POST_START

Authorizing Read and Write Access to Governed Production Unity Catalog Volumes

I recently had the task of managing access to a set of governed volumes in the Unity Catalog. These volumes are part of a production data lake, and the goal was to ensure that the right teams had the appropriate permissions to read and write to specific volumes. The first step was to understand what volumes were available in the production namespace.

Exploring the Production Volumes

I started by running the SHOW VOLUMES IN production.files; command. This helped me get a list of all volumes within the production.files namespace. I wanted to make sure I was working with the correct set of volumes and to verify that the volume I needed to manage, documents, existed in the specified location.

SHOW VOLUMES IN production.files;

I noticed that the documents volume was indeed present, and it was part of a larger set of volumes used for storing document-related data. This confirmed that I was working on the correct volume and that the volume was properly cataloged.

Checking Current Permissions

Before making any changes, I wanted to understand the current access permissions for the documents volume. I ran the SHOW GRANTS ON VOLUME production.files.documents; command. This step was crucial because it allowed me to see who had access to the volume and what level of access they had.

SHOW GRANTS ON VOLUME production.files.documents;

The output showed that no explicit grants had been assigned to the documents volume. This meant that the volume was currently accessible only to the default set of users or groups that had access to the Unity Catalog by default. It also meant that I needed to explicitly grant read and write access to specific roles or users.

Granting Read Access

Next, I needed to grant read access to a group of users who were responsible for consuming data from the documents volume. I decided to create a role called document_readers and assign read permissions to it. I ran the following command:

GRANT READ VOLUME ON VOLUME production.files.documents TO `document_readers`;

By doing this, I ensured that the document_readers role could read data from the documents volume. This was important for data analysts and other users who needed to access the data without modifying it.

Granting Write Access

For the team that needed to write new data to the documents volume, I created another role called document_writers and granted write access to it. I executed the following command:

GRANT WRITE VOLUME ON VOLUME production.files.documents TO `document_writers`;

This allowed the document_writers role to write new data to the volume, ensuring that the team had the necessary permissions to perform their tasks without affecting other users or data integrity.

Verifying the Grants

To confirm that the grants had been applied successfully, I ran the SHOW GRANTS ON VOLUME production.files.documents; command again. This step was essential to ensure that the permissions were correctly assigned and that there were no errors in the grant process.

SHOW GRANTS ON VOLUME production.files.documents;

The output confirmed that both the document_readers and document_writers roles had been granted the appropriate permissions. This gave me confidence that the access controls were properly configured and that the volume was now secure and manageable according to the team’s needs.

By following these steps, I was able to effectively manage access to the documents volume in the production environment, ensuring that the right people had the right level of access while maintaining data governance and security.