How to connect to an Amazon MySQL RDS instance via PHP over SSL

Question

I have an EC2 instance running a WordPress site. The WordPress db is on a RDS instance. I want to connect to the db over SSL.

From what I've read, the MySQL extension that WordPress uses out of the box doesn't support SSL. So, I've installed a WordPress db script that uses MySQLi, which does support SSL.

The problem I encountered is that Amazon only supplies one key file (more info), and all the examples I can find using MySQLi over SSL include at least 3 files:

$db = mysqli_init();
$db->ssl_set('server-key.pem','server-cert.pem','cacert.pem',NULL,NULL);

I'm able to connect to my db over SSL from the mysql command line app. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get PHP's MySQLi extension to work, given that I only have the 1 file?

Just a note, Amazon docs state that within the same Region traffic does never leave Amazon's network. So this includes traffic between all Availability Zones within one particular Region. — mr-euro
– mr-euro, Commented Apr 10, 2012 at 12:39
Also, what was the name/link of the "WordPress db script that uses MySQLi"? Thanks! — mr-euro
– mr-euro, Commented Apr 10, 2012 at 12:41
It's been a while but I believe I followed these instructions to modify wp-db.php: wordpress.org/support/topic/mysqli — Dylan
– Dylan, Commented Apr 10, 2012 at 20:58

Dylan · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-14 22:25:08Z

5

Turns out this was less complicated than I thought. Turning up the error reporting level uncovered an error in my code that I hadn't caught. Using ssl_set this way works:

$db = mysqli_init();
$db->ssl_set(NULL,NULL,'/path/to/mysql-ssl-ca-cert.pem',NULL,NULL);
$db->real_connect($dbhost,$dbuser,$dbpassword,$dbname);

answered Jan 14, 2011 at 22:25

Dylan

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1 Comment

PirateApp Over a year ago

doesnt EC2 already come with this mysql-ssl-ca-cert.pem file preinstalled or do you need to manually download and install it?

mfonda · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-14 21:50:31Z

1

Try this:

$db = mysqli_init();
$db->ssl_set(null, 'https://rds.amazonaws.com/doc/mysql-ssl-ca-cert.pem', null, null, null);

answered Jan 14, 2011 at 21:50

mfonda

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