# Connecting to your DB cluster using IAM authentication and the AWS SDK for .NET
<a name="UsingWithRDS.IAMDBAuth.Connecting.NET"></a>

You can connect to an Aurora MySQL or Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster with the AWS SDK for .NET as described following.

**Prerequisites**  
The following are prerequisites for connecting to your DB cluster using IAM authentication:
+ [Enabling and disabling IAM database authentication](UsingWithRDS.IAMDBAuth.Enabling.md)
+ [Creating and using an IAM policy for IAM database access](UsingWithRDS.IAMDBAuth.IAMPolicy.md)
+ [Creating a database account using IAM authentication](UsingWithRDS.IAMDBAuth.DBAccounts.md)

**Examples**  
The following code examples show how to generate an authentication token, and then use it to connect to a DB cluster.

To run this code example, you need the [AWS SDK for .NET](http://aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-net/), found on the AWS site. The `AWSSDK.CORE` and the `AWSSDK.RDS` packages are required. To connect to a DB cluster, use the .NET database connector for the DB engine, such as MySqlConnector for MariaDB or MySQL, or Npgsql for PostgreSQL.

This code connects to an Aurora MySQL DB cluster. Modify the values of the following variables as needed:
+ `server` – The endpoint of the DB cluster that you want to access
+ `user` – The database account that you want to access
+ `database` – The database that you want to access
+ `port` – The port number used for connecting to your DB cluster
+ `SslMode` – The SSL mode to use

  When you use `SslMode=Required`, the SSL connection verifies the DB cluster endpoint against the endpoint in the SSL certificate.
+ `SslCa` – The full path to the SSL certificate for Amazon Aurora

  To download a certificate, see [Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB cluster](UsingWithRDS.SSL.md).

**Note**  
You cannot use a custom Route 53 DNS record instead of the DB cluster endpoint to generate the authentication token.

```
using System;
using System.Data;
using MySql.Data;
using MySql.Data.MySqlClient;
using Amazon;

namespace ubuntu
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      var pwd = Amazon.RDS.Util.RDSAuthTokenGenerator.GenerateAuthToken(RegionEndpoint.USEast1, "mysqlcluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com", 3306, "jane_doe");
      // for debug only Console.Write("{0}\n", pwd);  //this verifies the token is generated

      MySqlConnection conn = new MySqlConnection($"server=mysqlcluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com;user=jane_doe;database=mydB;port=3306;password={pwd};SslMode=Required;SslCa=full_path_to_ssl_certificate");
      conn.Open();

      // Define a query
      MySqlCommand sampleCommand = new MySqlCommand("SHOW DATABASES;", conn);

      // Execute a query
      MySqlDataReader mysqlDataRdr = sampleCommand.ExecuteReader();

      // Read all rows and output the first column in each row
      while (mysqlDataRdr.Read())
        Console.WriteLine(mysqlDataRdr[0]);

      mysqlDataRdr.Close();
      // Close connection
      conn.Close();
    }
  }
}
```

This code connects to an Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster.

Modify the values of the following variables as needed:
+ `Server` – The endpoint of the DB cluster that you want to access
+ `User ID` – The database account that you want to access
+ `Database` – The database that you want to access
+ `Port` – The port number used for connecting to your DB cluster
+ `SSL Mode` – The SSL mode to use

  When you use `SSL Mode=Required`, the SSL connection verifies the DB cluster endpoint against the endpoint in the SSL certificate.
+ `Root Certificate` – The full path to the SSL certificate for Amazon Aurora

  To download a certificate, see [Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB cluster](UsingWithRDS.SSL.md).

**Note**  
You cannot use a custom Route 53 DNS record instead of the DB cluster endpoint to generate the authentication token.

```
using System;
using Npgsql;
using Amazon.RDS.Util;

namespace ConsoleApp1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var pwd = RDSAuthTokenGenerator.GenerateAuthToken("postgresmycluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com", 5432, "jane_doe");
// for debug only Console.Write("{0}\n", pwd);  //this verifies the token is generated

            NpgsqlConnection conn = new NpgsqlConnection($"Server=postgresmycluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com;User Id=jane_doe;Password={pwd};Database=mydb;SSL Mode=Require;Root Certificate=full_path_to_ssl_certificate");
            conn.Open();

            // Define a query
                   NpgsqlCommand cmd = new NpgsqlCommand("select count(*) FROM pg_user", conn);

            // Execute a query
            NpgsqlDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();

            // Read all rows and output the first column in each row
            while (dr.Read())
                Console.Write("{0}\n", dr[0]);

            // Close connection
            conn.Close();
        }
    }
}
```

If you want to connect to a DB cluster through a proxy, see [Connecting to a database using IAM authentication](rds-proxy-connecting.md#rds-proxy-connecting-iam).