Support Portal

 Overview 

The Forensic Tool Kit (FTK), AD Enterprise, and AD Lab can use Amazon Web Services (AWS) RDS PostgreSQL or Aurora as the database.  This article will discuss configuring the AWS RDS PostgreSQL or Aurora for use with AD software.

Notes:

• 7.3 and newer versions of AccessData products are support AWS RDS PostgreSQL and Aurora. RDS MSSQL is not supported.
• Other Cloud Computing Services such as Azure, Google Compute Cloud, are unable to use their Relational Database Services.
• AWS, AWS RDS, Aurora, and any AWS Specific terms are the trademarks of Amazon Web Services and are used with permission.

Procedure

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.
2. Click on the Services drop-down in the upper-left.
3. Search for RDS in the text box that appears and select it from the results.
   
4. Click on the Create Database button.
   
5. At the Create databasescreen, do the following:
   1. 
      
      1. Under Choose a database creation method, select Standard Create.
         
      2. Under Engine Options, select the following:
         Engine type: Amazon Aurora
         Edition: Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility
         Version: Compatible with PostgreSQL 9.6 or higher
         
      3. Note: If selecting Amazon Aurora, There are a couple considerations: 
         • Amazon Aurora RDS is an AWS Specific version of the PostgreSQL Engine that is Wire Compatible with PostgreSQL. If you have specific scripts or integrations you may need to configure them differently
         • We only support PostgreSQL. So you will need to select that from the dropdown under "Edition"
           
           
      4. Capacity Type: Currently, AccessData products require a "Provisioned" instance. We do not support "serverless" infrastructure. 
      5. Engine Version: In this section you must select "Show versions that support the Global Database Version"
         
      6. Under Templates, select whether this is for a Production or Dev/Test environment.
         
         
      7. Under Settings, set the following:
         DB cluster identifier: Your desired name to identify the database
         
         
      8. Master username: For best results set this value to postgres (This will serve as the database Username when prompted in AccessData software)
         
         
      9. Master password: Your desired password (This will serve as the database Password when prompted in AccessData software)
         
         
      10. Under DB instance size,  For best performance, recommend using at least a db.r5.2xlarge.
          
      11. Under Availability & durability, we highly encourage selecting Create an Aurora Replica or Reader node in a different AZ for high availability. However, keep in mind that replicas will increase the cost of the database, and you may experience degradation during processing because of the time for the replica instance to sync with the master database instance.
          
      12. Under Connectivity, select the Virtual private cloud to house the database. Additional connectivity configuration settings can be changed if desired, and are needed in you wish to access the database publicly, but the Database port should be left as 5432.
      13. Under Database authentication, you must select Password authentication.
      14. Click Create database.
6. AWS will automatically bring up the Databases portal to track the creation of your new RDS database. After creation is complete, you can click on your new database to find the Writer endpoint name (This will serve as the database Host when prompted in AccessData software).

Notes

When initializing the database, make sure to use the Writer endpoint name for the database host, and check the Cloud Based box.