README

Connect Laravel to AWS RDS / RDS Proxy using IAM database authentication. The package adds a mysql-iam-proxy database driver that signs in with a short-lived IAM auth token instead of a static password.

No static database credentials in your app.
Works with RDS Proxy and RDS directly (MySQL / Aurora MySQL).
Order-independent registration — the driver is ready no matter when your app first resolves the database.
Tokens and AWS credentials are cached per process and renewed before they expire.
TLS is enforced for RDS Proxy endpoints, plus connection timeout, read-only hardening, and session bootstrap statements.

Requirements

PHP ^8.2
Laravel 10, 11 or 12
aws/aws-sdk-php ^3.300 (installed automatically)

Installation

composer require paeire/laravel-rds-proxy-iam

The service provider is auto-discovered — no manual registration required.

Configuration

Add a connection using the mysql-iam-proxy driver in config/database.php:

'connections' => [
    'mysql' => [
        'driver' => 'mysql-iam-proxy',

        'host' => env('DB_HOST'),
        'port' => env('DB_PORT', 3306),      // local port (tunnel / proxy)
        'database' => env('DB_DATABASE'),
        'username' => env('DB_USERNAME'),

        // Host/port used to sign the IAM token. Defaults to host/port above.
        'token_host' => env('DB_TOKEN_HOST', env('DB_HOST')),
        'token_port' => env('DB_TOKEN_PORT', 3306),
        'aws_region' => env('AWS_REGION', 'us-east-1'),   // `region` is accepted too
        'ssl_ca' => env('DB_SSL_CA'),                     // required for RDS Proxy endpoints

        'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
        'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
        'prefix' => '',
    ],
],

No password is set — it is replaced at connect time by an IAM token.

AWS credentials

The IAM token is signed with the default AWS credential provider chain (Aws\Credentials\CredentialProvider::defaultProvider()), so it works with environment variables, an EC2/ECS/EKS instance role, or any standard AWS credential source. No AWS keys are stored by this package. The provider is kept for the life of the process, so temporary credentials (instance role, IMDS, STS) are only fetched again once they expire.

AWS-side setup (once)

Enable IAM database authentication on the RDS instance / cluster (and on the RDS Proxy if used).
Create a database user that authenticates with the AWS plugin, for example: CREATE USER 'iam_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH AWSAuthenticationPlugin AS 'RDS';
Grant the IAM principal permission to connect with an rds-db:connect policy scoped to that database user.

How it works (load order)

Registration is order-independent. The connector is bound in the container as db.connector.mysql-iam-proxy (which Laravel's ConnectionFactory resolves automatically), and the connection itself is registered through Illuminate\Database\Connection::resolverFor(). Because both live outside the resolved db manager, the driver is ready the moment the service provider's register() runs — you do not need to reorder providers, even if another provider resolves the database very early.

The PDO connection is created lazily on first query and goes through Laravel's own ConnectionFactory, so read/write splits, sticky, and reconnects behave as with the stock mysql driver. Both the read and the write PDO authenticate with IAM.

Token lifetime

A token is only checked when a connection is opened; an established connection keeps working after the token expires. Tokens are signed for 15 minutes and cached per process, keyed by token_host:token_port|region|username, for at most 10 minutes — or until 60 seconds before the signing credentials expire, if that comes first. A reconnect (for example after RDS Proxy drops an idle client) reuses the cached token or signs a new one. A failed connection attempt discards the cached token.

The connector is bound as a singleton, so the cache lives for the whole process: long-running queue workers benefit most, while PHP-FPM rebuilds it on every request.

Custom credentials

The connector accepts its collaborators through the constructor. Bind your own instance to use a specific credential source:

use Aws\Credentials\CredentialProvider;
use Paeire\RdsProxyIam\IamMySqlConnector;

$this->app->singleton('db.connector.mysql-iam-proxy', fn ($app) => new IamMySqlConnector(
    credentials: CredentialProvider::instanceProfile(),
    defaultConnection: fn () => $app['config']->get('database.default'),
));

Options

Each option can be set on the Laravel connection array. The DB_* environment fallbacks only apply to the default connection (database.default); any other connection reads its own array and never inherits the default connection's host, user, or token endpoint. AWS_REGION applies to every connection.

Option	Env fallback	Default	Description
`host`	`DB_HOST`	— (required)	Host Laravel connects to (tunnel/proxy).
`port`	`DB_PORT`	`3306`	Port Laravel connects to.
`database`	`DB_DATABASE`	—	Default database.
`username`	`DB_USERNAME`	— (required)	IAM-enabled database user.
`token_host`	`DB_TOKEN_HOST`	`host`	Host used to sign the IAM token.
`token_port`	`DB_TOKEN_PORT`	`port`	Port used to sign the IAM token.
`aws_region` (or `region`)	`AWS_REGION`	`us-east-1`	Region for token signing.
`ssl_ca`	`DB_SSL_CA`	—	Path to a CA bundle for TLS.
`ssl_verify`	`DB_SSL_VERIFY`	`true`	Verify the server certificate.
`require_tls`	`DB_REQUIRE_TLS`	`true` for RDS Proxy endpoints	Refuse to connect without TLS. Set to `false` on a proxy only to bypass the check (a warning is logged).
`connect_timeout`	`DB_CONNECT_TIMEOUT`	`5`	PDO connect timeout (seconds).
`force_readonly`	`DB_FORCE_READONLY`	`false`	Force a read-only, safe-updates session.
`session_init_statements`	`DB_SESSION_INIT_STATEMENTS`	—	`;`-separated string or array of SQL to run on connect.
`enable_cleartext_plugin`	—	`true`	Export `MYSQL_ENABLE_CLEARTEXT_PLUGIN=1` for libmysqlclient builds of pdo_mysql. mysqlnd handles the cleartext auth switch without it.

Security notes

The IAM token is never written to logs. Connection errors are re-thrown without it, including in stack-trace arguments when zend.exception_ignore_args is off.
TLS is enabled by setting ssl_ca to the Amazon RDS CA bundle; keep ssl_verify enabled in production. AWS requires TLS for IAM authentication through RDS Proxy, so a *.proxy-*.rds.amazonaws.com token host without TLS fails fast with a clear error.
The MySQL cleartext auth plugin is enabled because IAM authentication sends the token as a cleartext password over the (TLS-encrypted) connection. This is required by RDS IAM auth and is safe as long as TLS is used.

Testing

composer install
composer test        # phpunit
composer analyse     # phpstan
composer format:test # pint --test

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at https://github.com/paeire/laravel-rds-proxy-iam.

License

The MIT License (MIT). See LICENSE.

paeire / laravel-rds-proxy-iam

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