Tutorial: Manually Change the Database Backend to MySQL or Amazon RDS from the Command Line

Sign in to your console with root privileges.

Edit the .my.cnf file:

nano /etc/.my.cnf

Add this text, and adjust the username and password to the ones you've configured:

[client]
user=<MYSQL_USER_NAME>
password=<MYSQL_PASSWORD>
port=3306

Press ctrl+x, y, then enter to save and exit.

Save file permissions so only root can access it:

chmod go-rwx /etc/.my.cnf

Add a symbolic link so the root user can use the mysql command line tool without entering credentials:

ln -s /etc/.my.cnf /root/.my.cnf

Connect to the RDS instance with the mysql command line tool:

mysql -h auroratest-cluster.cluster-ctqs9e0kxora.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com

Use the mysql command-line prompt to create the databases:

mysql> create database as_certs;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> create database as_config;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> create database as_log;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> create database as_userprop;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

Ensure the web certificates are stored in the certificates database:

cd /usr/local/openvpn_as/scripts/
./sacli --import GetActiveWebCerts

Stop the Access Server service before converting the databases to the database backend:

service openvpnas stop

Convert the databases you want to convert using the commands below (you don't have to convert them all):

export SERVER=auroratest-cluster.cluster-ctqs9e0kxora.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com
./dbcvt -t config -s sqlite:////usr/local/openvpn_as/etc/db/config.db -d mysql://$SERVER/as_config
./dbcvt -t certs -s sqlite:////usr/local/openvpn_as/etc/db/certs.db -d mysql://$SERVER/as_certs
./dbcvt -t user_prop -s sqlite:////usr/local/openvpn_as/etc/db/userprop.db -d mysql://$SERVER/as_userprop
./dbcvt -t log -s sqlite:////usr/local/openvpn_as/etc/db/log.db -d mysql://$SERVER/as_log
unset SERVER

You may need to install the libmysqlclient-dev package on your system if you encounter an error message similar to this:

error opening DB mysql://server/database: libmysqlclient.so.20: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Modify the as.conf file to tell it where to look for each database (you don't have to move them all to the database backend):

nano /usr/local/openvpn_as/etc/as.conf

Look for the lines starting with config_db, user_prop_db, certs_db, and log_db. Adjust them accordingly:

config_db=mysql://auroratest-cluster.cluster-ctqs9e0kxora.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com/as_config
user_prop_db=mysql://auroratest-cluster.cluster-ctqs9e0kxora.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com/as_userprop
log_db=mysql://auroratest-cluster.cluster-ctqs9e0kxora.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com/as_log
certs_db=mysql://auroratest-cluster.cluster-ctqs9e0kxora.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com/as_certs

Press ctrl+x, y, then enter to save and exit.

Finally, restart the Access Server service:

service openvpnas start