Amazon Exam DBS-C01 Topic 2 Question 92 Discussion

Correct Answer: B

Explanation from Amazon documents:

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL supports IAM authentication, which is a method of using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to manage database access. IAM authentication allows you to use IAM users and roles to control who can access your Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster, instead of using a traditional database username and password. IAM authentication also provides more security by using temporary credentials that are automatically rotated.

To enable IAM authentication on an existing Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster, the database specialist needs to do the following :

Modify the DB cluster settings to enable IAM database authentication. This can be done using the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the RDS API.

Create IAM and database credentials for each user who needs access to the DB cluster. The IAM credentials consist of an access key ID and a secret access key. The database credentials consist of a database username and an optional password. The IAM credentials and the database username must match.

Distribute the IAM and database credentials to the appropriate users. The users must keep their credentials secure and not share them with anyone else.

Run the generate-db-auth-token command with the user names to generate a temporary password for the users. This command is part of the AWS CLI and it generates an authentication token that is valid for 15 minutes. The authentication token is a string that has the same format as a password. The users can use this token as their password when they connect to the DB cluster using a SQL client.

Therefore, option B is the correct solution to establish the credentials for the users to use to log in to the DB cluster. Option A is incorrect because adding the users' IAM credentials to the Aurora cluster parameter group is not necessary or possible. A cluster parameter group is a collection of DB engine configuration values that define how a DB cluster operates. Option C is incorrect because adding the users' IAM credentials to the default credential profile and using the AWS Management Console to access the DB cluster is not supported or secure. The default credential profile is a file that stores your AWS credentials for use by AWS CLI or SDKs. The AWS Management Console does not allow you to connect to an Aurora PostgreSQL DB cluster using IAM authentication. Option D is incorrect because using an AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) token by sending the IAM access key and secret key as headers to the DB cluster API endpoint is not supported or secure. AWS STS is a service that enables you to request temporary, limited-privilege credentials for IAM users or federated users. The DB cluster API endpoint is an endpoint that allows you to perform administrative actions on your DB cluster using RDS API calls.