[IMPALA-6343] Allow dropping of Kudu tables with invalid master addresses

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: Impala 2.11.0
• Component/s: Catalog
• Labels: kudu
• Epic Color: ghx-label-7
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Thomas Tauber-Marshall
• Created: 19/Dec/17 00:21
• Updated: 12/Feb/20 23:41

Description

Impala stores the master addresses for Kudu tables in the tables metadata. If the master addresses are wrong and there isn't a reachable master at them (eg. because the previous master failed) no operations can be performed on the table through Impala. This problem is tracked by IMPALA-5399

The main workaround we recommend is to directly modify the underlying HMS database to change the master addresses, but this can be confusing/scary for users.

We could improve the usability here by at least allowing such tables to be dropped. Users could then fix the situation entirely through Impala by dropping the affected tables and recreating them as external tables.

Issue Links

• relates to: IMPALA-5399 Kudu tables created with wrong master address(es) are bricked
• relates to: IMPALA-8459 Cannot delete impala/kudu table if backing kudu table dropped with local catalog