AWS RDS Postgres connection failure

Question

I am getting started on AWS RDS. I am trying to create a public PostgreSQL instance (free tier) and trying to connect from my local laptop through SQL Workbench. I am following the instructions from this https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/tutorials/create-connect-postgresql-db/

But, when I try to connect from SQL Workbench, I get "connection attempt failed" error. I have verified the steps, host name, port, dbname to make sure I am not missing any. I am still unable connect from SQL Workbench.

Do I have to take care of any other configurations? Is there a way to debug if the rds db instance is reachable (ping/te.net)? Appreciate any help with this. Thank you!

Answer 1

SQL Workbench was a MySQL client GUI last time I checked. So it is not surprising if it cannot connect to a database forked from PostgreSQL.

Try psql or some other PostgreSQL client software.

Answer 2

You should check the following on the Amazon RDS instance:

• It is set to publicly accessible
• It is in a public subnet
• It has a security group configured to permit inbound access from your IP address on port 3306
• Your local network is not blocking the connection (try it from home, or tethered via your phone)

Answer 3

I had two issues I had to fix to make it work:

1. I was reusing a security group previously configured for MySQL and it had only MySQL port configured. I had to add a rule for Postgres port. It seems to be a pretty common issue mentioned in other answers for rds connectivity. That has fixed timeout but did not fix connectivity in general.
2. One more issue I haven't seen anywhere - I was trying to use a custom "Master username". That didn't work. But when I left a default "postgres" value - I was able to connect.