https://community.cloudera.com/t5/Support-Questions/what-is-the-default-behavior-of-insert-overwrite-on-external/m-p/236538#M198351 <P>Hi Ariel, thanks for your reply.</P><P>We are actually using a vendor application that using Hive, the vendor application first delete the folder then do the insert overwrite on the external table and it fails, and it is hard to change the process within the vendor application.</P><P>For our cluster setting, hive should able to impersonate all users:</P><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD> &lt;property&gt;</TD></TR><TR><TD> &lt;name&gt;hadoop.proxyuser.hive.groups&lt;/name&gt;</TD></TR><TR><TD> &lt;value&gt;*&lt;/value&gt;</TD></TR><TR><TD> &lt;/property&gt;</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P>Vendor claimed that the insert overwrite should able to create the folder if the folder does not exist:</P><P>"the behavior you’ve shown with beeline is not the expected behavior for insert/overwrite. Insert/overwrite should create the directory and write to it, or if it already exists, should clobber then remake it."</P><P>We are not too sure about if this is true, that's why we are asking about the default behavior of insert overwrite.</P><P>What are we testing is a very simple insert overwrite:</P><P>INSERT OVERWRITE TABLE `dev_tc30_dataiku`.`config_another_test_output` SELECT *</P><P> FROM `dev_tc30_dataiku`.`config_another_test_dev_demo`</P><P>Thanks,</P><P>John</P> Thu, 22 Nov 2018 10:39:27 GMT dahai_long 2018-11-22T10:39:27Z