Configure Connection to ELT Source

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

After you add the dbt Gen2 OCF ELT source, you need to configure the connection to dbt as part of setting up the ELT dbt source. Depending on your dbt deployment type, choose either dbt Cloud or dbt Core.

Use these steps to configure a connection to a dbt Gen2 data source:

Configure Authentication for dbt Cloud

The dbt Gen2 OCF connector for dbt Cloud supports authentication using Personal Access Tokens (PATs) or service tokens.

Perform the following steps to configure authentication in the Alation UI:

  1. In the Step 1: Configure authentication section of the General Settings tab, click DBT Cloud.

  2. Provide the following information:

    Parameter

    Description

    dbt Cloud Admin API Endpoint

    Specify the Admin API URL to access dbt. Format: https:://<hostname> For more information, see dbt API

    dbt Cloud Account Id

    Specify the service account ID to access dbt.

    dbt Cloud Discovery API Endpoint

    Specify the Admin API URL to access dbt for extracting metadata from dbt Discovery API. Format: https:://<hostname>/graphql For more information, see https://docs.getdbt.com/docs/dbt-cloud-apis/discovery-querying

    Token

    Specify the dbt Resource URL used to grant access scope dbt APIs. You can either use a Personal Access Token or a service token.

  3. Click Save.

Configure Authentication for dbt Core

Configure authentication based on your file storage location.

Note

Ensure that your projects adhere to the required file structure. For more information, see Prerequisites.

GitHub

To configure authentication for GitHub, perform the following steps:

  1. On the Settings page of your dbt Gen2 ELT source, go to the General Settings tab.

  2. In the Configure authentication section, click DBT Core.

  3. Provide the following information on the GitHub tab:

    Parameter

    Description

    GitHub URL

    Specify the URL of the GitHub repository where the dbt projects are stored. Format: https://github.com/<user_name>/<repository_name>

    Location

    Specify the location of the dbt projects within the GitHub repository. Alation considers the immediate folders under this location as the dbt project.

    Example: dbt/other/dbt-projects

    Access Token

    Specify the GitHub access token. Ensure that the token includes the repo as the GitHub Scope.

  4. Click Save.

Amazon S3

To configure authentication for Amazon S3, perform the following steps:

  1. On the Settings page of your dbt Gen2 ELT source, go to the General Settings tab.

  2. In the Configure authentication section, click DBT Core.

  3. Provide the following information on the Amazon S3 tab:

    Parameter

    Description

    AWS region

    Specify your AWS S3 region. For example us-east-1.

    Access key

    Specify the access key of the AWS IAM user.

    Secret access key

    Specify the secret access key of the AWS IAM user.

    Bucket name or Path

    Specify the S3 bucket name or the path to the dbt project within S3. If you specify the bucket name, Alation checks for dbt projects at the bucket root level. Path formats: bucket-name/path-to-dbt-projects/ s3://bucket-name/path-to-dbt-projects/

  4. Click Save.

Azure Blob Storage

To configure authentication for Azure Blob storage, perform the following steps:

  1. On the Settings page of your dbt Gen2 ELT source, go to the General Settings tab.

  2. In the Configure authentication section, click DBT Core.

  3. Provide the following information on the Azure Blob Storage tab:

    Parameter

    Description

    Storage account name

    Specify the Azure storage account name.

    Shared access signature

    Turn on the toggle to authenticate using a shared access signature.

    Access key/Shared Access signature

    Specify the access key or specify the shared access signature if you are using it to authenticate.

    Storage endpoint suffix

    Specify the storage endpoint suffix.

    Location

    Enter the name of the container or the path to the dbt project within the container. If you specify the container name, Alation checks for dbt projects at the container root level. Path formats: container-name/path-to-dbt-projects/

  4. Click Save.

Test the Connection

The connection test checks connectivity to dbt.

To validate the network connectivity, click Test under the Test connection section.

A dialog box appears confirming the status of the connection test.

Configure Logging

To set the logging level for your dbt Gen2 OCF ELT source logs, perform these steps:

  1. On the Settings page of your dbt Gen2 OCF ELT source, go to General Settings > Connector logs.

  2. Select an option from the Log Level dropdown and click Save. The default log level is INFO.