Configure Iceberg with a REST catalog and understand the differences from Glue, Hive, and Nessie catalog backends
domain: iceberg.apache.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
For REST catalog: set spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.type=rest and spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.uri=https://my-rest-catalog-endpoint in your Spark config; authenticate via spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.credential or token properties.
For AWS Glue: set type=glue and configure spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.warehouse along with AWS credentials; Glue uses its own namespace and table APIs under the hood.
For Hive metastore: set type=hive and point spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.uri=thrift://hive-metastore:9083; the Hive catalog stores Iceberg metadata pointers as table properties in the HMS.
For Nessie: set type=nessie, spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.uri=http://nessie:19120/api/v1, and spark.sql.catalog.my_catalog.ref=main; Nessie supports Git-like branching at the catalog level.
Test catalog connectivity by running SHOW NAMESPACES and SHOW TABLES to verify the catalog is reachable and tables are discoverable.
Known gotchas
REST catalog implementations vary; ensure the server implements the Iceberg REST Catalog Open API spec correctly — some implementations only support a subset of endpoints (e.g., no namespace creation).
Glue enforces a 1 MB limit on table property storage; very large Iceberg metadata stored as Glue table properties can exceed this limit; use the metadata-location pointer approach instead.
Nessie catalog branches are catalog-level, not table-level; branching in Nessie affects all tables in the catalog simultaneously, which differs from Iceberg's own table-level branch feature.
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