Set Up Amazon Redshift IAM OAuth


These instructions are for the older AWS IAM service. For IAM IDC integration see Set Up Amazon Redshift IAM Identity Center OAuth.

Depending on the identity provider, there are different steps needed to configure the integration. This is a high-level overview. Tableau cannot provide detailed instructions for how to configure AWS or the IDP, but the general approach is described below.

Note: Single use refresh tokens (sometimes called rolling refresh tokens or refresh token rotation) are not supported for OAuth connections to Tableau at this time. Support for these tokens are planned for a future release.

Step 1: Configure the IDP

  1. Create OAuth clients on the IDP for Tableau Desktop, and Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud. The Desktop client should enable PKCE and use http://localhost redirects.

  2. Add custom claims to use for authorization to roles. In particular, if you are using original IAM, you may want to add claims for DbUser and DbGroups. These can be used in your IAM policies later.

  3. Create the Tableau OAuth config files. See documentation on GitHub(Link opens in a new window), and examples here(Link opens in a new window). We welcome examples for other IDPs.

    1. Be sure to prefix the Tableau OAuth config IDs with “custom_”.

    2. If your IDP supports dynamic localhost port then disable OAUTH_CAP_FIXED_PORT_IN_CALLBACK_URL. If your IDP does not support this, make sure to add several localhost callback URLs to the allowlist in the config file and on the IDP.

  4. Install the new Tableau OAuth configuration files in the OAuthConfigs folder associated with each application on desktop hosts (Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep Builder, Tableau Bridge), and on each Tableau Server and Tableau Cloud site that will be using OAuth.

Configure IDP on AWS

1. Create the IDP model on the AWS. See Amazon docs Web Identity Federation(Link opens in a new window) and Create OIDC Identity Provider(Link opens in a new window).

2. Create roles and policies specifically for the IDP. See Create Role for OIDC(Link opens in a new window) in the AWS docs.

Configure Roles for Redshift Users

Attach the policies needed for Redshift. You may use custom claims from the token to authorize to roles. There are several examples with SAML in the AWS documentation(Link opens in a new window). These can be easily adapted to OAuth. In the case of OAuth, the claims are just “DbUser”, “DbGroups”, etc.

Here is an example of the policy from the AWS documentation:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
    {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": "redshift:GetClusterCredentials",
        "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:redshift:us-west-1:123456789012:dbname:cluster-identifier/dev",
            "arn:aws:redshift:us-west-1:123456789012:dbuser:cluster-identifier/${redshift:DbUser}",
            "arn:aws:redshift:us-west-1:123456789012:cluster:cluster-identifier"
        ],
        "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
                "aws:userid": "AROAJ2UCCR6DPCEXAMPLE:${redshift:DbUser}@example.com"
            }
        }
    },
    {
        "Effect": "Allow"
        "Action": "redshift:CreateClusterUser",
        "Resource": "arn:aws:redshift:us-west-1:12345:dbuser:cluster-identifier/${redshift:DbUser}"
    },
    {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": "redshift:JoinGroup",
        "Resource": "arn:aws:redshift:us-west-1:12345:dbgroup:cluster-identifier/my_dbgroup"
    },
    {
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
            "redshift:DescribeClusters",
            "iam:ListRoles"
        ],
        "Resource": "*"
    }
]
}

Connect to Redshift

The user must specify the role ARN to assume, and select the OAuth config installed earlier.

When properly configured, the user will be redirected to the IDP to authenticate and authorize tokens for Tableau. Tableau will receive openid and refresh tokens. AWS is able to validate the token and signature from the IDP, extract the claims from the token, look up the mapping of claims to IAM role, and either permit or block Tableau from assuming the role on the user’s behalf. (in other words, AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity(Link opens in a new window)).

Tokens

By default Redshift OAuth IAM passes the ID token to the driver. For on-premise customers, including those using Tableau Bridge, you may use a TDC file to pass the access token instead.

<connection-customization class='redshift' enabled='true' version='10.0'>
	<vendor name='redshift' />
	<driver name='redshift' />
	<customizations>
		<customization name='CAP_OAUTH_FEDERATE_ACCESS_TOKEN' value='yes'/>
	</customizations>
</connection-customization>

For more information about configuring and installing .tdc files, see Customize and Tune a Connection(Link opens in a new window) and Using a .tdc File with Tableau Server(Link opens in a new window).

About Group Federation

When using OAuth authentication with an IAM Role, you can select whether or not you are using Group Federation. This will change how the connector interacts with the authentication API to interface with Redshift:

These two APIs will return IAM tokens with slightly different properties. For more information, consult the AWS API documentation linked above.

Usage Notes

  • This feature is generally available for both Tableau Server and Tableau Cloud (including Web Authoring) starting with version 2025.1. For older versions, it can be configured in the connection dialog of Tableau Desktop using either the Advanced tab of the connection dialog or by using a TDC. For more information on using a TDC, see Customize and Tune a Connection.
  • To use Group Federation with Tableau Server, group_federation must be added to the ODBC extras allowlist. For more information, see Customize Connection String for Native Connectors.

Okta

If using Okta it’s better to use a “custom authorization server” rather than the “org authorization server.” The custom authorization servers are more flexible. There is a custom authorization server created by default, which is called “default”. The authorization URL should look like this:

https://${yourOktaDomain}/oauth2/{authServerName}/v1/authorize

 

Update Driver

For Redshift OAuth using the original IAM service, you may use either:

Troubleshooting

The best way to diagnose errors is to remove Tableau from the picture. You can instead test using the driver manager or a similar tool. This is just for troubleshooting - you shouldn't use a DSN or the "Other ODBC" connector for regular usage of this feature. To help ensure a valid test, the parameters should be the same as shown below, except for the cluster information, database, token, and namespace.

If you see an error message about invalid/expired token coming from the driver on the first connection (it will have a SQLState error code like [28000] or [08001] in the error message), then Tableau successfully completed the OAuth flow, and failed in the driver. This means there is a misconfiguration on either the AWS side or the IDP side. There may also be permissions or authorization errors returned from the driver, which is also out of Tableau's control.

Before you begin testing, you first need to get an access token (the default for IAM IDC) or refresh token (if customized) to send to the driver.

Here is an example with Okta. Almost all IDPs have a way to do this which is quite similar. Note that to use this flow you need to have enabled resource owner password grant type. Substitute the IDP URL, client secret, client ID, username, and password.

curl -X POST "https://OKTA_URL/v1/token" \
-H 'accept: application/json' \
-H "Authorization: Basic $(echo -n 'CLIENTID:CLIENTSECRET' | base64)" \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-d "grant_type=password&username=USER&password=PASSWORD&scope=openid"

Once you have the token, you can use a DSN to test. For Windows, you can use the ODBC driver manager. On Mac you can use the iODBC driver manager UI. On Linux you can use the isql command line tool that is included with Tableau Server in the customer-bin folder.

Tableau recommends you do not use other plugins to test, because they may not work in a server environment. They either use a fixed AWS profile, or require direct access to a browser.

Below is an example of using the ODBC driver manager on Windows.

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