Option 2: Automatically connect an instance to an RDS database using the RDS console

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

On the EC2 Dashboard, choose Launch instance.

Under Name and tags, for Name, enter a name to identify your instance. For this tutorial, name the instance tutorial-instance-2. While the instance name is not mandatory, when you select your instance in the RDS console, the name will help you easily identify it.

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

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

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

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 configuration. 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

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

Choose View all instances to close the confirmation page and return to the console. Your instance will first be in a pending state, and will then go into the running state.

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

Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

From the Region selector (at top right), choose the Amazon Web Services Region in which you created the EC2 instance. The EC2 instance and the RDS database must be in the same Region.

On the dashboard, choose Create database.

Under Choose a database creation method, check that Standard create is selected. If you choose Easy create, the automatic connection feature is not available.

Under Engine options, for Engine type, choose MySQL.

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.

Under Settings, do the following:

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

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.

Under Instance configuration, for DB instance class, leave the default, which is db.t3.micro.

Under Connectivity, for Compute resource, choose Connect to an EC2 compute resource. This is the automatic connection feature in the RDS console .

For EC2 instance, choose the EC2 instance that you want to connect to. For the purposes of this tutorial, you can either choose the instance that you created in the previous task, which you named tutorial-instance, or choose another existing instance. If you don't see your instance in the list, choose the refresh icon to the right of Connectivity.

When you use the automatic connection feature, a security group is added to this EC2 instance, and another security group is added to the RDS database. The security groups are automatically configure to allow traffic between the EC2 instance and the RDS database. In the next task, you'll verify that the security groups were created and assigned to the EC2 instance and RDS database.

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.

Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

In the navigation page, choose Databases.

Choose the RDS database that you created for this tutorial.

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

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

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

Choose the Inbound rules tab.

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

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

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

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

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

Choose the Outbound rules tab.

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

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

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

Choose Terminate when prompted for confirmation.

Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/rds/.

In the navigation pane, choose Databases.

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

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