SSH Key Pair Authentication - Snowflake

[kevinconseil]

Hi Everyone,

Snowflake rolled out a new security measure that all SERVICE users should connect to snowlake using SSH Key Pair Authentication. 

I see that PowerBI does not offer the possibility to use SSH Key Pair Authentication in their snowflake connector. Any advice on how to do that ?

Also how can we raise this topic toward PowerBI. It would be nice if they propose directly SSH Key Pair Authentication in their snowflake connector instead of creating a workaround.

Best,

Kevin

[Starriver]

@kevinconseil  : FYI: Snowflake released PAT (programmatic-access-tokens). One of our developers implemented it yesterday and it works perfectly for our service accounts. https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/programmatic-access-tokens

[kevinconseil]

@Starriver Would you mind sharing the method on how to do this ? I just spent half a day with chat gpt and snowflake documentation without any success. 

[v-menakakota]

Hi @kevinconseil ,

Could you please confirm if you've submitted this as an idea in the Ideas Forum? If so, sharing the link here would be helpful for other community members who may have similar feedback.

If we don’t hear back, we’ll go ahead and close this thread. For any further discussions or questions, please start a new thread in the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum  we’ll be happy to assist.

Thank you for being part of the Microsoft Fabric Community.

Best Regards, 
Menaka.
Community Support Team 

[reubwork]

I raised a feature request for this with Snowflake about a month ago. Even better would be if it was possible to use a managed identity for Power BI to connect to the datasource, although you'd have to control permissions with a very clear & deliberate design in mind. With key-pair auth you can at least have different logins for each use case and restrict permissions appropriately.

[reubwork]

... I'm assuming that it's Snowflake rather than Microsoft that build the connector.

[v-menakakota · Accepted solution]

Hi @kevinconseil ,

Thank you for reaching out to us on the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum.

Power BI's Snowflake connector doesn't support SSH or key pair authentication, which is becoming more important for secure service accounts.

Using a middleware like Azure Functions or an API Gateway is a valid workaround. It can connect to Snowflake securely using the key pair and then expose the data to Power BI through REST or OData. It adds some complexity but helps stay compliant.

We highly value your feedback on this feature and encourage you to share your thoughts through the Fabric Ideas forum to help shape future improvements:

https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/

Please let us know if you need any further clarification or support. We appreciate your engagement in the Microsoft Fabric community!

If this post was helpful, please give us Kudos and consider marking Accept as solution to assist other members in finding it more easily.

[v-menakakota]

Hi  @kevinconseil ,

I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you'd like to discuss this further. If this answers your question, please Accept it as a solution and give it a 'Kudos' so others can find it easily.

Thank you.

[rohit1991]

Hi @kevinconseil ,

The native Snowflake connector in Power BI does not support SSH Key Pair Authentication, which is becoming increasingly important for secure service account access. As a Power BI expert, my recommendation is to implement a proxy or middleware layer (for example, using Azure Functions or an API gateway) that authenticates with Snowflake using the SSH key and then exposes data through a Power BI-compatible interface like REST or OData. This adds a bit of architectural complexity but maintains compliance with Snowflake's new policy. I’d also strongly recommend submitting this as a feature request on the Power BI Ideas platform, and encouraging others to vote—it’s the primary channel Microsoft uses to prioritize new connector capabilities.

Passionate about leveraging data analytics to drive strategic decision-making and foster business growth.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: Rohit Kumar.