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.
Supported versions
- 6.X
- 5.X
- 4.X
- 3.5
Prerequisites
- Install Liquibase.
- Create a Liquibase project folder to store all Liquibase files. You can do this manually or with the init project command.
- Create a new Liquibase properties file or use the
liquibase.properties
file included in the installation package. For more information, see Create and Configure a liquibase.properties File.
Install drivers
To use Liquibase and Snowflake, you need the JDBC driver JAR file (Maven download). If you use Liquibase 4.11.0 or earlier, you also need the Liquibase extension for Snowflake.
liquibase/internal/lib
directory.
If you use Maven, pom.xml
file.
<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.
Test your connection
- Ensure your Snowflake database is configured.
- 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. - 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.
- To validate that Snowflake is available, you can use the SnowSQL CLI tool and run
- Specify the database URL in the Liquibase properties file. Liquibase does not parse the URL. You can either specify the full database connection string or specify the URL using your database's standard JDBC 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>
- Create a text file called changelog (
.xml
,.sql
,.json
, or.yaml
) in your project directory and add a changeset. - Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:
- Inspect the SQL with the update-sql command. Then make changes to your database with the update command.
- From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the
test_table
you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.

<?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="Liquibase">
<createTable tableName="test_table">
<column name="test_id" type="int">
<constraints primaryKey="true"/>
</column>
<column name="test_column" type="varchar"/>
</createTable>
</changeSet>
</databaseChangeLog>

-- liquibase formatted sql
-- changeset liquibase:1
CREATE TABLE test_table (test_id INT, test_column VARCHAR(256), PRIMARY KEY (test_id))
Tip: Formatted SQL changelogs generated from Liquibase versions before 4.2 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: Liquibase
changes:
- createTable:
columns:
- column:
name: test_column
type: INT
constraints:
primaryKey: true
nullable: false
tableName: test_table

{
"databaseChangeLog": [
{
"changeSet": {
"id": "1",
"author": "Liquibase",
"changes": [
{
"createTable": {
"columns": [
{
"column":
{
"name": "test_column",
"type": "INT",
"constraints":
{
"primaryKey": true,
"nullable": false
}
}
}]
,
"tableName": "test_table"
}
}]
}
}]
}
liquibase status --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>
Note: You can pass arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.
liquibase update-sql --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>
liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>