Amazon RDS API and interface VPC endpoints (Amazon PrivateLink)

You can establish a private connection between your VPC and Amazon RDS API endpoints by creating an interface VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by Amazon PrivateLink.

Amazon PrivateLink enables you to privately access Amazon RDS API operations without an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or Amazon Direct Connect connection. DB instances in your VPC don't need public IP addresses to communicate with Amazon RDS API endpoints to launch, modify, or terminate DB instances and DB clusters. Your DB instances also don't need public IP addresses to use any of the available RDS API operations. Traffic between your VPC and Amazon RDS doesn't leave the Amazon network.

Each interface endpoint is represented by one or more elastic network interfaces in your subnets. For more information on elastic network interfaces, see Elastic network interfaces in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

For more information about VPC endpoints, see Interface VPC endpoints (Amazon PrivateLink) in the Amazon VPC User Guide. For more information about RDS API operations, see Amazon RDS API Reference.

You don't need an interface VPC endpoint to connect to a DB cluster. For more information, see Scenarios for accessing a DB cluster in a VPC.

Considerations for VPC endpoints

Before you set up an interface VPC endpoint for Amazon RDS API endpoints, ensure that you review Interface endpoint properties and limitations in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

All RDS API operations relevant to managing Amazon Aurora resources are available from your VPC using Amazon PrivateLink.

VPC endpoint policies are supported for RDS API endpoints. By default, full access to RDS API operations is allowed through the endpoint. For more information, see Controlling access to services with VPC endpoints in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Availability

Amazon RDS API currently supports VPC endpoints in the following Amazon Regions:

Creating an interface VPC endpoint for Amazon RDS API

You can create a VPC endpoint for the Amazon RDS API using either the Amazon VPC console or the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI). For more information, see Creating an interface endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Create a VPC endpoint for Amazon RDS API using the service name com.amazonaws.region.rds.

Excluding Amazon Regions in China, if you enable private DNS for the endpoint, you can make API requests to Amazon RDS with the VPC endpoint using its default DNS name for the Amazon Region, for example rds.us-east-1.amazonaws.com. For the China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia) Amazon Regions, you can make API requests with the VPC endpoint using rds-api.cn-north-1.amazonaws.com.cn and rds-api.cn-northwest-1.amazonaws.com.cn, respectively.

For more information, see Accessing a service through an interface endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Creating a VPC endpoint policy for Amazon RDS API

You can attach an endpoint policy to your VPC endpoint that controls access to Amazon RDS API. The policy specifies the following information:

For more information, see Controlling access to services with VPC endpoints in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Example: VPC endpoint policy for Amazon RDS API actions

The following is an example of an endpoint policy for Amazon RDS API. When attached to an endpoint, this policy grants access to the listed Amazon RDS API actions for all principals on all resources.

{
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Principal":"*",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "rds:CreateDBInstance",
            "rds:ModifyDBInstance",
            "rds:CreateDBSnapshot"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      }
   ]
}

Example: VPC endpoint policy that denies all access from a specified Amazon account

The following VPC endpoint policy denies Amazon account 123456789012 all access to resources using the endpoint. The policy allows all actions from other accounts.

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": "*",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Principal": "*"
    },
    {
      "Action": "*",
      "Effect": "Deny",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Principal": {
        "AWS": [
          "123456789012"
        ]
      }
   ]
}