One of the common queries we get from our AWS customers is something along the lines of ‘how to make a private Amazon Redshift cluster publicly accessible?’

Here, at Bobcares we assist our customers with similar AWS queries as a part of AWS Support Services.

Today, let’s see the steps followed by our Support Techs to make an Amazon Redshift cluster publicly accessible.

How to make a private Amazon Redshift cluster publicly accessible

If we want to access a private Amazon redshift cluster, we should modify the option Publicly accessible to Yes.

But still, if we notice connectivity errors when we try to connect the Cluster from a different network, we must ensure to check the following settings:

• The Security group settings.
• The VPC network access control list settings.
• The VPC route table settings.

Now, let’s see the steps followed by our Support Engineers to make the cluster publicly accessible by ensuring the proper settings.

The Security group

1. Log in to the AWS Management console and then open Amazon Redshift Console.

2. Then open the Amazon EC2 console by selecting the link near the VPC security group.

3. Then make sure that the IP address and the port of the Amazon Redshift cluster are added/allowed in the Inbound rule section.

4. Also, it is a best practice to make sure that the Outbound Rules allow outbound communications.

The VPC network access control list

In VPC network access control list settings, we must make sure to configure both inbound and outbound rules. That is we must allow the IP address and the port of the Amazon Redshift cluster in the inbound rules. In the outbound rules, allow all traffic (port range: 0–65535) to the IP address.

The VPC route table

We must verify the VPC route table settings on the Amazon VPC console. An internet gateway as a target with source 0.0.0.0/0 or a public IP CIDR should be attached to the Route table in order to connect to a publicly accessible cluster from the public internet. The route table must be related to the VPC subnet where the Amazon Redshift cluster resides.

Also If we do not wish to make the subnet publicly accessible because of other data in that subnet, we can use a snapshot to restore the cluster into a public subnet.

If we are still facing connectivity issues after these settings, we can use network tools such as Telnet for further checking.

[Need help with more AWS queries? We’d be happy to assist]

Conclusion

To conclude, today we saw the steps followed by our Support Engineers to make a private Amazon Redshift cluster publicly accessible.