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Connect Snowflake

The following fields are required when creating a Snowflake connection

FieldDescriptionExamples
AccountThe Snowflake account to connect to. Take a look here to determine what the account field should look like based on your region.

  db5261993 or db5261993.east-us-2.azure
  db5261993.eu-central-1.snowflakecomputing.com

RoleA mandatory field indicating what role should be assumed after connecting to Snowflaketransformer
DatabaseThe logical database to connect to and run queries against.analytics
WarehouseThe virtual warehouse to use for running queries.transforming

Note: A crucial part of working with dbt atop Snowflake is ensuring that users (in development environments) and/or service accounts (in deployment to production environments) have the correct permissions to take actions on Snowflake! Here is documentation of some example permissions to configure Snowflake access.

Username / Password

Available in: Development environments, Deployment environments

The Username / Password auth method is the simplest way to authenticate Development or Deployment credentials in a dbt project. Simply enter your Snowflake username (specifically, the login_name) and the corresponding user's Snowflake password to authenticate dbt Cloud to run queries against Snowflake on behalf of a Snowflake user.

Note: The schema field in the Developer Credentials section is a required field.

Snowflake username/password authenticationSnowflake username/password authentication

Key pair

Available in: Development environments, Deployment environments

The Keypair auth method uses Snowflake's Key Pair Authentication to authenticate Development or Deployment credentials for a dbt Cloud project.

  1. After generating an encrypted key pair, be sure to set the rsa_public_key for the Snowflake user to authenticate in dbt Cloud:

    alter user jsmith set rsa_public_key='MIIBIjANBgkqh...';   
  2. Finally, set the Private Key and Private Key Passphrase fields in the Credentials page to finish configuring dbt Cloud to authenticate with Snowflake using a key pair.

    • Note: Unencrypted private keys are permitted. Use a passphrase only if needed. Starting from dbt version 1.7, dbt introduced the ability to specify a private_key directly as a string instead of a private_key_path. This private_key string can be in either Base64-encoded DER format, representing the key bytes, or in plain-text PEM format. Refer to Snowflake documentation for more info on how they generate the key.
  3. To successfully fill in the Private Key field, you must include commented lines. If you receive a Could not deserialize key data or JWT token error, refer to Troubleshooting for more info.

Example:

-----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----
< encrypted private key contents here - line 1 >
< encrypted private key contents here - line 2 >
< ... >
-----END ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----
Snowflake keypair authenticationSnowflake keypair authentication

Snowflake OAuth

Available in: Development environments, Enterprise plans only

The OAuth auth method permits dbt Cloud to run development queries on behalf of a Snowflake user without the configuration of Snowflake password in dbt Cloud. For more information on configuring a Snowflake OAuth connection in dbt Cloud, please see the docs on setting up Snowflake OAuth.

Configuring Snowflake OAuth connectionConfiguring Snowflake OAuth connection

Configuration

To learn how to optimize performance with data platform-specific configurations in dbt Cloud, refer to Snowflake-specific configuration.

Troubleshooting

If you're receiving a Could not deserialize key data or JWT token error, refer to the following causes and solutions:

Error: Could not deserialize key data
  • Possible cause
    • This could be because of mistakes like not copying correctly, missing dashes, or leaving out commented lines.
  • Solution
    • You can copy the key from its source and paste it into a text editor to verify it before using it in dbt Cloud.
Error: JWT token
  • Possible causes
    • This could be a transient issue between Snowflake and dbt Cloud. When connecting to Snowflake, dbt gets a JWT token valid for only 60 seconds. If there's no response from Snowflake within this time, you might see a JWT token is invalid error in dbt Cloud.
    • The public key was not entered correctly in Snowflake.
  • Solutions
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