Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB instance or cluster - Amazon Relational Database Service
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Using SSL/TLS to encrypt a connection to a DB instance or cluster

You can use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) from your application to encrypt a connection to a database running Db2, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, or PostgreSQL.

SSL/TLS connections provide a layer of security by encrypting data that moves between your client and DB instance or cluster. Optionally, your SSL/TLS connection can perform server identity verification by validating the server certificate installed on your database. To require server identity verification, follow this general process:

  1. Choose the certificate authority (CA) that signs the DB server certificate, for your database. For more information about certificate authorities, see Certificate authorities.

  2. Download a certificate bundle to use when you are connecting to the database. To download a certificate bundle, see Certificate bundles for specific Amazon Web Services Regions.

    Note

    All certificates are only available for download using SSL/TLS connections.

  3. Connect to the database using your DB engine's process for implementing SSL/TLS connections. Each DB engine has its own process for implementing SSL/TLS. To learn how to implement SSL/TLS for your database, follow the link that corresponds to your DB engine:

Certificate authorities

The certificate authority (CA) is the certificate that identifies the root CA at the top of the certificate chain. The CA signs the DB server certificate, which is installed on each DB instance. The DB server certificate identifies the DB instance as a trusted server.


                            Certificate authority overview

Amazon RDS provides the following CAs to sign the DB server certificate for a database.

Certificate authority (CA) Description

rds-ca-2019

Uses a certificate authority with RSA 2048 private key algorithm and SHA256 signing algorithm. This CA expires in 2024 and doesn't support automatic server certificate rotation. If you are using this CA and want to keep the same standard, we recommend that you switch to the rds-ca-rsa2048-g1 CA.

rds-ca-rsa2048-g1

Uses a certificate authority with RSA 2048 private key algorithm and SHA256 signing algorithm in most Amazon Web Services Regions.

In the Amazon GovCloud (US) Regions, this CA uses a certificate authority with RSA 2048 private key algorithm and SHA384 signing algorithm.

This CA remains valid for longer than the rds-ca-2019 CA. This CA supports automatic server certificate rotation.

Note

If you are using the Amazon CLI, you can see the validities of the certificate authorities listed above by using describe-certificates.

These CA certificates are included in the regional and global certificate bundle. When you use the rds-ca-rsa2048-g1 CA with a database, RDS manages the DB server certificate on the database. RDS rotates the DB server certificate automatically before it expires.

Setting the CA for your database

You can set the CA for a database when you perform the following tasks:

Note

The default CA is set to rds-ca-rsa2048-g1. You can override the default CA for your Amazon Web Services account by using the modify-certificates command.

The available CAs depend on the DB engine and DB engine version. When you use the Amazon Web Services Management Console, you can choose the CA using the Certificate authority setting, as shown in the following image.


                        Certificate authority option

The console only shows the CAs that are available for the DB engine and DB engine version. If you're using the Amazon CLI, you can set the CA for a DB instance using the create-db-instance or modify-db-instance command. You can set the CA for a Multi-AZ DB cluster using the create-db-cluster or modify-db-cluster command.

If you're using the Amazon CLI, you can see the available CAs for your account by using the describe-certificates command. This command also shows the expiration date for each CA in ValidTill in the output. You can find the CAs that are available for a specific DB engine and DB engine version using the describe-db-engine-versions command.

The following example shows the CAs available for the default RDS for PostgreSQL DB engine version.

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions --default-only --engine postgres

Your output is similar to the following. The available CAs are listed in SupportedCACertificateIdentifiers. The output also shows whether the DB engine version supports rotating the certificate without restart in SupportsCertificateRotationWithoutRestart.

{ "DBEngineVersions": [ { "Engine": "postgres", "MajorEngineVersion": "13", "EngineVersion": "13.4", "DBParameterGroupFamily": "postgres13", "DBEngineDescription": "PostgreSQL", "DBEngineVersionDescription": "PostgreSQL 13.4-R1", "ValidUpgradeTarget": [], "SupportsLogExportsToCloudwatchLogs": false, "SupportsReadReplica": true, "SupportedFeatureNames": [ "Lambda" ], "Status": "available", "SupportsParallelQuery": false, "SupportsGlobalDatabases": false, "SupportsBabelfish": false, "SupportsCertificateRotationWithoutRestart": true, "SupportedCACertificateIdentifiers": [ "rds-ca-2019", "rds-ca-rsa2048-g1", "rds-ca-ecc384-g1", "rds-ca-rsa4096-g1" ] } ] }

DB server certificate validities

The validity of DB server certificate depends on the DB engine and DB engine version. If the DB engine version supports rotating the certificate without restart, the validity of the DB server certificate is 1 year. Otherwise the validity is 3 years.

For more information about DB server certificate rotation, see Automatic server certificate rotation.

Viewing the CA for your DB instance

You can view the details about the CA for a database by viewing the Connectivity & security tab in the console, as in the following image.


                        Certificate authority details

If you're using the Amazon CLI, you can view the details about the CA for a DB instance by using the describe-db-instances command. You can view the details about the CA for a Multi-AZ DB cluster by using the describe-db-clusters command.

To check the contents of your CA certificate bundle, use the following command:

keytool -printcert -v -file global-bundle.pem

Certificate bundles for specific Amazon Web Services Regions

To get a certificate bundle that contains both the intermediate and root certificates for the China (Beijing) Amazon Region or China (Ningxia) Amazon Region, downloaded at https://rds-truststore.s3.cn-north-1.amazonaws.com.cn/global/global-bundle.pem. If your application is on Microsoft Windows and requires a PKCS7 file, you can download the PKCS7 certificate bundle that contains both the intermediate and root certificates at https://rds-truststore.s3.cn-north-1.amazonaws.com.cn/global/global-bundle.p7b.

To get a certificate bundle that contains both the intermediate and root certificates for an Amazon Region, download from the link for the Amazon Region in the following table.

Amazon Region Certificate bundle (PEM) Certificate bundle (PKCS7)
China (Beijing) cn-north-1-bundle.pem cn-north-1-bundle.p7b
China (Ningxia) cn-northwest-1-bundle.pem cn-northwest-1-bundle.p7b