Apache Polaris

Apache Polaris is an open-source Iceberg REST catalog. Connect it to Altertable when Polaris manages your Iceberg table metadata and you want to query those tables alongside the rest of your lakehouse.

Connect Apache Polaris

1. Open Catalogs in the Altertable app.
2. Click New catalog.
3. Select Apache Polaris.
4. Enter the catalog URI, such as https://polaris.example.com/api/catalog, the warehouse (the name of the Polaris catalog), and the default namespace for unqualified table names. Tables in other namespaces stay queryable.
5. Choose an authentication method and enter its credentials.
6. Save the catalog, then query the Iceberg tables with SQL.

Authentication

• Client credentials: the client ID and client secret of a Polaris principal. Altertable requests tokens from <catalog URI>/v1/oauth/tokens with the PRINCIPAL_ROLE:ALL scope unless you set a different token endpoint or scope.
• Bearer token: a static access token. Altertable sends it as is, so replace it in the catalog settings before it expires.

Altertable reads table data with the storage credentials Polaris vends for each table, so the catalog must have credential vending configured. Grant the principal role only the catalog privileges Altertable needs, such as TABLE_READ_DATA for read-only access.