Accessing Services with SSH

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This page assumes you are using Cloud Foundry Command Line Interface (cf CLI) v6.15.0 or later.

This topic describes how to gain direct command line access to your deployed service instance. For example, you may need access to your database to execute raw SQL commands to edit the schema, import and export data, or debug app data issues.

To establish direct command line access to a service, you deploy a host app and use its SSH and port forwarding features to communicate with the service instance through the app container. The technique outlined below works with TCP services such as MySQL or Redis.

Note: The procedure in this topic requires use of a service key, and not all services support service keys. Some services support credentials through app binding only.

Create a Service Instance

  1. In your terminal window, log in to your deployment with cf login.

  2. List the marketplace services installed as product tiles in your Ops Manager deployment. If you need to add the service as a tile, see Adding and Deleting Products. In this example, you create a p-mysql service instance. 

    $ cf marketplace
p-mysql  100mb MySQL databases on demand

  3. Create your service instance. As part of the create-service command, indicate the service name, the service plan, and the name you choose for your service instance. 

    $ cf create-service p-mysql 100mb MY-DB

Push Your Host App

To push an app that will act as the host for the SSH tunnel, push any app that will successfully deploy to VMware Tanzu Application Service for VMs.

Note: Your app must be prepared before you push it. See the Pushing an App topic for details on preparing apps for pushing.

  1. Push your app. 
    $ cf push YOUR-HOST-APP
  2. Enable SSH for your app. 
    $ cf enable-ssh YOUR-HOST-APP

    Note: To enable SSH access to your app, SSH access must also be enabled for both the space that contains the app and VMware Tanzu Application Service for VMs. See the App SSH Overview topic for more details.

Create Your Service Key

To establish SSH access to your service instance, you must create a service key that contains critical information for configuring your SSH tunnel.

  1. Create a service key for your service instance using the cf create-service-key command. 
    $ cf create-service-key MY-DB EXTERNAL-ACCESS-KEY
  2. Retrieve your new service key using the cf service-key command. 
    $ cf service-key MY-DB EXTERNAL-ACCESS-KEY
Getting key EXTERNAL-ACCESS-KEY for service instance MY-DB as user@example.com

    {
    "hostname": "us-cdbr-iron-east-01.p-mysql.net",
    "jdbcUrl": "jdbc:mysql://us-cdbr-iron-east-03.p-mysql.net/ad_b2fca6t49704585d?user=b5136e448be920\u0026password=231f435o05",
    "name": "ad_b2fca6t49704585d",
    "password": "231f435o05",
    "port": "3306",
    "uri": "mysql://b5136e448be920:231f435o05@us-cdbr-iron-east-03.p-mysql.net:3306/ad_b2fca6t49704585d?reconnect=true",
    "username": "b5136e448be920"
    }

Configure Your SSH Tunnel

Configure an SSH tunnel to your service instance using cf ssh. Tailor the example command below with information from your service key. 

$ cf ssh -L 63306:us-cdbr-iron-east-01.p-mysql.net:3306 YOUR-HOST-APP

  • Use any available local port for port forwarding. For example, 63306.
  • Replace us-cdbr-iron-east-01.p-mysql.net with the address provided under hostname in the service key retrieved above.
  • Replace 3306 with the port provided under port above.
  • Replace YOUR-HOST-APP with the name of your host app.

After you enter the command, open another terminal window and perform the steps below in Access Your Service Instance.

Access Your Service Instance

To establish direct command-line access to your service instance, use the relevant command line tool for that service. This example uses the MySQL command line client to access the p-mysql service instance.

$ mysql -u b5136e448be920 -h 0 -p -D ad_b2fca6t49704585d -P 63306
  • Replace b5136e448be920 with the username provided under username in your service key.
  • -h 0 instructs mysql to connect to your local machine (use -h 127.0.0.1 for Windows).
  • -p instructs mysql to prompt for a password. When prompted, use the password provided under password in your service key.
  • Replace ad_b2fca6t49704585d with the database name provided under name in your service key.
  • -P 63306 instructs mysql to connect on port 63306.