ALTER SESSION POLICY¶

Modifies the properties for an existing session policy.

Any changes made to the session policy properties go into effect when the next SQL query that uses the session policy runs.

See also:

Session Policy DDL Reference

Syntax¶

ALTER SESSION POLICY [ IF EXISTS ] <name> RENAME TO <new_name>

ALTER SESSION POLICY [ IF EXISTS ] <name> SET [ SESSION_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS = <integer> ]
                                              [ SESSION_UI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS = <integer> ]
                                              [ COMMENT = '{string_literal}' ]

ALTER SESSION POLICY [ IF EXISTS ] <name> SET TAG <tag_name> = '<tag_value>' [ , <tag_name> = '<tag_value>' ... ]

ALTER SESSION POLICY [ IF EXISTS ] <name> UNSET TAG <tag_name> [ , <tag_name> ... ]

ALTER SESSION POLICY [ IF EXISTS ] <name> UNSET [ SESSION_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS ]
                                                [ SESSION_UI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS ]
                                                [ COMMENT ]
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Parameters¶

name

Identifier for the session policy; must be unique for your account.

The identifier value must start with an alphabetic character and cannot contain spaces or special characters unless the entire identifier string is enclosed in double quotes (e.g. "My object"). Identifiers enclosed in double quotes are also case-sensitive.

For more details, see Identifier requirements.

RENAME TO new_name

Specifies the new identifier for the session policy; must be unique for your account.

For more details, see Identifier requirements.

You can move the object to a different database and/or schema while optionally renaming the object. To do so, specify a qualified new_name value that includes the new database and/or schema name in the form db_name.schema_name.object_name or schema_name.object_name, respectively.

Note

  • The destination database and/or schema must already exist. In addition, an object with the same name cannot already exist in the new location; otherwise, the statement returns an error.

  • Moving an object to a managed access schema is prohibited unless the object owner (i.e. the role that has the OWNERSHIP privilege on the object) also owns the target schema.

SET ...

Specifies one or more parameters to set for the session policy separated by blank spaces, commas, or new lines.

SESSION_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS = <integer>

For Snowflake clients and programmatic clients, the number of minutes in which a session can be idle before users must authenticate to Snowflake again. The number of minutes can be any integer between 5 and 240, inclusive. If a value is not specified, Snowflake uses the default value.

Default: 240 (i.e. 4 hours).

SESSION_UI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS = <integer>

For Snowsight, the number of minutes in which a session can be idle before a user must authenticate to Snowflake again.

The number of minutes can be any integer between 5 and 240, inclusive. If a value is not specified, Snowflake uses the default value.

Default: 240 (i.e. 4 hours).

TAG tag_name = 'tag_value' [ , tag_name = 'tag_value' , ... ]

Specifies the tag name and the tag string value.

The tag value is always a string, and the maximum number of characters for the tag value is 256.

For information about specifying tags in a statement, see Tag quotas for objects and columns.

COMMENT = 'string_literal'

Adds a comment or overwrites an existing comment for the session policy.

UNSET ...

Specifies one or more parameters to unset for the password policy, which resets them to the system defaults.

You can reset multiple properties with a single ALTER statement. Each property must be separated by a comma. When resetting a property, specify only the name. Specifying a value for the property will return an error.

Access control requirements¶

A role used to execute this SQL command must have the following privileges at a minimum:

Privilege

Object

Notes

OWNERSHIP

Session policy

OWNERSHIP is a special privilege on an object that is automatically granted to the role that created the object, but can also be transferred using the GRANT OWNERSHIP command to a different role by the owning role (or any role with the MANAGE GRANTS privilege).

Note that operating on any object in a schema also requires the USAGE privilege on the parent database and schema.

For instructions on creating a custom role with a specified set of privileges, see Creating custom roles.

For general information about roles and privilege grants for performing SQL actions on securable objects, see Overview of Access Control.

For additional details on session policy DDL and privileges, see Managing Session Policies.

Usage notes¶

  • If you want to update an existing session policy and need to see the current definition of the policy, call the GET_DDL function or run the DESCRIBE SESSION POLICY command.

  • Before executing an ALTER statement, you can execute a DESCRIBE SESSION POLICY statement to determine the attribute values of the policy.

  • Regarding metadata:

    Attention

    Customers should ensure that no personal data (other than for a User object), sensitive data, export-controlled data, or other regulated data is entered as metadata when using the Snowflake service. For more information, see Metadata Fields in Snowflake.

Examples¶

The following example updates the session policy to have a Snowsight session timeout value of 60 minutes.

DESC SESSION POLICY session_policy_prod_1;
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+---------------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------+--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| createdOn                       | name                  | sessionIdleTimeoutMins | sessionUIIdleTimeoutMins | comment                                          |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------+--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0700 | session_policy_prod_1 | 60                     | 30                       | session policy for use in the prod_1 environment |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------+--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
ALTER SESSION POLICY session_policy_prod_1 SET SESSION_UI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MINS = 60;
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