Setting up for Amazon RDS - Amazon Relational Database Service
Sign up for an Amazon Web Services accountSecure IAM usersGrant programmatic accessDetermine requirementsProvide access to your DB instance
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Setting up for Amazon RDS

Before you use Amazon Relational Database Service for the first time, complete the following tasks.

If you already have an Amazon Web Services account, know your Amazon RDS requirements, and prefer to use the defaults for IAM and VPC security groups, skip ahead to Getting started with Amazon RDS.

Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

To sign up for Amazon Web Services

  1. Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choose Sign Up.

  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choosing My Account.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Grant programmatic access

Users need programmatic access if they want to interact with Amazon outside of the Amazon Web Services Management Console. The Amazon APIs and the Amazon Command Line Interface require access keys. Whenever possible, create temporary credentials that consist of an access key ID, a secret access key, and a security token that indicates when the credentials expire.

To grant users programmatic access, choose one of the following options.

Which user needs programmatic access? To By
IAM Use short-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the Amazon CLI or Amazon APIs (directly or by using the Amazon SDKs). Following the instructions in Using temporary credentials with Amazon resources in the IAM User Guide.
IAM

(Not recommended)

Use long-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the Amazon CLI or Amazon APIs (directly or by using the Amazon SDKs).		 Following the instructions in Managing access keys for IAM users in the IAM User Guide.

Determine requirements

The basic building block of Amazon RDS is the DB instance. In a DB instance, you create your databases. A DB instance provides a network address called an endpoint. Your applications use this endpoint to connect to your DB instance. When you create a DB instance, you specify details like storage, memory, database engine and version, network configuration, security, and maintenance periods. You control network access to a DB instance through a security group.

Before you create a DB instance and a security group, you must know your DB instance and network needs. Here are some important things to consider:

  • Resource requirements – What are the memory and processor requirements for your application or service? You use these settings to help you determine what DB instance class to use. For specifications about DB instance classes, see DB instance classes.

  • VPC, subnet, and security group – Your DB instance will most likely be in a virtual private cloud (VPC). To connect to your DB instance, you need to set up security group rules. These rules are set up differently depending on what kind of VPC you use and how you use it. For example, you can use: a default VPC or a user-defined VPC.

    The following list describes the rules for each VPC option:

    • Default VPC – If your Amazon account has a default VPC in the current Amazon Region, that VPC is configured to support DB instances. If you specify the default VPC when you create the DB instance, do the following:

      • Make sure to create a VPC security group that authorizes connections from the application or service to the Amazon RDS DB instance. Use the Security Group option on the VPC console or the Amazon CLI to create VPC security groups. For information, see Step 3: Create a VPC security group.

      • Specify the default DB subnet group. If this is the first DB instance you have created in this Amazon Region, Amazon RDS creates the default DB subnet group when it creates the DB instance.

    • User-defined VPC – If you want to specify a user-defined VPC when you create a DB instance, be aware of the following:

      • Make sure to create a VPC security group that authorizes connections from the application or service to the Amazon RDS DB instance. Use the Security Group option on the VPC console or the Amazon CLI to create VPC security groups. For information, see Step 3: Create a VPC security group.

      • The VPC must meet certain requirements in order to host DB instances, such as having at least two subnets, each in a separate Availability Zone. For information, see Amazon VPC VPCs and Amazon RDS.

      • Make sure to specify a DB subnet group that defines which subnets in that VPC can be used by the DB instance. For information, see the DB subnet group section in Working with a DB instance in a VPC.

  • High availability – Do you need failover support? On Amazon RDS, a Multi-AZ deployment creates a primary DB instance and a secondary standby DB instance in another Availability Zone for failover support. We recommend Multi-AZ deployments for production workloads to maintain high availability. For development and test purposes, you can use a deployment that isn't Multi-AZ. For more information, see Configuring and managing a Multi-AZ deployment.

  • IAM policies – Does your Amazon account have policies that grant the permissions needed to perform Amazon RDS operations? If you are connecting to Amazon using IAM credentials, your IAM account must have IAM policies that grant the permissions required to perform Amazon RDS operations. For more information, see Identity and access management for Amazon RDS.

  • Open ports – What TCP/IP port does your database listen on? The firewalls at some companies might block connections to the default port for your database engine. If your company firewall blocks the default port, choose another port for the new DB instance. When you create a DB instance that listens on a port you specify, you can change the port by modifying the DB instance.

  • Amazon Region – What Amazon Region do you want your database in? Having your database in close proximity to your application or web service can reduce network latency. For more information, see Regions, Availability Zones, and Local Zones.

  • DB disk subsystem – What are your storage requirements? Amazon RDS provides three storage types:

    • General Purpose (SSD)

    • Provisioned IOPS (PIOPS)

    • Magnetic (also known as standard storage)

    For more information on Amazon RDS storage, see Amazon RDS DB instance storage.

When you have the information you need to create the security group and the DB instance, continue to the next step.

Provide access to your DB instance in your VPC by creating a security group

VPC security groups provide access to DB instances in a VPC. They act as a firewall for the associated DB instance, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic at the DB instance level. DB instances are created by default with a firewall and a default security group that protect the DB instance.

Before you can connect to your DB instance, you must add rules to a security group that enable you to connect. Use your network and configuration information to create rules to allow access to your DB instance.

For example, suppose that you have an application that accesses a database on your DB instance in a VPC. In this case, you must add a custom TCP rule that specifies the port range and IP addresses that your application uses to access the database. If you have an application on an Amazon EC2 instance, you can use the security group that you set up for the Amazon EC2 instance.

You can configure connectivity between an Amazon EC2 instance a DB instance when you create the DB instance. For more information, see Configure automatic network connectivity with an EC2 instance.

Tip

You can set up network connectivity between an Amazon EC2 instance and a DB instance automatically when you create the DB instance. For more information, see Configure automatic network connectivity with an EC2 instance.

For information about common scenarios for accessing a DB instance, see Scenarios for accessing a DB instance in a VPC.

To create a VPC security group

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/vpc.

    Note

    Make sure you are in the VPC console, not the RDS console.

  2. In the upper-right corner of the Amazon Web Services Management Console, choose the Amazon Region where you want to create your VPC security group and DB instance. In the list of Amazon VPC resources for that Amazon Region, you should see at least one VPC and several subnets. If you don't, you don't have a default VPC in that Amazon Region.

  3. In the navigation pane, choose Security Groups.

  4. Choose Create security group.

    The Create security group page appears.

  5. In Basic details, enter the Security group name and Description. For VPC, choose the VPC that you want to create your DB instance in.

  6. In Inbound rules, choose Add rule.

    1. For Type, choose Custom TCP.

    2. For Port range, enter the port value to use for your DB instance.

    3. For Source, choose a security group name or type the IP address range (CIDR value) from where you access the DB instance. If you choose My IP, this allows access to the DB instance from the IP address detected in your browser.

  7. If you need to add more IP addresses or different port ranges, choose Add rule and enter the information for the rule.

  8. (Optional) In Outbound rules, add rules for outbound traffic. By default, all outbound traffic is allowed.

  9. Choose Create security group.

You can use the VPC security group that you just created as the security group for your DB instance when you create it.

Note

If you use a default VPC, a default subnet group spanning all of the VPC's subnets is created for you. When you create a DB instance, you can select the default VPC and use default for DB Subnet Group.

After you have completed the setup requirements, you can create a DB instance using your requirements and security group. To do so, follow the instructions in Creating an Amazon RDS DB instance. For information about getting started by creating a DB instance that uses a specific DB engine, see the relevant documentation in the following table.

Note

If you can't connect to a DB instance after you create it, see the troubleshooting information in Can't connect to Amazon RDS DB instance.