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/docs/plugins/grafana-athena-datasource/configure/
description Configure the Amazon Athena data source for Grafana.
keywords
grafana
amazon athena
athena
aws
configure
authentication
iam
provisioning
labels
products
cloud
enterprise
oss
menuTitle Configure
title Configure the Amazon Athena data source
weight 200
last_reviewed 2026-02-20

Configure the Amazon Athena data source

This document explains how to configure the Amazon Athena data source in Grafana.

Before you begin

Before you configure the data source, ensure you have the following prerequisites.

  • Grafana permissions: Organization administrator role.
  • AWS account: An active AWS account with Amazon Athena enabled.
  • IAM credentials: An IAM user or role with the required Athena, Glue, and S3 permissions. Refer to the IAM policies section for details.
  • Athena resources: At least one Athena workgroup and data catalog configured in your AWS account.

Add the data source

To add the Amazon Athena data source:

  1. Click Connections in the left-side menu.
  2. Click Add new connection.
  3. Type Amazon Athena in the search bar.
  4. Select Amazon Athena.
  5. Click Add new data source.

Configure settings

The following table describes the available configuration settings.

Setting Description
Name The data source name. This is how you refer to the data source in panels and queries.
Default Toggle to make this the default data source for new panels.
Authentication Provider The AWS credentials chain to use. Refer to Authentication for details.
Assume Role ARN (optional) The ARN of an IAM role to assume. Use this for cross-account access.
External ID (optional) The external ID for assuming a role in another account. Required if the target role was created with an external ID condition.
Endpoint (optional) A custom endpoint for the Amazon Athena service.
Default Region The AWS region where your Athena resources are located.
Data Source The Athena data catalog to use. Catalogs are loaded automatically.
Database The database within the selected catalog.
Workgroup The Athena workgroup to use for query execution.
Output Location (optional) An S3 bucket to store query execution outputs. If not specified, the default query result location from the workgroup configuration is used. If Override client-side settings is enabled in the AWS console, this setting is ignored.

Authentication

The Amazon Athena data source uses AWS authentication. The available authentication methods depend on your Grafana deployment.

Open source Grafana enables the AWS SDK Default, Credentials file, and Access and secret key methods by default. Grafana Cloud enables Access and secret key by default.

For more information about authentication options and configuration, refer to AWS authentication.

IAM policies

Grafana needs permissions granted through IAM to read Amazon Athena data. You can attach these permissions to IAM roles and use Grafana's built-in support for assuming roles. You must create the required IAM policy before adding the data source to Grafana.

Depending on the data you query with Amazon Athena, you may need different permissions. AWS provides predefined managed policies you can use as a starting point.

The following example shows a minimal IAM policy for querying Amazon Athena. It's based on the AmazonAthenaFullAccess managed policy, with write permissions removed where possible since Grafana should be used as read-only.

{{< admonition type="note" >}} Update the ARN of the S3 bucket if you're using a custom one. If your AWS account uses AWS Lake Formation to manage data access, you must also include the lakeformation:GetDataAccess permission. Refer to the AWS Lake Formation permissions for Athena documentation. {{< /admonition >}}

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AthenaQueryAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "athena:ListDatabases",
        "athena:ListDataCatalogs",
        "athena:ListWorkGroups",
        "athena:GetDatabase",
        "athena:GetDataCatalog",
        "athena:GetQueryExecution",
        "athena:GetQueryResults",
        "athena:GetTableMetadata",
        "athena:GetWorkGroup",
        "athena:ListTableMetadata",
        "athena:StartQueryExecution",
        "athena:StopQueryExecution"
      ],
      "Resource": ["*"]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "GlueReadAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "glue:GetDatabase",
        "glue:GetDatabases",
        "glue:GetTable",
        "glue:GetTables",
        "glue:GetPartition",
        "glue:GetPartitions",
        "glue:BatchGetPartition"
      ],
      "Resource": ["*"]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "AthenaS3Access",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads",
        "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts",
        "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
        "s3:PutObject"
      ],
      "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::aws-athena-query-results-*"]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "AthenaExamplesS3Access",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": ["s3:GetObject", "s3:ListBucket"],
      "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::athena-examples*"]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "LakeFormationAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "lakeformation:GetDataAccess"
      ],
      "Resource": ["*"]
    }
  ]
}

Verify the connection

Click Save & test to verify that the data source is configured correctly. A success message confirms that Grafana can connect to your Amazon Athena instance.

Provision the data source

You can define the Amazon Athena data source in YAML files as part of Grafana's provisioning system. For more information, refer to Provisioning Grafana.

The following examples show provisioning configurations for each authentication method.

Use AWS SDK (default)

apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Athena
    type: grafana-athena-datasource
    jsonData:
      authType: default
      defaultRegion: eu-west-2
      catalog: AwsDataCatalog
      database: <YOUR_ATHENA_DATABASE>
      workgroup: <YOUR_ATHENA_WORKGROUP>

Use a credentials profile

apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Athena
    type: grafana-athena-datasource
    jsonData:
      authType: credentials
      defaultRegion: eu-west-2
      profile: secondary
      catalog: AwsDataCatalog
      database: <YOUR_ATHENA_DATABASE>
      workgroup: <YOUR_ATHENA_WORKGROUP>

Use access and secret keys

apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Athena
    type: grafana-athena-datasource
    jsonData:
      authType: keys
      defaultRegion: eu-west-2
      catalog: AwsDataCatalog
      database: <YOUR_ATHENA_DATABASE>
      workgroup: <YOUR_ATHENA_WORKGROUP>
    secureJsonData:
      accessKey: <YOUR_ACCESS_KEY>
      secretKey: <YOUR_SECRET_KEY>

Use AWS SDK with an assumed IAM role

apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Athena
    type: grafana-athena-datasource
    jsonData:
      authType: default
      assumeRoleArn: arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root
      defaultRegion: eu-west-2
      catalog: AwsDataCatalog
      database: <YOUR_ATHENA_DATABASE>
      workgroup: <YOUR_ATHENA_WORKGROUP>

Optional provisioning parameters

You can also include the following optional parameters in your provisioning configuration.

jsonData:
  endpoint: https://<SERVICE>.<REGION>.amazonaws.com
  externalId: <YOUR_ROLE_EXTERNAL_ID>
  outputLocation: s3://<YOUR_S3_BUCKET>