Used when running in Amazon ECS containers
    • Automatically uses the task's IAM role
    • Retrieved from the ECS credential provider endpoint
    • Relies on the environment variable AWS_CONTAINER_CREDENTIALS_RELATIVE_URI or AWS_CONTAINER_CREDENTIALS_FULL_URI which are automatically injected by ECS.

  5. AWS EC2 Instance Metadata Service (IMDSv2):

    • Used when running on EC2 instances.
    • Automatically uses the instance's IAM role.
    • Retrieved securely using IMDSv2.

The connector will try each source in order until valid credentials are found. If no valid credentials are found, an authentication error will be returned.

IAM Permissions

Regardless of the credential source, the IAM role or user must have appropriate S3/Glue permissions (e.g., s3:ListBucket, glue:GetTable) to access the tables. If the Spicepod connects to multiple different AWS services, the permissions should cover all of them.

Required IAM Permissions​

The IAM role or user needs the following permissions to access Iceberg tables in S3/Glue:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
      {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": ["s3:ListBucket"],
        "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::company-bucketname-datasets"
      },
      {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": ["s3:GetObject"],
        "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::company-bucketname-datasets/*"
      },
      {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
          "glue:GetCatalog",
          "glue:GetDatabases",
          "glue:GetDatabase",
          "glue:GetTable",
          "glue:GetTables"
        ],
        Resource: "*"
      }
    ]
}

Permission Details​

PermissionPurpose
s3:ListBucketRequired. Allows scanning all objects from the bucket
s3:GetObjectRequired. Allows fetching objects
glue:GetCatalogRequired. Retrieve metadata about the specified catalog.
glue:GetDatabasesRequired. List the databases available in the current catalog.
glue:GetDatabaseRequired. Retrieve metadata about the specified database.
glue:GetTableRequired. Retrieve metadata about the specified table.
glue:GetTablesRequired. List the tables available in the current database.

Limitations​

Data Source/Data Format Restrictions

This catalog connector is limited to tables that use the S3 data source. Kinesis and Kafka data sources are not currently supported. Additionally, this catalog connector is currently limited to Iceberg tables, tables with parquet or CSV data format only.

Performance Considerations

When using the Glue Data connector without acceleration, data is loaded into memory during query execution. Ensure sufficient memory is available, including overhead for queries and the runtime, especially with concurrent queries.

Memory limitations can be mitigated by storing acceleration data on disk, which is supported by duckdb and sqlite accelerators by specifying mode: file.

Each query retrieves data from the S3 source, which might result in significant network requests and bandwidth consumption. This can affect network performance and incur costs related to data transfer from S3.

Cookbook​