Setup Direct RDS Connection

1. Connect to your VPN using your OpenVPN client and verify the connection is established with a private IP address

2. Change your DNS settings to use Google's public DNS server (8.8.8.8): - On Windows: Go to Network Settings > Change adapter options > Right-click your network connection > Properties > Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) > Properties > Use the following DNS server addresses > Set to 8.8.8.8

3. Test the connection using the MySQL command line: mysql -h your-rds-endpoint.amazonaws.com -P 3306 -u your-username -p

4. If using a database GUI tool like DBeaver, create a completely new connection rather than modifying an existing one to avoid cached DNS settings

5. Verify you can telnet to the RDS endpoint on port 3306 to confirm network connectivity: telnet your-rds-endpoint.amazonaws.com 3306

Usage

Once the direct RDS connection is established, you can use any MySQL-compatible database client to connect to your RDS instance. The key troubleshooting steps if you encounter "unknown host" errors are:

• Ensure your VPN connection is active and stable

• Change DNS settings to 8.8.8.8 to resolve hostname issues

• Create new database connections in your client tools rather than reusing existing ones that may have cached incorrect DNS information

• Verify your security groups allow connections from your VPN IP range