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Recipe: Integrate Node.js with Amazon RDS

Prerequisites

  • Running Elastic Beanstalk Node.js environment.
  • Amazon RDS database created separately from the environment for decoupling.
  • Network connectivity between application instances and database endpoint.
  • Node.js database client package such as mysql2 or pg.

What You'll Build

You will connect a decoupled Amazon RDS database to your Node.js app by injecting connection details through Elastic Beanstalk environment properties and initializing a reusable connection pool in application code.

flowchart LR
    A[Elastic Beanstalk Node.js App] --> B[Environment Properties]
    B --> C[DB_HOST DB_PORT DB_USER DB_NAME]
    A --> D[mysql2 or pg client]
    D --> E[Amazon RDS Instance]

Steps

  1. Create or identify an existing decoupled RDS instance.

  2. Add database connection values as Elastic Beanstalk environment properties.

    DB_HOST=<db-endpoint>
DB_PORT=5432
DB_USER=<db-user>
DB_PASSWORD=<db-password>
DB_NAME=<db-name>

  3. Install the client dependency for your engine.

    npm install pg

  4. Initialize connection logic using environment variables.

    const { Pool } = require("pg");

const pool = new Pool({
    host: process.env.DB_HOST,
    port: Number(process.env.DB_PORT || 5432),
    user: process.env.DB_USER,
    password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD,
    database: process.env.DB_NAME
});

module.exports = { pool };

  5. Add an application health endpoint that validates DB reachability.

  6. Deploy and test queries against the environment endpoint.

    eb deploy
eb health --refresh

Verification

  • Environment properties are set and available through process.env.
  • Application can establish a database connection from instances.
  • Security groups allow least-privilege access from app tier to RDS port.
  • DB connectivity check endpoint passes after deployment.

See Also

Sources