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Tableau - Key Pair Authentication

In this tutorial we will show how to connect to snowflake via tableau with key-pair as the authenitcation method.

Video

Video is still in development.

Requirement

This tutorial assumes you have nothing in your Snowflake account (Trial) and no complex security needs.

Tableau requires these versions to use key-pair:

  • Snowflake ODBC driver 3.4 or later
  • Tableau Desktop 2024.3 or later

Generate Key

Lets create the private and public key so that we can apply the public key to our user.

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openssl genrsa 2048 | openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform PEM -out rsa_key.p8 -nocrypt
openssl rsa -in rsa_key.p8 -pubout -out rsa_key.pub

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Writing RSA key.

This will create two files in the folder we are currently located. Two keys

Snowflake

Lets start with applying our key to our user and then getting the account url.

Apply key to user

Lets create the user, assign the user a role and finally apply the public key to our user in a worksheet.

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use role accountadmin;

-- Create the user. Optional add type = 'service' for service accounts.
create user <username>;

-- Give the user a role.
grant role <role_name> to user <username>;

-- Apply the public key to the user.
alter user <username> set rsa_public_key='<Public Key>';

/* (OPTIONAL) Create a network policy and apply it to the user. 
create network policy <policy_name>  allowed_ip_list = ('<IP ADDRESS>');

alter user <username> set network_policy = <policy_name> ; /* 

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use role accountadmin;

-- Create the user. Optional add type = 'service' for service accounts.
create user danielwilczak;

-- Give the user a role.
grant role sysadmin to user danielwilczak;

-- Apply the public key to the user.
alter user danielwilczak set 
    rsa_public_key='MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEA
zd7lfIGps+lBXrVCT05l 92rDpYUsXyjtvAu26Q2z0k3/7n7HnZNmKjreIlGQJZl
Be0Eud4LzqGX9Vbp53G2FoZePQSy46rxXQ9bmCGlF8tGhV7gOgh7D/LGfLHhtVt+
b4BhPWLgOqOqCDUv+MXlYN+..................bdZJtCalMpjYq0o8aC1qJVv
+ry9W+8xmfTRUSq6B0de8Y9XBEAhJu/3tJkyDSqs7ZEXR9F02hQ3WlmfQEExaktc
pIm1l+3beupmCoCliFfoNbdcZegiIdFmGcYRmKba+YpQ3yqpqcqAlCErdqwql8rs
cJTGx0/AnxyaeX5Qtr86c1wIDAQAB';

/* (OPTIONAL) Create a network policy and apply it to the user. 
create network policy my_policy allowed_ip_list = ('34.230.230.9');

alter user danielwilczak set network_policy = my_policy; */
status
Statement executed successfully.

Account URL

Before we leave Snowflake we'll want to copy our account url to later add to tableau. account indo

Next you'll see the url account url

Tableau Desktop

Lets Open tableau Desktop and add a new source that is Snowflake. open desktop

Past in url, add role name, warehouse and username. Select key-pair as authentication and browse/add your private key. Finally click sign in. add information

Success your login via key-pair authentication. finished

Tableau Cloud

Go to "My account settings" on the top right. account seetings

Find Snowflake as a source, click add. add source

Click the drop down and select "key-pair authentication method". select key-pair authentication

Click add. add

Fill in the server with the account url, role username, add your private key we generated at the start, and click add. account information

Once added we can test our connection to make sure it works. test