Option 1: Automatically connect an instance to an RDS database using the EC2 console - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Before you beginTask 1 (Optional): Create an RDS databaseTask 2 (Optional): Launch an EC2 instanceTask 3: Automatically connect your EC2 instance to your RDS databaseTask 4: Verify the connection configurationTask 5 (Optional): Clean up

Option 1: Automatically connect an instance to an RDS database using the EC2 console

The objective of Option 1 is to explore the automatic connection feature in the EC2 console that automatically configures the connection between your EC2 instance and RDS database to allow traffic from the EC2 instance to the RDS database. In Option 3, you'll learn how to manually configure the connection.

Before you begin

You'll need the following to complete this tutorial:

  • An RDS database that is in the same VPC as the EC2 instance. You can either use an existing RDS database or follow the steps in Task 1 to create a new RDS database.

  • An EC2 instance that is in the same VPC as the RDS database. You can either use an existing EC2 instance or follow the steps in Task 2 to create a new EC2 instance.

  • Permissions to call the following operations:

    • ec2:AssociateRouteTable

    • ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress

    • ec2:CreateRouteTable

    • ec2:CreateSecurityGroup

    • ec2:CreateSubnet

    • ec2:DescribeInstances

    • ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces

    • ec2:DescribeRouteTables

    • ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups

    • ec2:DescribeSubnets

    • ec2:ModifyNetworkInterfaceAttribute

    • ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress

Task 1 (Optional): Create an RDS database

Note

Creating a Amazon RDS database is not the focus of this tutorial. If you already have an RDS database and would like to use it in this tutorial, you can skip this task.

If you use an existing RDS database, make sure that it is in the same VPC as your EC2 instance so that you can use the automatic connection feature.

The objective of this task is to create an RDS database so that you can complete Task 3 where you configure the connection between your EC2 instance and your RDS database. The steps in this task configure the RDS database as follows:

  • Engine type: MySQL

  • Template: Free tier

  • DB instance identifier: tutorial-database-1

  • DB instance class: db.t3.micro

Important

In a production environment, you should configure your database to meet your specific needs.

To create a MySQL RDS database

  1. Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

  2. From the Region selector (at top right), choose an AWS Region. The database and the EC2 instance must be in the same Region in order to use the automatic connection feature in the EC2 console.

  3. On the dashboard, choose Create database.

  4. Under Choose a database creation method, check that Standard create is selected. If you choose Easy create, the VPC selector is not available. You must ensure that your database is in the same VPC as your EC2 instance in order to use the automatic connection feature in the EC2 console.

  5. Under Engine options, for Engine type, choose MySQL.

  6. Under Templates, choose a sample template to meet your needs. For this tutorial, choose Free tier to create an RDS database at no cost. However, note that the free tier is only available if your account is less than 12 months old. Other restrictions apply. You can read more by choosing the Info link in the Free tier box.

  7. Under Settings, do the following:

    1. For DB instance identifier, enter a name for the database. For this tutorial, enter tutorial-database-1.

    2. For Master username, leave the default name, which is admin.

    3. For Master password, enter a password that you can remember for this tutorial, and then, for Confirm password, enter the password again.

  8. Under Instance configuration, for DB instance class, leave the default, which is db.t3.micro.If your account is less than 12 months, you can use this database class for free. Other restrictions apply. For more information, see AWS Free Tier.

  9. Under Connectivity, for Compute resource, choose Don't connect to an EC2 compute resource because you'll connect the EC2 instance and the RDS database later in Task 3.

    (Later, in Option 2 of this tutorial, you'll try out the automatic connection feature in the RDS console by choosing Connect to an EC2 compute resource.)

  10. For Virtual private cloud (VPC), choose a VPC. The VPC must have a DB subnet group. To use the automatic connection feature, your EC2 instance and RDS database must be in the same VPC.

  11. Keep all the default values for the other fields on this page.

  12. Choose Create database.

    On the Databases screen, the Status of the new database is Creating until the database is ready to use. When the status changes to Available, you can connect to the database. Depending on the database class and the amount of storage, it can take up to 20 minutes before the new database is available.

This animation shows how to create an RDS database. For the text version of this animation, see the steps in the preceding procedure.

Task 2 (Optional): Launch an EC2 instance

Note

Launching an instance is not the focus of this tutorial. If you already have an Amazon EC2 instance and would like to use it in this tutorial, you can skip this task.

If you use an existing EC2 instance, make sure that it is in the same VPC as your RDS database so that you can use the automatic connection feature.

The objective of this task is to launch an EC2 instance so that you can complete Task 3 where you configure the connection between your EC2 instance and your Amazon RDS database. The steps in this task configure the EC2 instance as follows:

  • Instance name: tutorial-instance-1

  • AMI: Amazon Linux 2

  • Instance type: t2.micro

  • Auto-assign public IP: Enabled

  • Security group with the following three rules:

    • Allow SSH from your IP address

    • Allow HTTPS traffic from anywhere

    • Allow HTTP traffic from anywhere

Important

In a production environment, you should configure your instance to meet your specific needs.

To launch an EC2 instance

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. From the Region selector (at top right), choose an AWS Region. The instance and the RDS database must be in the same Region in order to use the automatic connection feature in the EC2 console.

  3. On the EC2 Dashboard, choose Launch instance.

  4. Under Name and tags, for Name, enter a name to identify your instance. For this tutorial, name the instance tutorial-instance-1. While the instance name is not mandatory, when you select your instance in the EC2 console, the name will help you easily identify it.

  5. Under Application and OS Images, choose an AMI that meets your web server needs. This tutorial uses Amazon Linux 2.

  6. Under Instance type, for Instance type, select an instance type that meets your web server needs. This tutorial uses t2.micro.

    Note

    You can use Amazon EC2 under the Free tier provided your AWS account is less than 12 months old and you choose a t2.micro instance type, or t3.micro in Regions where t2.micro is not available. Be aware that when you launch a t3.micro instance, it defaults to Unlimited mode, which might incur additional charges based on CPU usage.

  7. Under Key pair (login), for Key pair name, choose your key pair.

  8. Under Network settings, do the following:

    1. For Network and Subnet, if you haven’t made changes to your default VPC or subnets, you can keep the default settings.

      If you have made changes to your default VPC or subnets, check the following:

      1. The instance must be in the same VPC as the RDS database to use the automatic connection feature. By default you have only one VPC.

      2. The VPC that you’re launching your instance into must have an internet gateway attached to it so that you can access your web server from the internet. Your default VPC is automatically set up with an internet gateway.

      3. To ensure that your instance receives a public IP address, for Auto-assign public IP, check that Enable is selected. If Disable is selected, choose Edit (to the right of Network Settings), and then, for Auto-assign public IP, choose Enable.

    2. To connect to your instance by using SSH, you need a security group rule that authorizes SSH (Linux) or RDP (Windows) traffic from your computer’s public IPv4 address. By default, when you launch an instance, a new security group is created with a rule that allows inbound SSH traffic from anywhere.

      To make sure that only your IP address can connect to your instance, under Firewall (security groups), from the drop-down list next to the Allow SSH traffic from checkbox, choose My IP.

    3. To allow traffic from the internet to your instance, select the following checkboxes:

      • Allow HTTPs traffic from the internet

      • Allow HTTP traffic from the internet

  9. In the Summary panel, review your instance configuration and then choose Launch instance.

  10. Keep the confirmation page open. You'll need it for the next task when you automatically connect your instance to your database.

    If the instance fails to launch or the state immediately goes to terminated instead of running, see Troubleshoot Amazon EC2 instance launch issues.

For more information about launching an instance, see Launch an EC2 instance using the launch instance wizard in the console.

This animation shows how to launch an EC2 instance. For the text version of this animation, see the steps in the preceding procedure.

Task 3: Automatically connect your EC2 instance to your RDS database

The objective of this task is to use the automatic connection feature in the EC2 console to automatically configure the connection between your EC2 instance and your RDS database.

To automatically connect an EC2 instance to an RDS database using the EC2 console

  1. On the instance launch confirmation page (it should be open from the previous task), choose Connect an RDS database.

    If you closed the confirmation page, follow these steps:

    1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

    2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

    3. Select the EC2 instance that you just created, and then choose Actions, Networking, Connect RDS database.

      If Connect RDS database is not available, check that the EC2 instance is in the Running state.

  2. For Database role, choose Instance. Instance in this case refers to the database instance.

  3. For RDS database, choose the RDS database that you created in Task 1.

    Note

    The EC2 instance and the RDS database must be in the same VPC in order to connect to each other.

  4. Choose Connect.

This animation shows how to select an existing EC2 instance in the EC2 console and use the automatic connection feature to connect the EC2 instance to an RDS database. For the text version of this animation, see the steps in the preceding procedure.

Task 4: Verify the connection configuration

The objective of this task is to verify that the two security groups were created and assigned to the instance and database.

When you use the automatic connection feature in the console to configure the connectivity, the security groups are automatically created and assigned to the instance and database, as follows:

  • Security group rds-ec2-x is created and added to the RDS database. It has one inbound rule that references the ec2-rds-x security group as its source. This allows traffic from the EC2 instance with the ec2-rds-x security group to reach the RDS database.

  • Security group ec2-rds-x is created and added to the EC2 instance. It has one outbound rule that references the rds-ec2-x security group as its destination. This allows traffic from the EC2 instance to reach the RDS database with the rds-ec2-x security group.

To verify the connection configuration using the console

  1. Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

  2. In the navigation page, choose Databases.

  3. Choose the RDS database that you created for this tutorial.

  4. On the Connectivity & security tab, under Security, VPC security groups, verify that a security group called rds-ec2-x is displayed.

  5. Choose the rds-ec2-x security group. The Security Groups screen in the EC2 console opens.

  6. Choose the rds-ec2-x security group to open it.

  7. Choose the Inbound rules tab.

  8. Verify that the following security group rule exists, as follows:

    • Type: MYSQL/Aurora

    • Port range: 3306

    • Source: sg-0987654321example / ec2-rds-x – This is the security group that is assigned to the EC2 instance that you verified in the preceding steps.

    • Description: Rule to allow connections from EC2 instances with sg-1234567890example attached

  9. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  10. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

  11. Choose the EC2 instance that you selected to connect to the RDS database in the previous task, and choose the Security tab.

  12. Under Security details, Security groups, verify that a security group called ec2-rds-x is in the list. x is a number.

  13. Choose the ec2-rds-x security group to open it.

  14. Choose the Outbound rules tab.

  15. Verify that the following security group rule exists, as follows:

    • Type: MYSQL/Aurora

    • Port range: 3306

    • Destination: sg-1234567890example / rds-ec2-x

    • Description: Rule to allow connections to database-tutorial from any instances this security group is attached to

By verifying that these security groups and security group rules exist and that they are assigned to the RDS database and EC2 instance as described in this procedure, you can verify that the connection was automatically configured by using the automatic connection feature.

This animation shows how to verify the connection configuration. For the text version of this animation, see the steps in the preceding procedure.

You have completed Option 1 of this tutorial. You can now either complete Option 2, which teaches you how to use the RDS console to automatically connect an EC2 instance to an RDS database, or you can complete Option 3, which teaches you how to manually configure the security groups that were automatically created in Option 1.

Task 5 (Optional): Clean up

Now that you have completed the tutorial, it is good practice to clean up (delete) any resources you no longer want to use. Cleaning up AWS resources prevents your account from incurring any further charges.

If you launched an EC2 instance specifically for this tutorial, you can terminate it to stop incurring any charges associated with it.

To terminate an instance using the console

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

  3. Select the instance that you created for this tutorial, and choose Instance state, Terminate instance.

  4. Choose Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

If you created an RDS database specifically for this tutorial, you can delete it to stop incurring any charges associated with it.

To delete an RDS database using the console

  1. Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Databases.

  3. Select the RDS database that you created for this tutorial, and choose Actions, Delete.

  4. Enter delete me in the box, and then choose Delete.