Cloudera Docs

Configuring Hive Metastore for Iceberg column changes

To make schema changes to an existing column of an Iceberg table, you must configure the Hive Metastore of the Data Lake.

Only set the following Hive Metastore configuration if you are using Data Lake version 7.2.14 or earlier. By default, Data Lake versions 7.2.15.0 and onwards has metastore.allow.incompatible.col.type.changes.serdes set to org.apache.hadoop.hive.kudu.KuduSerDe,org.apache.iceberg.mr.hive.HiveIcebergSerDe in Hive. For information about creating tables, see the Spark DDL documentation linked below.

  1. In Cloudera Manager, select the service for the Hive Metastore.
  2. Click the Configuration tab.
  3. Search for safety valve and find the Hive Metastore Server Advanced Configuration Snippet (Safety Valve) for hive-site.xml safety valve.
  4. Add the following property:
    • Name: metastore.allow.incompatible.col.type.changes.serdes
    • Value: org.apache.hadoop.hive.kudu.KuduSerDe,org.apache.iceberg.mr.hive.HiveIcebergSerDe
  5. Click Save Changes.
  6. Restart the service to apply the configuration change.