MySQL

Create an integration to manage access to a MySQL instance

The MySQL integration enables you to securely manage just-in-time (JIT) access to your MySQL instance.

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Prerequisites

Item	Description
Apono Connector	On-prem connection serving as a bridge between a MySQL instance and Apono: AWS Azure GCP Kubernetes Minimum Required Version: 1.3.0 Learn how to update an existing AWS, Azure, GCP, or Kubernetes connector.
MySQL Information	Information for the database instance to be integrated: Hostname Port

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Create MySQL user

You must create a user in your MySQL instance for the Apono connector and grant that user permissions to your databases.

Follow these steps to create a user and grant it database permissions:

1. In your MySQL client tool, create a new user. Use apono_connector or another name of your choosing for the username. Be sure to set a strong password for the user.

CREATE USER 'apono_connector'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

1. Grant the following access to the user. These permissions allow the connector to list databases, manage users, update internal tables, monitor sessions, reload privileges, and handle connection-related operations.

GRANT SHOW DATABASES ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';
GRANT CREATE USER ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';  
GRANT UPDATE ON mysql.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';  
GRANT PROCESS ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';
GRANT RELOAD ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';
GRANT CONNECTION ADMIN ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';

If the Apono integration needs to manage MySQL users who have the SYSTEM_USER privilege, you must also grant SYSTEM_USER to the Apono connector user.

GRANT SYSTEM_USER ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';

Without this permission, operations such as granting roles or modifying such users will fail with an Access denied error.

1. Grant the user only one of the following sets of permissions. The chosen set defines the highest level of permissions to provision with Apono. Click on each tab to reveal the SQL commands.

READ_ONLY

Allows Apono to read data from databases

GRANT SELECT ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';  
GRANT GRANT OPTION ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';

READ_WRITE

Allows Apono to read and modify data

GRANT SELECT,ALTER,ALTER ROUTINE,CREATE,CREATE ROUTINE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,CREATE VIEW,DELETE,INDEX,INSERT,TRIGGER,UPDATE ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';  
GRANT GRANT OPTION ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';

ADMIN

Allows Apono administrative-level access, including the ability to execute and drop tables

GRANT EXECUTE,DROP,SELECT,ALTER,ALTER ROUTINE,CREATE,CREATE ROUTINE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,CREATE VIEW,DELETE,INDEX,INSERT,TRIGGER,UPDATE ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';  
GRANT GRANT OPTION ON *.* TO 'apono_connector'@'%';

1. (MySQL 8.0+) Grant the user the authority to manage other roles. This enables Apono to create, alter, and drop roles. However, this role does not inherently grant specific database access permissions.

GRANT ROLE_ADMIN on *.* to apono_connector;

1. Create a secret with the credentials from step 1. Use the following key-value pair structure when generating the secret. Be sure to replace #PASSWORD with the actual value. If you used a different name for the user, replace apono-connector with the name you assigned to the user.

"username": "apono-connector",
"password": "#PASSWORD"

You can also input the user credentials directly into the Apono UI during the integration process.

You can now integrate your MySQL database.

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Integrate MySQL

MySQL tile

You can also use the steps below to integrate with Apono using Terraform.

In step 11, instead of clicking Confirm, follow the Are you integrating with Apono using Terraform? guidance.

Follow these steps to complete the integration:

1. On the Catalog tab, click MySQL. The Connect Integration page appears.

2. Under Discovery, click one or more resource types to sync with Apono.

Apono automatically discovers and syncs all the resources in the environment. After syncing, you can manage access flows to these resources.

1. Click Next. The Apono connector section appears.

2. From the dropdown menu, select a connector. Choosing a connector links Apono to all the services available on the account where the connector is located.

If the desired connector is not listed, click + Add new connector and follow the instructions for creating a connector (AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes).

1. Click Next. The Integration Config section expands.

2. Define the Integration Config settings.

   Setting	Description
   Integration Name	Unique, alphanumeric, user-friendly name used to identify the integration when constructing an access flow
   Hostname	Hostname of the MySQL database to connect
   Port	Port value for the instance Default Value: 3306.

3. Click Next. The Secret Store section expands.

4. Associate the secret or credentials.

5. Click Next. The Get more with Apono section expands.

6. Define the Get more with Apono settings.

   Setting	Description
   Credential Rotation	(Optional) Number of days after which the database credentials must be rotated Learn more about the Credentials Rotation Policy.
   User cleanup after access is revoked (in days)	(Optional) Defines the number of days after access has been revoked that the user should be deleted Learn more about Periodic User Cleanup & Deletion.
   Custom Access Details	(Optional) Instructions explaining how to access this integration's resources Upon accessing an integration, a message with these instructions will be displayed to end users in the User Portal. The message may include up to 400 characters. To view the message as it appears to end users, click Preview.
   Integration Owner	(Optional) Fallback approver if no resource owner is found Follow these steps to define one or several integration owners: From the Attribute dropdown menu, select User or Group under the relevant identity provider (IdP) platform. From the Value dropdown menu, select one or multiple users or groups. NOTE: When Resource Owner is defined, an Integration Owner must be defined.
   Resource Owner	(Optional) Group or role responsible for managing access approvals or rejections for the resource Follow these steps to define one or several resource owners: Enter a Key name. This value is the name of the tag created in your cloud environment. From the Attribute dropdown menu, select an attribute under the IdP platform to which the key name is associated. Apono will use the value associated with the key (tag) to identify the resource owner. When you update the membership of the group or role in your IdP platform, this change is also reflected in Apono. NOTE: When this setting is defined, an Integration Owner must also be defined.

7. Click Confirm.

💡Are you integrating with Apono using Terraform?

If you want to integrate with Apono using Terraform, follow these steps instead of clicking Confirm:

1. At the top of the screen, click View as Code. A modal appears with the completed Terraform configuration code.

2. Click to copy the code.

3. Make any additional edits.

4. Deploy the code in your Terraform.

Refer to Integration Config Metadata for more details about the schema definition.

Now that you have completed this integration, you can create access flows that grant permission to your MySQL database.