Impala Shell Configuration Options

You can specify the following options when starting impala-shell to control how shell commands are executed. You can specify options on the command line or in the impala-shell configuration file.


Command-Line Option	Configuration File Setting	Explanation
-B or --delimited	write_delimited=true	Causes all query results to be printed in plain format as a delimited text file. Useful for producing data files to be used with other Hadoop components. Also useful for avoiding the performance overhead of pretty-printing all output, especially when running benchmark tests using queries returning large result sets. Specify the delimiter character with the `--output_delimiter` option. Store all query results in a file rather than printing to the screen with the `-B` option.
--live_progress	live_progress=true	Prints a progress bar showing roughly the percentage complete for each query. Information is updated interactively as the query progresses.
--disable_live_progress	live_progress=false	Disables live_progress in the interactive mode.
-b or --kerberos_host_fqdn	kerberos_host_fqdn= `load-balancer-hostname`	If set, the setting overrides the expected hostname of the Impala daemon's Kerberos service principal. impala-shell will check that the server's principal matches this hostname. This may be used when `impalad` is configured to be accessed via a load-balancer, but it is desired for impala-shell to talk to a specific `impalad` directly.
--print_header	print_header=true
-o `filename` or --output_file `filename`	output_file=`filename`	Stores all query results in the specified file. Typically used to store the results of a single query issued from the command line with the `-q` option. Also works for interactive sessions; you see the messages such as number of rows fetched, but not the actual result set. To suppress these incidental messages when combining the `-q` and `-o` options, redirect `stderr` to `/dev/null`.
--output_delimiter= `character`	output_delimiter=`character`	Specifies the character to use as a delimiter between fields when query results are printed in plain format by the `-B` option. Defaults to tab (`'\t'`). If an output value contains the delimiter character, that field is quoted, escaped by doubling quotation marks, or both.
-p or --show_profiles	show_profiles=true	Displays the query execution plan (same output as the `EXPLAIN` statement) and a more detailed low-level breakdown of execution steps, for every query executed by the shell.
-h or --help	N/A	Displays help information.
N/A	history_max=1000	Sets the maximum number of queries to store in the history file.
-i `hostname` or --impalad=`hostname`[:`portnum`]	impalad=`hostname`[:`portnum`]	Connects to the `impalad` daemon on the specified host. The default port of 21050 is assumed unless you provide another value. You can connect to any host in your cluster that is running `impalad`. If you connect to an instance of `impalad` that was started with an alternate port specified by the `--fe_port` flag, provide that alternative port.
-q `query` or --query=`query`	query=`query`	Passes a query or other impala-shell command from the command line. The impala-shell interpreter immediately exits after processing the statement. It is limited to a single statement, which could be a `SELECT`, `CREATE TABLE`, `SHOW TABLES`, or any other statement recognized in `impala-shell`. Because you cannot pass a `USE` statement and another query, fully qualify the names for any tables outside the `default` database. (Or use the `-f` option to pass a file with a `USE` statement followed by other queries.)
-f `query_file` or --query_file=`query_file`	query_file=`path_to_query_file`	Passes a SQL query from a file. Multiple statements must be semicolon (;) delimited.
-k or --kerberos	use_kerberos=true	Kerberos authentication is used when the shell connects to `impalad`. If Kerberos is not enabled on the instance of `impalad` to which you are connecting, errors are displayed.
--query_option= "`option`=`value` -Q "`option`=`value`"	Header line `[impala.query_options]`, followed on subsequent lines by `option`=`value`, one option per line.	Sets default query options for an invocation of the impala-shell command. To set multiple query options at once, use more than one instance of this command-line option. The query option names are not case-sensitive.
-s `kerberos_service_name` or --kerberos_service_name= `name`	kerberos_service_name=`name`	Instructs `impala-shell` to authenticate to a particular `impalad` service principal. If a `kerberos_service_name` is not specified, `impala` is used by default. If this option is used in conjunction with a connection in which Kerberos is not supported, errors are returned.
-V or --verbose	verbose=true	Enables verbose output.
--quiet	verbose=false	Disables verbose output.
-v or --version	version=true	Displays version information.
-c	ignore_query_failure=true	Continues on query failure.
-d `default_db` or --database=`default_db`	default_db=`default_db`	Specifies the database to be used on startup. Same as running the `USE` statement after connecting. If not specified, a database named `DEFAULT` is used.
--ssl	ssl=true	Enables TLS/SSL for impala-shell.
`path_to_certificate`	ca_cert=`path_to_certificate`	The local pathname pointing to the third-party CA certificate, or to a copy of the server certificate for self-signed server certificates. If `--ca_cert` is not set, impala-shell enables TLS/SSL, but does not validate the server certificate. This is useful for connecting to a known-good Impala that is only running over TLS/SSL, when a copy of the certificate is not available (such as when debugging customer installations).
-l	use_ldap=true	Enables LDAP authentication.
-u	user=`user_name`	Supplies the username, when LDAP authentication is enabled by the `-l` option. (Specify the short username, not the full LDAP distinguished name.) The shell then prompts interactively for the password.
--ldap_password_cmd= `command`	N/A	Specifies a command to run to retrieve the LDAP password, when LDAP authentication is enabled by the `-l` option. If the command includes space-separated arguments, enclose the command and its arguments in quotation marks.
--config_file= `path_to_config_file`	N/A	Specifies the path of the file containing impala-shell configuration settings. The default is /etc/impalarc. This setting can only be specified on the command line.
--live_progress	N/A	Prints a progress bar showing roughly the percentage complete for each query. The information is updated interactively as the query progresses.
--live_summary	N/A	Prints a detailed report, similar to the `SUMMARY` command, showing progress details for each phase of query execution. The information is updated interactively as the query progresses.
--var= `variable_name`= `value`	N/A	Defines a substitution variable that can be used within the impala-shell session. The variable can be substituted into statements processed by the `-q` or `-f` options, or in an interactive shell session. Within a SQL statement, you substitute the value by using the notation `${var:variable_name}`.
--auth_creds_ok_in_clear	N/A	Allows LDAP authentication to be used with an insecure connection to the shell. WARNING: This will allow authentication credentials to be sent unencrypted, and hence may be vulnerable to an attack.
--protocol= `protocol`	N/A	Protocol to use for the connection to Impala. Valid `protocol` values are: `'hs2'`: Impala-shell uses the binary TCP based transport to speak to the Impala Daemon via the HiveServer2 protocol. This is the current default setting. `'hs2-http'`: Impala-shell uses HTTP transport to speak to the Impala Daemon via the HiveServer2 protocol. `'beeswax'`: Impala-shell uses the binary TCP based transport to speak to the Impala Daemon via Beeswax. You cannot connect to the 3.2 or earlier versions of Impala using the `'hs2'` or `'hs2-http'` option. Beeswax support is deprecated and will be removed in the future.