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Configuration

Create a catalog properties file (e.g., etc/catalog/lance.properties) to configure the Lance connector.

Configuration Properties

Property Description Default
connector.name Must be set to lance -
lance.impl Namespace implementation: dir, rest, glue, hive2, hive3, or full class name dir

Any other lance.* properties are stripped of the lance. prefix and passed to the namespace implementation.

Namespace Levels

Lance namespaces support different access modes depending on the underlying namespace structure. These settings apply to all namespace implementations.

Default Mode

Direct schema-to-namespace mapping. Schemas map directly to namespaces in the catalog.

connector.name=lance
lance.impl=dir
lance.root=s3://my-bucket/lance-warehouse
CREATE SCHEMA lance.myschema;
CREATE TABLE lance.myschema.users (id BIGINT, name VARCHAR);

Single Level Mode

Uses a virtual default schema. All tables are stored at the root level. CREATE SCHEMA is not supported.

connector.name=lance
lance.impl=dir
lance.root=s3://my-bucket/lance-warehouse
lance.single_level_ns=true
-- Only the "default" schema is available
CREATE TABLE lance.default.users (id BIGINT, name VARCHAR);

Parent Prefix Mode

For namespaces with deeper hierarchies (3+ levels). The parent prefix is prepended to all namespace operations.

connector.name=lance
lance.impl=dir
lance.root=s3://my-bucket/lance-warehouse
lance.parent=org$team
-- Schema "myschema" maps to namespace ["org", "team", "myschema"]
CREATE SCHEMA lance.myschema;
CREATE TABLE lance.myschema.users (id BIGINT, name VARCHAR);
Property Description Default
lance.single_level_ns Enable single-level mode with virtual default schema false
lance.parent Parent namespace prefix (levels separated by $) -

Examples

Directory Namespace

The directory namespace allows operating against Lance datasets from any storage.

connector.name=lance
lance.impl=dir
lance.root=s3://my-bucket/lance-warehouse
lance.storage.region=us-east-1
lance.storage.access_key_id=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
lance.storage.secret_access_key=YOUR_SECRET_KEY

REST Namespace

The REST namespace connects to a Lance REST catalog server.

connector.name=lance
lance.impl=rest
lance.uri=http://localhost:8080
lance.header.Authorization=Bearer your-token