Safely Through the Gates: SSH Tunneling to connect multiple remote AWS private resources.

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In today’s cloud-driven world, securely accessing resources hosted on AWS is paramount. In this post, we’ll explore how to securely access multiple private RDS instances, EKS, EC2, etc. on AWS using SSH tunneling.

📌Setting Up SSH Config

To streamline the process, we can leverage SSH config files. Below is an example SSH config file tailored for accessing multiple private instances through a bastion host:

𝚌𝚊𝚝 ~/.𝚜𝚜𝚑/𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚐
𝙷𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚛𝚍𝚜_𝚝𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚕_𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 
  𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚛 𝚞𝚋𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚞 
  𝙷𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 <𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝> 
  𝙸𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚢𝙵𝚒𝚕𝚎 ~/.𝚜𝚜𝚑/𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗-𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝.𝚙𝚎𝚖 
  𝚁𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚃𝚃𝚈 𝚗𝚘 
  𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚡𝚢𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚑 -𝚌 “𝚊𝚠𝚜 𝚜𝚜𝚖 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝-𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 — 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚠𝚜-𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 — 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚞𝚜-𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚝-𝟷 — 𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 %𝚑 — 𝚍𝚘𝚌𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝-𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝙰𝚆𝚂-𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚂𝚂𝙷𝚂𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 — 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 ‘𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝙽𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛=%𝚙’” 
  𝙻𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚕𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝟻𝟺𝟹𝟷 𝚍𝚎𝚟-𝚍𝚋-𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎:𝟻𝟺𝟹𝟸 
  𝙻𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚕𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝟻𝟺𝟹𝟸 𝚚𝚊-𝚍𝚋-𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎:𝟻𝟺𝟹𝟸 
  𝙻𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚕𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝟻𝟺𝟹𝟹 𝚎𝚔𝚜-𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝:𝟺𝟺𝟹 

👀Explanation of LocalForward rules

Each LocalForward rule defines a port forwarding configuration from a local port on your machine to a specific RDS instance:
Port 5431 forwards to the development database.
Port 5432 forwards to the QA database.
Port 5433 forwards to the EKS cluster.

🧐How to Use the SSH Config File

Using the provided SSH config file is straightforward. Simply save the configuration to your ~/.ssh/config file and replace ~/.ssh/bastion-host.pem with the path to your SSH private key file. Once configured, you can initiate SSH connections to the remote private instances by running “ssh rds_tunnel_combined” command.

👌Benefits and Use Cases

Enhanced security: All connections are encrypted, minimizing the risk of data interception.
Simplified access: Users can easily connect to multiple RDS instances with a single command.
Flexible configuration: The SSH config file allows for easy customization of port forwarding rules to suit different use cases.

Conclusion

SSH tunneling provides a secure and efficient way to access AWS private instances from anywhere. By leveraging SSH config files and port forwarding, you can streamline the process of connecting to multiple RDS instances while ensuring data security. Give it a try and experience the benefits of secure SSH tunneling for yourself!

Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to hit me up for any AWS/DevOps/Open Source-related discussions.

Manoj Kumar — LinkedIn.