Today I explored aurora serverless, I am currently working on migrating a website database to more available architecture. I started off by creating a serverless database and attempting to connect using a local MySQL program. After multiple attempts I realized that it was not working. I troubleshooted this issue over a long period and went over multiple scenarios. The first thing I would like to ask the reader is: Do you think its possible to normally connect to a serverless aurora database without a bastion host? the answer is:
I used the following methodology to track the connection and see exactly where the connection is being refused. I downloaded wireshark and attempted to connect and saw the following log:
So I understand that the DNS server is resolving an IP address in my private VPC range however the connection is still not going through. I proceeded to then use VPC flow logs to log each ENI to see if connections were able to traverse the VPC. My logs showed:
I tested this with an EC2 instance and was able to track successful connections. After digging around online I found an article that explains why its not possible. Apparently a private link connection is required, I then attempted to use an RDS provisioned instance instead and connected using Mysql Workbench. I attempted to copy my database from my instance to the online RDS database and was not able to. I suspect that since its a much older instance that the database and bitnami image was out of date.
I plan on continuing this project on my own chapter’s WordPress website. Phillymosque.com I will update once completed.