Hive Metadata Store

Tableflow can automatically register tables in a Hive Metastore and update a table’s metadata location to point to the latest snapshot. Tables are registered as external Iceberg tables using the Hive Metastore Thrift protocol.

Prerequisites

In order for this to work, the WarpStream Agents need to be upgraded to at least version v769. Additionally, the WarpStream Agents must have network access to the Hive Metastore Thrift endpoint.

Note

Authentication: Only NOSASL authentication is currently supported. Kerberos and other authentication mechanisms are not yet available. If you need Kerberos support, please reach out to us.

1. Ensure Network Connectivity

The WarpStream Agents must be able to reach the Hive Metastore Thrift endpoint over the network. The default Hive Metastore Thrift port is 9083.

2. Configuration

To use the integration, make sure that a table name is provided under the name option in the table configuration section. This will be the name the table is registered under in the catalog but also the name used by Tableflow to reference the table. Then add the following Hive Metastore configuration:

tables:
    - source_topic: "example_topic"
      name: "<table-name>"
      ...
      hive_table_config:
        enabled: true
        thrift_uri: "thrift://<hive-metastore-host>:9083"
        namespace: "<hive-database-name>"
      schema:
      ...

Required Parameters

Field	Description
enabled	Set to true to enable Hive Metastore sync for this table.
thrift_uri	The Thrift URI of the Hive Metastore. Must use the thrift:// scheme (e.g., thrift://hive-metastore.example.com:9083). If the port is omitted, 9083 is used by default.
namespace	The Hive database (namespace) where the table will be created. If the database does not exist, Tableflow will create it automatically.

3. Query the Data

Once enabled, your tables will appear in the Hive Metastore as external Iceberg tables. You can query them from any query engine that supports the Hive Metastore catalog, such as Trino, Spark, or Presto. For example, using Trino:

SELECT * FROM hive.my_database.my_table LIMIT 100;

Or using Spark SQL:

SELECT * FROM my_database.my_table LIMIT 100;

How It Works

When the Hive Metastore integration is enabled for a table, Tableflow will:

1. Create the namespace if it does not exist in the Hive Metastore.
2. Create the table as an external Iceberg table if it does not exist, setting the metadata_location to the latest Iceberg metadata file in your object storage bucket.
3. Update the table on subsequent syncs by updating metadata_location to point to the latest snapshot. The previous metadata location is preserved in the previous_metadata_location table property.