HiveServer and client user accounts

[Bill Graham <bi...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I've found that if I access Hive via the HiveServer (using either the Hive
shell or the JDBC client), tables are created as the user who is running the
Hive server, not the user who is executing the commands. I understand why
this happens, but it doesn't seem like the expected behavior to me.

If I were to run a Hive Server on the NN as user 'hive' I'd expect other
users to be able to connect to it and add/remove tables as themselves, which
isn't the case currently. If from the command line I use hadoop to add files
to HDFS (as user 'bill') and then use hive to create a table (as user
'hive'), I can't put my data into it, due to ownership conflicts.

It brings two questions to mind:

1. Is this a bug? If so I'll create a JIRA.

2. How are other people dealing with this issue in production?*


* Granted the HiveServer currently doesn't support more than one client at a
time, which is a completely separate issue which I'm curious about w.r.t.
production use. Is the answer that the Hive Server just isn't production
ready? I that is the case, then how are people using Hive in a multi-user
environement? Does each client just connect directly to a central
metastoredb?


thanks,
Bill