Amazon RDS - Create Security Group

Declaration

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="create_security_group" SECURITYGROUP="text" 
GROUPDESC="text" RESULTDATASET="text" ACCESSKEY="text" 
SECRETKEY="text (encrypted)" SERVICEURL="text" 
PROXYHOST="text" USERAGENT="text" PROXYPORT="number" 
PROXYUSER="text" PROXYPWD="text (encrypted)" 
MAXERRORRETRY="number" SIGNMETHOD="text" SIGNVERSION="number" />

Description: Creates a new security group and optionally populates a dataset with its information.

IMPORTANT: RDS activities are performed using Amazon's Relational Database Service engine, therefore, administering Amazon RDS requires a valid Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

Practical Usage

Used to create a security group which acts like a firewall controlling network access to a DB instance. To allow network access to a DB instance, use the Authorize security group activity with the desired security group or IP range.

Connection Parameters

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Connection

 

 

 

 

Indicates where Amazon Web Service user credentials and preferences should originate from. This is a design mode parameter used only during task construction and configuration, thus, comprises no markup. The available options are:

  • Host (default) - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are configured individually for this activity. This option is normally chosen if only a single activity is required to complete an operation.

  • Session - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are obtained from a pre-configured session created in an earlier step with the use of the RDS - Create session activity. This option is normally chosen if a combination of related activities are required to complete an operation. Linking several activities to a single session eliminates redundancy. Additionally, a single task supports construction and simultaneous execution of multiple sessions, improving efficiency.

Session

Text

Yes if connection is session-based

RDSSession1

SESSION="RDSSession1"

The name of an existing session to attach this activity to. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Session. The default session name is 'RDSSession1'.

Access key

Text

Yes if connection is host-based

(Empty)

ACCESSKEY=

"022QF06E7MXBSH9DHM02"

A 20-character alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies the owner of the AWS service account, similar to a username. This key along with a corresponding secret access key forms a secure information set that AWS uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.

Secret Access key

Text

Yes if connection is host-based

(Empty)

SECRETKEY=

"kWcrlUX5JEDGM/LtmEENI/

aVmYvHNif5zB+d9+ct"

A 40-character string that serves the role as password to access the AWS service account. This along with an associated access key forms a secure information set that EC2 uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.

User agent

Text

No

AutoMate

USERAGENT="AutoMate"

The name of the client or application initiating requests to AWS. The default value is 'AutoMate'. 

Maximum retry on error

Number

No

(Empty)

MAXERRORRETRY="4"

The total amount of times this activity should retry its request to the server before returning an error. Network components can generate errors anytime in the life of a request, thus, implementing retries can increase reliability. 

Service URL

Text

No

(Empty)

SERVICEURL=

"https://rds.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"

The URL that provides the service endpoint. To make the service call to a different region, you can pass the region-specific endpoint URL. For example, entering  https://rds.us-west-1.amazonaws.com points to US West (Northern California) region. A complete list of EC2 regions, accompanying endpoints and valid protocols can be found below under RDS Endpoints and Regions.

Proxy host

Text

No

(Empty)

PROXYHOST="proxy.host.com"

The host name (e.g., server.domain.com) or IP address (e.g., xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) of the proxy server to use when connecting to AWS.  

Proxy port

Number

No

(Empty)

PROXYPORT="1028"

The port that should be used to connect to the proxy server.

Proxy username

Text

No

(Empty)

PROXYUSER="username"

The username that should be used to authenticate connection with the proxy server (if required).

Proxy password

Text

No

(Empty)

PROXYPWD="encrypted"

The password that should be used to authenticate connection with the proxy server (if required).

Signature method

Text

No

(Empty)

SIGNMETHOD="HmacSHA256"

The signature method to use for signing the request. This provides a valid hashing algorithm for signature calculation. Valid AWS signature methods are HmacSHA1 and HmacSHA256.

Signature version

Number

No

(Empty)

SIGNVERSION="2"

The signature version for signing the request. Valid AWS signature versions are 2 and 4. The difference with version 4 is that it allows you to sign your message using a key that is derived from your secret access key rather than using the secret access key itself.

Security Group Parameters

Property

Type

Required

Default

Markup

Description

Group Name

Text

Yes

(Empty)

SECURITYGROUP="MyDBGroup"

The name of the RDS security group to create.

Group Description

Text

No

(Empty)

GROUPDESC="description"

A brief description about the security group to create. Note that once created, the description cannot be changed.

Create and populate dataset with security group information

Text

No

(Empty)

RESULTDATASET="myDataset"

The name of the dataset to create and populate with information about the newly created RDS security group. More on the individual fields this dataset creates can be found below under Datasets.

Description tab - A custom description can be provided on the Description tab to convey additional information or share special notes about a task step.

Error Causes tab - Specify how this step should behave upon the occurrence of an error. (Refer to Task Builder > Error Causes Tab for details.)

On Error tab - Specify what AWE should do if this step encounters an error as defined on the Error Causes tab. (Refer to Task Builder > On Error Tab for details.)

RDS Endpoints and Regions

This table contains a complete list of Amazon endpoints, along with their corresponding regions, supported protocols and location constraints.

Endpoint

Region

Protocol

Location Constraints

s3.amazonaws.com

US Standard *

HTTP and HTTPS

(none required)

s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com

US West (Oregon) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

us-west-2

s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com

US West (Northern California) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

us-west-1

s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com

EU (Ireland) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

EU

s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com

Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ap-southeast-1

s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com

Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ap-southeast-2

s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com

Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

ap-northeast-1

s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com

South America (Sao Paulo) Region

HTTP and HTTPS

sa-east-1

* The US Standard region automatically routes requests to facilities in Northern Virginia or the Pacific Northwest using network maps.

Datasets

A dataset is a multiple column, multiple row container object. This activity creates and populates a dataset containing a specific set of fields. The table below describes these fields (assuming the dataset name assigned was theDataset).

Name

Type

Return Value

theDataset.DBSecurityGroupDescription

Text

Returns the description of the security group.

theDataset.DBSecurityGroupName

Text

Returns the name of the RDS security group.

theDataset.EC2SecurityGroup

Text

Returns the name of the EC2 security group.

theDataset.IPRange

Number

Returns the IP range to allow access.

theDataset.OwnerId

Number

Returns the AWS account number of the owner of the EC2 security group (e.g., 123412341234).

Example

The sample AML code below can be copied and pasted directly into the Steps panel of the Task Builder.

Description: Create RDS security group "mygroup". Security group description is "test group". Store RDS security group information into dataset "theDataset". Use default RDS session.

<AMAWSRDS ACTIVITY="create_security_group" SECURITYGROUP="mygroup" 
GROUPDESC="test group" RESULTDATASET="theDataset" />