Before configuring Looker to work with Teradata, you must install the hash_md5 user-defined function (UDF) on your Teradata server. You can find instructions for installing the UDF on this Teradata downloads page.
To use Looker with Teradata you will need to configure a Teradata driver. These instructions describe that process, assuming use of a startup script similar to the examples provided on the looker-open-source GitHub page.
To install the driver, you will need to acquire two Teradata files, include them as part of the startup process, and add an option to tell Looker to access the driver.
Installing the Teradata JDBC driver
Follow the steps on the Unpackaged JDBC drivers documentation page using the following values:
driver symbol: teradata
driver entry:
- name: teradata
dir_name: teradata
module_path: com.teradata.jdbc.TeraDriver
For the step to put the driver in your dialect's directory, the paths to these files will look like this:
looker/custom_jdbc_drivers/teradata/tdgssconfig.jarlooker/custom_jdbc_drivers/teradata/terajdbc4.jar
Creating the Looker connection to your database
Creating the Looker connection to your database
In the Admin section of Looker, select Connections, and then click Add Connection.
Fill out the connection details. The majority of the settings are common to most database dialects. See the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page for information.
To verify that the connection is successful, click Test. See the Testing database connectivity documentation page for troubleshooting information.
To save these settings, click Connect.
Feature support
For Looker to support some features, your database dialect must also support them.
Teradata supports the following features as of Looker 23.16:
| Feature | Supported? |
|---|---|
| Support Level | Supported |
| Looker (Google Cloud core) | No |
| Symmetric Aggregates | Yes |
| Derived Tables | Yes |
| Persistent SQL Derived Tables | Yes |
| Persistent Native Derived Tables | Yes |
| Stable Views | Yes |
| Query Killing | Yes |
| SQL-based Pivots | Yes |
| Timezones | No |
| SSL | No |
| Subtotals | No |
| JDBC Additional Params | Yes |
| Case Sensitive | Yes |
| Location Type | Yes |
| List Type | No |
| Percentile | No |
| Distinct Percentile | No |
| SQL Runner Show Processes | No |
| SQL Runner Describe Table | Yes |
| SQL Runner Show Indexes | Yes |
| SQL Runner Select 10 | Yes |
| SQL Runner Count | Yes |
| SQL Explain | Yes |
| Oauth Credentials | No |
| Context Comments | Yes |
| Connection Pooling | No |
| HLL Sketches | No |
| Aggregate Awareness | Yes |
| Incremental PDTs | No |
| Milliseconds | Yes |
| Microseconds | Yes |
| Materialized Views | No |
| Approximate Count Distinct | No |