Prerequisites for setting up RDS Custom for SQL Server Step 1: Grant required permissions to your IAM principal Step 2: Configure networking, instance profile, and encryption Cross-instance restriction

Setting up your environment for Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server

Before you create and manage a DB instance for Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance, make sure to perform the following tasks.

Prerequisites for setting up RDS Custom for SQL Server
- Automated instance profile creation using the AWS Management Console
Step 1: Grant required permissions to your IAM principal
Step 2: Configure networking, instance profile, and encryption
- Configuring with AWS CloudFormation
- Configuring manually
Cross-instance restriction

Note

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to set up prerequisites and launch Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server, see Get started with Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server using an CloudFormation template (Network setup) and Explore the prerequisites required to create an Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server instance.

Prerequisites for setting up RDS Custom for SQL Server

Before creating an RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance, make sure that your environment meets the requirements described in this topic. You can also use the CloudFormation template to set up the prerequisites within your AWS account. For more information, see Configuring with AWS CloudFormation

RDS Custom for SQL Server requires that you configure the following prerequisites:

Configure the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions required for instance creation. This is the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user or role needed to make a create-db-instance request to RDS.
Configure prerequisite resources required by RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance:
- Configure the AWS KMS key required for encryption of RDS Custom instance. RDS Custom requires a customer managed key at the time of instance creation for encryption. The KMS key ARN, ID, alias ARN, or alias name is passed as kms-key-id parameter in the request to create the RDS Custom DB instance.
- Configure the permissions required inside RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance. RDS Custom attaches an instance profile to DB instance at creation and uses it for automation within the DB instance. The instance profile name is set to custom-iam-instance-profile in the RDS Custom create request. You can create an instance profile from the AWS Management Console or manually create your instance profile. For more information, see Automated instance profile creation using the AWS Management Console and Creating your IAM role and instance profile manually.
- Configure the networking setup as per the requirements of RDS Custom for SQL Server. RDS Custom instances reside in the subnets (configured with DB subnet group) that you provide at instance creation. These subnets must allow RDS Custom instances to communicate with services required for RDS automation.

Note

For the requirements mentioned above, make sure there aren't any service control policies (SCPs) restricting account level permissions.

If the account that you're using is part of an AWS Organization, it might have service control policies (SCPs) restricting account level permissions. Make sure that the SCPs don't restrict the permissions on users and roles that you create using the following procedures.

For more information about SCPs, see Service control policies (SCPs) in the AWS Organizations User Guide. Use the describe-organization AWS CLI command to check whether your account is part of an AWS Organization.

For more information about AWS Organizations, see What is AWS Organizations in the AWS Organizations User Guide.

For general requirements that apply to RDS Custom for SQL Server, see General requirements for RDS Custom for SQL Server.

Automated instance profile creation using the AWS Management Console

RDS Custom requires you to create and configure an instance profile to launch any RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance. Use the AWS Management Console to create and attach a new instance profile in a single step. This option is available under RDS Custom security section in the Create database, Restore snapshot, and Restore to point in time console pages. Choose Create a new instance profile to provide an instance profile name suffix. The AWS Management Console creates a new instance profile that has the permissions required for RDS Custom automation tasks. To automatically create new instance profiles, your logged-in AWS Management Console user must have iam:CreateInstanceProfile, iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile, iam:CreateRole, and iam:AttachRolePolicy permissions.

Note

This option is only available in the AWS Management Console. If you are using the CLI or SDK, use the RDS Custom provided CloudFormation template or manually create an instance profile. For more information, see Creating your IAM role and instance profile manually.

Step 1: Grant required permissions to your IAM principal

Make sure that you have sufficient access to create an RDS Custom instance. The IAM role or IAM user (referred to as the IAM principal) for creating an RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance using the console or CLI must have either of the following policies for successful DB instance creation:

The AdministratorAccess policy
The AmazonRDSFullAccess policy with the following additional permissions:
```
iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy
cloudtrail:CreateTrail
cloudtrail:StartLogging
s3:CreateBucket
s3:PutBucketPolicy
s3:PutBucketObjectLockConfiguration
s3:PutBucketVersioning 
kms:CreateGrant
kms:DescribeKey
kms:Decrypt
kms:ReEncryptFrom
kms:ReEncryptTo
kms:GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext
kms:GenerateDataKey
ec2:DescribeImages
ec2:RunInstances
ec2:CreateTags  
```
RDS Custom uses these permissions during instance creation. These permissions configure resources in your account that are required for RDS Custom operations.

For more information about the kms:CreateGrant permission, see AWS KMS key management.

The following sample JSON policy grants the required permissions.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ValidateIamRole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "CreateCloudTrail",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudtrail:CreateTrail",
                "cloudtrail:StartLogging"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:*:*:trail/do-not-delete-rds-custom-*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "CreateS3Bucket",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:CreateBucket",
                "s3:PutBucketPolicy",
                "s3:PutBucketObjectLockConfiguration",
                "s3:PutBucketVersioning"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::do-not-delete-rds-custom-*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "CreateKmsGrant",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:CreateGrant",
                "kms:DescribeKey"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

The IAM principal requires the following additional permissions to work with custom engine versions (CEVs):


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ConfigureKmsKeyEncryptionPermission",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:CreateGrant",
                "kms:DescribeKey",
                "kms:Decrypt",
                "kms:ReEncryptFrom",
                "kms:ReEncryptTo",
                "kms:GenerateDataKeyWithoutPlaintext",
                "kms:GenerateDataKey"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:region:account_id:key/key_id"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "CreateEc2Instance",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:DescribeImages",
                "ec2:RunInstances",
                "ec2:CreateTags"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Replace account_id with the ID of the account that you are using to create your instance. Replace region with the AWS Region you are using to create your instance. Replace key_id with your customer managed key ID. You can add multiple keys as required.

For more information about the resource-level permissions that are required to launch an EC2 instance, see Launch instances (RunInstances).

Also, the IAM principal requires the iam:PassRole permission on the IAM role. That must be attached to the instance profile passed in the custom-iam-instance-profile parameter in the request to create the RDS Custom DB instance. The instance profile and its attached role are created later in Step 2: Configure networking, instance profile, and encryption.

Note

Make sure that the previously listed permissions aren't restricted by service control policies (SCPs), permission boundaries, or session policies associated with the IAM principal.

Step 2: Configure networking, instance profile, and encryption

You can configure your IAM instance profile role, virtual private cloud (VPC), and AWS KMS symmetric encryption key by using either of the following processes:

Configuring with AWS CloudFormation (recommended)
Configuring manually

Note

If your account is part of any AWS Organizations, make sure that the permissions required by the instance profile role aren't restricted by service control policies (SCPs).

The networking configurations in this topic work best with DB instances that aren't publicly accessible. You can't connect directly to such DB instances from outside the VPC.

Configuring with AWS CloudFormation

To simplify setup, you can use an AWS CloudFormation template file to create a CloudFormation stack. A CloudFormation template creates all the networking, instance profiles, and encryption resources according the requirements of RDS Custom.

To learn how to create stacks, see Creating a stack on the AWS CloudFormation console in the AWS CloudFormation User Guide.

For a tutorial on how to launch Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server using an AWS CloudFormation template, see Get started with Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server using an AWS CloudFormation template in the AWS Database Blog .

Topics

Parameters required by CloudFormation
Download AWS CloudFormation template file
Configuring resources using CloudFormation

Parameters required by CloudFormation

The following parameters are required to configure RDS Custom prerequisite resources with CloudFormation:

Parameter group	Parameter name	Default Value	Description
Availability Configuration	Select an availability configuration for prerequisites setup	Multi-AZ	Specify whether to setup prerequisites in Single-AZ or Multi-AZ configuration for RDS Custom instances. You should use Multi-AZ configuration if you require at least one Multi-AZ DB instance in this configuration
Network Configuration	IPv4 CIDR block for VPC	10.0.0.0/16	Specify an IPv4 CIDR block (or IP address range) for your VPC. This VPC is configured to create and work with RDS Custom DB instance.
	IPv4 CIDR block for 1 of 2 private subnets	10.0.128.0/20	Specify an IPv4 CIDR block (or IP address range) for your first private subnet. This is one of the two subnets in which the RDS Custom DB instance can be created. This is a private subnet with no access to internet.
	IPv4 CIDR block for 2 of 2 private subnets	10.0.144.0/20	Specify an IPv4 CIDR block (or IP address range) for your second private subnet. This is one of the two subnets in which the RDS Custom DB instance can be created. This is a private subnet with no access to internet.
	IPv4 CIDR block for public subnet	10.0.0.0/20	Specify an IPv4 CIDR block (or IP address range) for your public subnet. This is one of the subnet in which the EC2 instance can connect with RDS Custom DB instance can be created. This is a public subnet with access to internet.
RDP Access Configuration	IPv4 CIDR block of your source	‐	Specify an IPv4 CIDR block (or IP address range) of your source. This is the IP range from where you make RDP connection to EC2 instance in the public subnet. If not set, RDP connection to EC2 instance is not configured.
RDP Access Configuration	Setup RDP access to RDS Custom for SQL Server instance	No	Specify whether to enable the RDP connection from the EC2 instance to the RDS Custom for SQL Server instance. By default, RDP connection from the EC2 instance to the DB instance is not configured.

Successfully creating the CloudFormation stack using default settings creates the following resources in your AWS account:

Symmetric encryption KMS key for encryption of data managed by RDS Custom.
The instance profile is is associated to an IAM role with AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy to provide permissions required by RDS Custom. For more information, see AmazonRDSCustomServiceRolePolicy in the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide.
VPC with the CIDR range specified as the CloudFormation parameter. The default value is 10.0.0.0/16.
Two private subnets with the CIDR range specified in the parameters, and two different Availability Zones in the AWS Region. The default values for the subnet CIDRs are 10.0.128.0/20 and 10.0.144.0/20.
One public subnet with the CIDR range specified in the parameters. The default value for the subnet CIDR is 10.0.0.0/20. The EC2 instance resides in this subnet and can be used to connect to the RDS Custom instance.
DHCP option set for the VPC with domain name resolution to an Amazon Domain Name System (DNS) server.
Route table to associate with two private subnets and no access to the internet.
Route table to associate with public subnet and has access to the internet.
Internet gateway associated with the VPC to allow internet access to public subnet.
Network access control list (ACL) to associate with two private subnets and access restricted to HTTPS and DB port within VPC.
VPC security group to be associated with the RDS Custom instance. Access is restricted for outbound HTTPS to AWS service endpoints that are required by RDS Custom and inbound DB port from EC2 instance security group.
VPC security group to be associated with the EC2 instance in public subnet. Access is restricted for outbound DB port to RDS Custom instance security group.
VPC security group to be associated with VPC endpoints that are created for AWS service endpoints that are required by RDS Custom.
DB subnet group in which RDS Custom instances are created. Two private subnets created by this template are added to the DB subnet group.
VPC endpoints for each of the AWS service endpoints that are required by RDS Custom.

Setting availability configuration to multi-az will create following resources in addition to above list:

Network ACL rules allowing communication between private subnets.
Inbound and outbound access to Multi-AZ port within VPC security group associated with the RDS Custom instance.
VPC endpoints to AWS service endpoint(s) that are required for Multi-AZ communication.

In addition, setting RDP access configuration creates the following resources:

Configuring RDP access to public subnet from your source IP address:
- Network ACL rules that allow RDP connection from your source IP to public subnet.
- Ingress access to RDP port from your source IP to VPC security group associated with the EC2 instance.
Configuring RDP access from EC2 instance in public subnet to RDS Custom Instance in private subnets:
- Network ACL rules allowing RDP connection from public subnet to private subnets.
- Inbound access to RDP port from VPC security group associated with the EC2 instance to VPC security group associated with the RDS Custom Instance.

Use the following procedures to create the CloudFormation stack for RDS Custom for SQL Server.

Download AWS CloudFormation template file

To download the template file

Open the context (right-click) menu for the link custom-sqlserver-onboard.zip and choose Save Link As.
Save and extract the file to your computer.

Configuring resources using CloudFormation

To configure resources using CloudFormation

Open the CloudFormation console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation.
To start the Create Stack wizard, choose Create Stack.

The Create stack page appears.
For Prerequisite - Prepare template, choose Template is ready.
For Specify template, do the following:
1. For Template source, choose Upload a template file.
2. For Choose file, navigate to and then choose the correct file.
Choose Next.

The Specify stack details page appears.
For Stack name, enter rds-custom-sqlserver.
For Parameters, do the following:
1. To keep the default options, choose Next.
2. To change options, choose the appropriate availability configuration, networking configuration, and RDP access configuration, and then choose Next.
  
  Read the description of each parameter carefully before changing parameters.
Note
If you choose to create at least one Multi-AZ instance in this CloudFormation stack, make sure that the CloudFormation stack parameter Select an availability configuration for prerequisites setup is set to Multi-AZ. If you create the CloudFormation stack as Single-AZ, update the CloudFormation stack to Multi-AZ configuration before creating the first Multi-AZ instance.
On the Configure stack options page, choose Next.
On the Review rds-custom-sqlserver page, do the following:
1. For Capabilities, select the I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names check box.
2. Choose Create stack.

Note

Do not update the resources created from this AWS CloudFormation stack directly from the resource pages. This prevents you from applying future updates to these resources by using a AWS CloudFormation template.

CloudFormation creates the resources that RDS Custom for SQL Server requires. If the stack creation fails, read through the Events tab to see which resource creation failed and its status reason.

The Outputs tab for this CloudFormation stack in the console should have information about all resources to be passed as parameters for creating an RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance. Make sure to use the VPC security group and DB subnet group created by CloudFormation for RDS Custom DB instances. By default, RDS tries to attach the default VPC security group, which might not have the access that you need.

If you used CloudFormation to create resources, you can skip Configuring manually.

You can also update some of the configuration on the CloudFormation stack after creation. The configurations that can be updated are:

Availability Configuration for RDS Custom for SQL Server
- Select an availability configuration for prerequisites setup: Update this parameter to switch between Single-AZ and Multi-AZ configuration. If you are using this CloudFormation stack for at least one Multi-AZ instance, you must update the stack to choose Multi-AZ configuration.
RDP Access Configuration for RDS Custom for SQL Server
- IPv4 CIDR block of your source: You can update the IPv4 CIDR block (or IP address range) of your source by updating this parameter. Setting this parameter to blank removes RDP access configuration from your source CIDR block to public subnet.
- Setup RDP access to RDS Custom for SQL Server: Enable or disable the RDP connection from the EC2 instance to the RDS Custom for SQL Server instance.

You can delete the CloudFormation stack after deleting all the RDS Custom instances that uses resources from the stack. RDS Custom doesn’t keep track of the CloudFormation stack, hence it doesn't block deletion of the stack when there are DB instances that uses stack resources. Make sure that there are no RDS Custom DB instances that uses the stack resources when deleting the stack.

Note

When you delete a CloudFormation stack, all of the resources created by the stack are deleted except the KMS key. The KMS key goes into a pending-deletion state and is deleted after 30 days. To keep the KMS key, perform a CancelKeyDeletion operation during the 30-day grace period.

Configuring manually

If you choose to configure resources manually, perform the following tasks.

Note

To simplify setup, you can use the AWS CloudFormation template file to create a CloudFormation stack rather than a manual configuration. For more information, see Configuring with AWS CloudFormation.

You can also use the AWS CLI to complete this section. If so, download and install the latest CLI.

Topics

Make sure that you have a symmetric encryption AWS KMS key
Creating your IAM role and instance profile manually
Configuring your VPC manually

Make sure that you have a symmetric encryption AWS KMS key

A symmetric encryption AWS KMS key is required for RDS Custom. When you create an RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance, make sure to supply the KMS key identifier as parameter kms-key-id. For more information, see Creating and connecting to a DB instance for Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server.

You have the following options:

If you have an existing customer managed KMS key in your AWS account, you can use it with RDS Custom. No further action is necessary.
If you already created a customer managed symmetric encryption KMS key for a different RDS Custom engine, you can reuse the same KMS key. No further action is necessary.
If you don't have an existing customer managed symmetric encryption KMS key in your account, create a KMS key by following the instructions in Creating keys in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.
If you're creating a CEV or RDS Custom DB instance, and your KMS key is in a different AWS account, make sure to use the AWS CLI. You can't use the AWS console with cross-account KMS keys.

Important

RDS Custom doesn't support AWS managed KMS keys.

Make sure that your symmetric encryption key grants access to the kms:Decrypt and kms:GenerateDataKey operations to the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role in your IAM instance profile. If you have a new symmetric encryption key in your account, no changes are required. Otherwise, make sure that your symmetric encryption key's policy grants access to these operations.

For more information, see Step 4: Configure IAM for RDS Custom for Oracle.

Creating your IAM role and instance profile manually

You can manually create an instance profile and use it to launch RDS Custom instances. If you plan to create the instance in the AWS Management Console, skip this section. The AWS Management Console allows you to create and attach an instance profile to your RDS Custom DB instances. For more information, see Automated instance profile creation using the AWS Management Console.

When you manually create an instance profile, pass the instance profile name as the custom-iam-instance-profile parameter to your create-db-instance CLI command. RDS Custom uses the role associated with this instance profile to run automation to manage the instance.

To create the IAM instance profile and IAM roles for RDS Custom for SQL Server

Create the IAM role named AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole with a trust policy that lets Amazon EC2 assume this role.
Add the AWS Managed Policy AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy to AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole.
Create an IAM instance profile for RDS Custom for SQL Server that is named AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceProfile.
Add AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole to the instance profile.

Create the AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole IAM role

The following example creates the AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole role. The trust policy lets Amazon EC2 assume the role.


aws iam create-role \
    --role-name AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole \
    --assume-role-policy-document '{
        "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Principal": {
                  "Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"
              }
            }
          ]
        }'

Add an access policy to AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole

To provide the required permissions, attach the AWS managed policy AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy to AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole. AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy allows RDS Custom instances to send and receive messages, and perform various automation actions.

Note

Make sure that the permissions in the access policy aren't restricted by SCPs or permission boundaries associated with the instance profile role.

The following example attaches AWS managed policy AWSRDSCustomSQLServerIamRolePolicy to the AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole role.


aws iam attach-role-policy \
    --role-name AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole \
    --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy

Create your RDS Custom for SQL Server instance profile

An instance profile is a container that includes a single IAM role. RDS Custom uses the instance profile to pass the role to the instance.

If you use the AWS Management Console to create a role for Amazon EC2, the console automatically creates an instance profile and gives it the same name as the role when the role is created. Create your instance profile as follows, naming it AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceProfile.


aws iam create-instance-profile \
    --instance-profile-name AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceProfile

Add AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole to your RDS Custom for SQL Server instance profile

Add the AWSRDSCustomInstanceRoleForRdsCustomInstance role to the previously created AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceProfile profile.


aws iam add-role-to-instance-profile \
    --instance-profile-name AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceProfile \
    --role-name AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole

Configuring your VPC manually

Your RDS Custom DB instance is in a virtual private cloud (VPC) based on the Amazon VPC service, just like an Amazon EC2 instance or Amazon RDS instance. You provide and configure your own VPC. Thus, you have full control over your instance networking setup.

RDS Custom sends communication from your DB instance to other AWS services. Make sure the following services are accessible from the subnet in which you create your RDS Custom DB instances:

Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Amazon CloudWatch Events
Amazon EC2
Amazon EventBridge
Amazon S3
AWS Secrets Manager
AWS Systems Manager

If creating Multi-AZ deployments

Amazon Simple Queue Service

If RDS Custom can't communicate with the necessary services, it publishes the following events:


Database instance in incompatible-network. SSM Agent connection not available. Amazon RDS can't connect to the dependent AWS services.


Database instance in incompatible-network. Amazon RDS can't connect to dependent AWS services. Make sure port 443 (HTTPS) allows outbound connections, and try again. "Failed to connect to the following services: s3 events"

To avoid incompatible-network errors, make sure that VPC components involved in communication between your RDS Custom DB instance and AWS services satisfy the following requirements:

The DB instance can make outbound connections on port 443 to other AWS services.
The VPC allows incoming responses to requests originating from your RDS Custom DB instance.
RDS Custom can correctly resolve the domain names of endpoints for each AWS service.

If you already configured a VPC for a different RDS Custom DB engine, you can reuse that VPC and skip this process.

Topics

Configure your VPC security group
Configure endpoints for dependent AWS services
Configure the instance metadata service

Configure your VPC security group

A security group acts as a virtual firewall for a VPC instance, controlling both inbound and outbound traffic. An RDS Custom DB instance has a security group attached to its network interface that protects the instance. Make sure that your security group permits traffic between RDS Custom and other AWS services through HTTPS. You pass this security group as the vpc-security-group-ids parameter in the instance creation request.

To configure your security group for RDS Custom

Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc.
Allow RDS Custom to use the default security group, or create your own security group.

For detailed instructions, see Provide access to your DB instance in your VPC by creating a security group.
Make sure that your security group permits outbound connections on port 443. RDS Custom needs this port to communicate with dependent AWS services.
If you have a private VPC and use VPC endpoints, make sure that the security group associated with the DB instance allows outbound connections on port 443 to VPC endpoints. Also make sure that the security group associated with the VPC endpoint allows inbound connections on port 443 from the DB instance.

If incoming connections aren't allowed, the RDS Custom instance can't connect to the AWS Systems Manager and Amazon EC2 endpoints. For more information, see Create a Virtual Private Cloud endpoint in the AWS Systems Manager User Guide.
For RDS Custom for SQL Server Multi-AZ instances, make sure that the security group associated with the DB instance allows inbound and outbound connections on port 1120 to this security group itself. This is required for peer host connection on a Multi-AZ RDS Custom for SQL Server DB instance.

For more information about security groups, see Security groups for your VPC in the Amazon VPC Developer Guide.

Configure endpoints for dependent AWS services

We recommend that you add endpoints for every service to your VPC using the following instructions. However, you can use any solution that lets your VPC communicate with AWS service endpoints. For example, you can use Network Address Translation (NAT) or AWS Direct Connect.

To configure endpoints for AWS services with which RDS Custom works

Open the Amazon VPC console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/.
On the navigation bar, use the Region selector to choose the AWS Region.
In the navigation pane, choose Endpoints. In the main pane, choose Create Endpoint.
For Service category, choose AWS services.
For Service Name, choose the endpoint shown in the table.
For VPC, choose your VPC.
For Subnets, choose a subnet from each Availability Zone to include.

The VPC endpoint can span multiple Availability Zones. AWS creates an elastic network interface for the VPC endpoint in each subnet that you choose. Each network interface has a Domain Name System (DNS) host name and a private IP address.
For Security group, choose or create a security group.

You can use security groups to control access to your endpoint, much as you use a firewall. Make sure that the security group allows inbound connections on port 443 from the DB instances. For more information about security groups, see Security groups for your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.
Optionally, you can attach a policy to the VPC endpoint. Endpoint policies can control access to the AWS service to which you are connecting. The default policy allows all requests to pass through the endpoint. If you're using a custom policy, make sure that requests from the DB instance are allowed in the policy.
Choose Create endpoint.

The following table explains how to find the list of endpoints that your VPC needs for outbound communications.

Service	Endpoint format	Notes and links
AWS Systems Manager	Use the following endpoint formats: `ssm.region.amazonaws.com` `ssmmessages.region.amazonaws.com`	For the list of endpoints in each Region, see AWS Systems Manager endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.
AWS Secrets Manager	Use the endpoint format `secretsmanager.region.amazonaws.com`.	For the list of endpoints in each Region, see AWS Secrets Manager endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.
Amazon CloudWatch	Use the following endpoint formats: For CloudWatch metrics, use `monitoring.region.amazonaws.com` For CloudWatch Events, use `events.region.amazonaws.com` For CloudWatch Logs, use `logs.region.amazonaws.com`	For the list of endpoints in every Region, see: Amazon CloudWatch endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference Amazon CloudWatch Logs endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference Amazon CloudWatch Events endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference
Amazon EC2	Use the following endpoint formats: `ec2.region.amazonaws.com` `ec2messages.region.amazonaws.com`	For the list of endpoints in each Region, see Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.
Amazon S3	Use the endpoint format `s3.region.amazonaws.com`.	For the list of endpoints in each Region, see Amazon Simple Storage Service endpoints and quotas in the Amazon Web Services General Reference. To learn more about gateway endpoints for Amazon S3, see Endpoints for Amazon S3 in the Amazon VPC Developer Guide. To learn how to create an access point, see Creating access points in the Amazon VPC Developer Guide. To learn how to create a gateway endpoints for Amazon S3, see Gateway VPC endpoints.
Amazon Simple Queue Service	Use the endpoint format `sqs.region.amazonaws.com`	For the list of endpoints in each Region, see Amazon Simple Queue Service endpoints and quotas.

Configure the instance metadata service

Make sure that your instance can do the following:

Access the instance metadata service using Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2).
Allow outbound communications through port 80 (HTTP) to the IMDS link IP address.
Request instance metadata from http://169.254.169.254, the IMDSv2 link.

For more information, see Use IMDSv2 in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Cross-instance restriction

When you create an instance profile by following the steps above, it uses the AWS managed policy AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy to provide the required permissions to RDS Custom which allows instance management and monitoring automation. The managed policy ensures that the permissions allow access to only those resources which RDS Custom requires to run automation. We recommend using the managed policy to support new features and address security requirements which are automatically applied to existing instance profiles without manual intervention. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy.

The AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy managed policy restricts the instance profile to have cross-account access but it might allow access to some RDS Custom managed resources across RDS Custom instances within the same account. Based on your requirement, you can use permission boundaries to further restrict cross-instance access. Permission boundaries define the maximum permissions that the identity-based policies can grant to an entity, but doesn't grant permissions by themselves. For more information, see Evaluating effective permissions with boundaries.

For example, the following policy restricts instance profile role to access a specific AWS KMS key and limits access to RDS Custom managed resources across instances which are using different AWS KMS keys.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "DenyOtherKmsKeyAccess",
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Action": "kms:*",
            "NotResource": "arn:aws:kms:region:acct_id:key/KMS_key_ID"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "NoBoundarySetByDefault",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "*",
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Note

Make sure the permissions boundary does not block any permissions that AmazonRDSCustomInstanceProfileRolePolicy grants to RDS Custom.

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Document Conventions

RDS Custom for SQL Server requirements and limitations

Bring Your Own Media with RDS Custom for SQL Server

Setting up your environment for Amazon RDS Custom for SQL Server

Contents

Note

Prerequisites for setting up RDS Custom for SQL Server

Note

Automated instance profile creation using the AWS Management Console

Note

Step 1: Grant required permissions to your IAM principal

Note

Step 2: Configure networking, instance profile, and encryption

Note

Configuring with AWS CloudFormation

Topics

Parameters required by CloudFormation

Download AWS CloudFormation template file

To download the template file

Configuring resources using CloudFormation

To configure resources using CloudFormation

Note

Note

Note

Configuring manually

Note

Topics

Make sure that you have a symmetric encryption AWS KMS key

Important

Creating your IAM role and instance profile manually

To create the IAM instance profile and IAM roles for RDS Custom for SQL Server

Create the AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole IAM role

Add an access policy to AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole

Note

Create your RDS Custom for SQL Server instance profile

Add AWSRDSCustomSQLServerInstanceRole to your RDS Custom for SQL Server instance profile

Configuring your VPC manually

Topics

Configure your VPC security group

To configure your security group for RDS Custom

Configure endpoints for dependent AWS services

To configure endpoints for AWS services with which RDS Custom works

Configure the instance metadata service

Cross-instance restriction

Note