Using Liquibase with Snowflake

Snowflake enables data storage, processing, and analytic solutions and runs on the cloud infrastructure. Snowflake is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) that offers:

No hardware (virtual or physical) to select, install, configure, or manage.
Virtually no software to install, configure, or manage.
Ongoing maintenance, management, upgrades, and tuning handled by Snowflake.

For more information, see the Snowflake documentation page.

Verified database versions

Cloud

Prerequisites

Introduction to Liquibase: Dive into Liquibase concepts.
Install Liquibase: Download Liquibase on your machine.
Ensure Java is installed: Liquibase requires Java to run. If you used the Liquibase Installer, Java is included automatically. Otherwise, you must install Java manually.
Get Started with Liquibase: Learn how to use Liquibase with an example database.
Design Your Liquibase Project: Create a new Liquibase project folder and organize your changelogs.
How to Apply Your Liquibase Pro License Key: If you use Liquibase Pro, activate your license.

Install drivers

CLI users

To use Liquibase and Snowflake, you need the JDBC driver JAR file (Maven download).

Note: If you use Liquibase 4.11.0 or earlier, you also need the Liquibase extension for Snowflake.

The latest version of Liquibase has a pre-installed driver for this database in the liquibase/internal/lib directory, so you don't need to install it yourself.

Maven users

To use Liquibase with Maven, you must instead include the driver JAR(s) as a dependency in your pom.xml file. Using this information, Maven automatically downloads the driver JAR from Maven Central when you build your project.

<dependency>
    <groupId>net.snowflake</groupId>
    <artifactId>snowflake-jdbc</artifactId>
    <version>3.13.21</version>
</dependency>

If you use Liquibase 4.11.0 or earlier:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.liquibase.ext</groupId>
    <artifactId>liquibase-snowflake</artifactId>
    <version>4.11.0</version>
</dependency>

If you use Oracle Java and need to encrypt stage files using 256-bit keys, install the JCE Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files for Oracle Java. After you download the zip file, which contains a README.txt file and two JAR files, put the two JAR files in the jre/lib/security subdirectory of your Java installation.

Note: The JDBC driver uses the AES specification to encrypt files uploaded to Snowflake stages. The JDBC driver automatically encrypts staged files using 128-bit keys. However, to use 256-bit keys instead of the default 128-bit keys for encryption of staged files, follow the Java Requirements for JDBC Driver documentation.

Configure connection

Ensure your Snowflake database is configured.
1. To validate that Snowflake is available, you can use the SnowSQL CLI tool and run connect. You can also log into the Snowflake console in your browser to validate that the instance is running. The browser link is different for each Snowflake instance, but the format is: https://<cloudHostName>.snowflakecomputing.com. You will receive an email with the link when the database is ready for use.
2. Grant schema permissions for all SQL statements you intend to use in your Liquibase changelogs, such as CREATE TABLE if you want to create a new table.
Specify the database URL in the liquibase.properties file (defaults file), along with other properties you want to set a default value for. Liquibase does not parse the URL. You can either specify the full database connection string or specify the URL using your database's standard connection format:

url: jdbc:snowflake://<account_ID>.snowflakecomputing.com/?<connection_params>

Note: The account ID is the host name for your Snowflake instance. Snowflake sends an email with the URL to the host. The JDBC driver only needs the hostname, not the full URL: tn12345.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com.

Example: Depending on the cloud provider you select during the database creation, your domain name will be different. The example is for an AWS cloud instance: jdbc:snowflake://tn12345.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com/?db=lbcat&schema=public.

Tip: To apply a Liquibase Pro key to your project, add the following property to the Liquibase properties file: licenseKey: <paste code here>

Test connection

Create a text file called changelog (.xml, .sql, .yaml, or .json) in your project directory and add a changeset.

If you already created a changelog using the init project command, you can use that instead of creating a new file. When adding onto an existing changelog, be sure to only add the changeset and to not duplicate the changelog header.

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset your.name:1
CREATE TABLE test_table (test_id INT NOT NULL, test_column INT, PRIMARY KEY (test_id))

Tip: Formatted SQL changelogs generated from Liquibase versions before 4.2.0 might cause issues because of the lack of space after a double dash ( -- ). To fix this, add a space after the double dash. For example: -- liquibase formatted sql instead of --liquibase formatted sql and -- changeset myname:create-table instead of --changeset myname:create-table.

databaseChangeLog:
   - changeSet:
       id: 1
       author: your.name
       changes:
       - createTable:
           tableName: test_table
           columns:
           - column:
               name: test_id
               type: INT
               constraints:
                   primaryKey:  true
                   nullable:  false
           - column:
               name: test_column
               type: INT

{
  "databaseChangeLog": [
    {
      "changeSet": {
        "id": "1",
        "author": "your.name",
        "changes": [
          {
            "createTable": {
              "tableName": "test_table",
              "columns": [
                {
                  "column": {
                    "name": "test_id",
                    "type": "INT",
                    "constraints": {
                      "primaryKey": true,
                      "nullable": false
                    }
                  }
                },
                {
                  "column": {
                    "name": "test_column",
                    "type": "INT"
                  }
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<databaseChangeLog
    xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:ext="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext"
    xmlns:pro="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-latest.xsd
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-ext.xsd
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro/liquibase-pro-latest.xsd">

    <changeSet id="1" author="your.name">
        <createTable tableName="test_table">
            <column name="test_id" type="int">
                <constraints primaryKey="true" nullable="false" />
            </column>
            <column name="test_column" type="int"/>
        </createTable>
    </changeSet>

</databaseChangeLog>

Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:

liquibase status --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

Note: You can specify arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.

If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this:

4 changesets have not been applied to <your_connection_url>
Liquibase command 'status' was executed successfully.

Inspect the deployment SQL with the update-sql command:

liquibase update-sql --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If the SQL that Liquibase generates isn't what you expect, you should review your changelog file and make any necessary adjustments.

Then execute these changes to your database with the update command:

liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If your update is successful, Liquibase runs each changeset and displays a summary message ending with:

Liquibase: Update has been successful.
Liquibase command 'update' was executed successfully.

From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the test_table object you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.

Now you're ready to start making deployments with Liquibase!

Using Liquibase with Snowflake

Verified database versions

Prerequisites

Install drivers

CLI users

Maven users

Configure connection

Test connection

Related links