Connecting to Self-Hosted Databend using BendSQL

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of connecting to a self-hosted Databend instance using BendSQL.

1

Before You Start

• Ensure that Docker is installed on your local machine, as it will be used to launch Databend.
• Ensure that BendSQL is installed on your machine. See Installing BendSQL for instructions on how to install BendSQL using various package managers.

2

Start Databend

Run the following command in your terminal to launch a Databend instance:

docker run -d --name databend \
  -e QUERY_DEFAULT_USER=eric \
  -e QUERY_DEFAULT_PASSWORD=abc123 \
  -p 3307:3307 -p 8000:8000 -p 8124:8124 -p 8900:8900 \
  datafuselabs/databend:nightly

This command starts a Databend instance locally in a Docker container with the following connection info:

• Host: 127.0.0.1
• Port: 8000
• User: eric
• Password: abc123

3

Launch BendSQL

Once the Databend instance is running, you can connect to it using BendSQL. Open a terminal and use the following command to connect:

bendsql --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000 --user eric --password abc123

This will connect to Databend using the HTTP API at 127.0.0.1:8000 with the user eric and the password abc123. After running this command, you should see a successful connection message, like the one below:

Welcome to BendSQL 0.24.7-ff9563a(2024-12-27T03:23:17.723492000Z).
Connecting to 127.0.0.1:8000 as user eric.
Connected to Databend Query v1.2.725-nightly-25ee2d6e65(rust-1.88.0-nightly-2025-04-16T13:54:25.363718584Z)
Loaded 1432 auto complete keywords from server.
Started web server at 127.0.0.1:8080

4

Execute Queries

Once connected, you can execute SQL queries in the BendSQL shell. For instance, type SELECT NOW(); to return the current time:

eric@127.0.0.1:8000/default> SELECT NOW();

SELECT NOW()

┌────────────────────────────┐
│            now()           │
│          Timestamp         │
├────────────────────────────┤
│ 2025-04-24 13:24:06.640616 │
└────────────────────────────┘
1 row read in 0.025 sec. Processed 1 row, 1 B (40 rows/s, 40 B/s)

5

Quit BendSQL

To quit BendSQL, type quit.

eric@127.0.0.1:8000/default> quit
Bye~
➜  ~