# Connecting to your DB cluster using IAM authentication and the AWS SDK for Python (Boto3)
<a name="UsingWithRDS.IAMDBAuth.Connecting.Python"></a>

You can connect to an Aurora MySQL or Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster with the AWS SDK for Python (Boto3) 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)

In addition, make sure the imported libraries in the sample code exist on your system.

**Examples**  
The code examples use profiles for shared credentials. For information about the specifying credentials, see [Credentials](https://boto3.amazonaws.com/v1/documentation/api/latest/guide/credentials.html) in the AWS SDK for Python (Boto3) documentation.

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 Python (Boto3)](http://aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-python/), found on the AWS site.

Modify the values of the following variables as needed:
+ `ENDPOINT` – The endpoint of the DB cluster that you want to access
+ `PORT` – The port number used for connecting to your DB cluster
+ `USER` – The database account that you want to access
+ `REGION` – The AWS Region where the DB cluster is running
+ `DBNAME` – The database that you want to access
+ `SSLCERTIFICATE` – The full path to the SSL certificate for Amazon Aurora

  For `ssl_ca`, specify an SSL certificate. To download an SSL 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.

This code connects to an Aurora MySQL DB cluster.

Before running this code, install the PyMySQL driver by following the instructions in the [ Python Package Index](https://pypi.org/project/PyMySQL/).

```
import pymysql
import sys
import boto3
import os

ENDPOINT="mysqlcluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com"
PORT="3306"
USER="jane_doe"
REGION="us-east-1"
DBNAME="mydb"
os.environ['LIBMYSQL_ENABLE_CLEARTEXT_PLUGIN'] = '1'

#gets the credentials from .aws/credentials
session = boto3.Session(profile_name='default')
client = session.client('rds')

token = client.generate_db_auth_token(DBHostname=ENDPOINT, Port=PORT, DBUsername=USER, Region=REGION)

try:
    conn =  pymysql.connect(auth_plugin_map={'mysql_clear_password':None},host=ENDPOINT, user=USER, password=token, port=PORT, database=DBNAME, ssl_ca='SSLCERTIFICATE', ssl_verify_identity=True, ssl_verify_cert=True)
    cur = conn.cursor()
    cur.execute("""SELECT now()""")
    query_results = cur.fetchall()
    print(query_results)
except Exception as e:
    print("Database connection failed due to {}".format(e))
```

This code connects to an Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster.

Before running this code, install `psycopg2` by following the instructions in [Psycopg documentation](https://pypi.org/project/psycopg2/).

```
import psycopg2
import sys
import boto3
import os

ENDPOINT="postgresmycluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com"
PORT="5432"
USER="jane_doe"
REGION="us-east-1"
DBNAME="mydb"

#gets the credentials from .aws/credentials
session = boto3.Session(profile_name='RDSCreds')
client = session.client('rds')

token = client.generate_db_auth_token(DBHostname=ENDPOINT, Port=PORT, DBUsername=USER, Region=REGION)

try:
    conn = psycopg2.connect(host=ENDPOINT, port=PORT, database=DBNAME, user=USER, password=token, sslrootcert="SSLCERTIFICATE")
    cur = conn.cursor()
    cur.execute("""SELECT now()""")
    query_results = cur.fetchall()
    print(query_results)
except Exception as e:
    print("Database connection failed due to {}".format(e))
```

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).