Database Connection Options

There are four ways to connect Fivetran to your database:

• Directly by whitelisting Fivetran’s IP
• Using an SSH tunnel
• Using a reverse SSH tunnel
• Using AWS PrivateLink (Business Critical only)

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Whitelist Fivetran’s IPlink

The fastest and easiest way to connect is to allow Fivetran’s IP direct access to your database port. For more information about how to do this, visit the setup guide for your database.

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SSH Tunnellink

If it’s not possible to provide direct access to your database port, you can connect to Fivetran via an SSH tunnel. You can also choose this connection method for an added layer of security. To connect via an SSH tunnel, you need to setup an SSH tunnel server that has access to your database port. The tunnel server’s SSH port needs to be accessible from Fivetran’s IP. You’ll also need to create an SSH user for Fivetran.

IMPORTANT: Fivetran generates a unique public SSH key for each destination. We support multiple connectors on a single SSH tunnel depending on the data volume and network bandwidth.

Create SSH userlink

Log in to your SSH tunnel host and run the following commands:

1. Create group fivetran:

   sudo groupadd fivetran
   

2. Create user fivetran:

   sudo useradd -m -g fivetran fivetran
   

3. Switch to the fivetran user:

   sudo su - fivetran
   

4. Create the .ssh directory:

   mkdir ~/.ssh
   

5. Set permissions:

   chmod 700 ~/.ssh
   

6. Change to the .ssh directory:

   cd ~/.ssh
   

7. Create the authorized_keys file:

   touch authorized_keys
   

8. Set permissions:

   chmod 600 authorized_keys
   

9. Using your favorite text editor, add the public SSH key from the database setup page in your Fivetran dashboard to the authorized_keys file. The key must be all on one line. Make sure that you don’t introduce any line breaks when cutting and pasting. The public SSH key is generated uniquely for each Fivetran destination.

As an extra layer of security, Fivetran enables TLS on your SSH connection by default. We recommend that you keep TLS enabled unless you know it is safe to forgo it. To disable TLS, set the Require TLS through tunnel toggle to OFF.

IMPORTANT: If you set the Require TLS through tunnel toggle to OFF, Fivetran first attempts to connect over TLS inside the SSH tunnel. If this fails, Fivetran automatically retries the connection in clear text inside the SSH tunnel. You are responsible for configuring this option as per your corporate security policies.

Once the user is created, you’ll need to allow port access.

Allow port accesslink

Make sure that port access is allowed from:

1. Fivetran’s IP to your tunnel server’s SSH port
2. Your SSH tunnel server to your source database port

If your SSH server and database happen to be in AWS, you can follow the instructions below to configure port access.

Reverse SSH Tunnellink

You can also connect Fivetran to your database via a Reverse SSH Tunnel if you are unable to provide direct port access to your instance.

To set up a reverse SSH tunnel to connect to Fivetran, contact Fivetran’s Sales Engineers and provide the following SSH keys:

• Fivetran user’s SSH public key
• Your SSH public key
• The high port you will use for the tunnel
• The IP address (CIDR notation) of your SSH bastion host

To generate your SSH public key, do the following on your SSH host:

1. Generate an SSH key pair.

   ssh-keygen

2. View the contents of the public key. Copy the public key and send it to Fivetran’s sales engineers along with the Fivetran user’s public key.

   cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Once we have both keys, you will need the following information to complete your setup:

• Username fivetran of the SSH tunnel user you created
• Reverse SSH IP address (contact Fivetran Support to get this)
• SSH high port. It should be unique per connector instance and should not be a reserved port number (for instance, port 22 is reserved for SSH connections and port 443 is reserved for HTTPS).

  TIP: For the SSH high port number, we recommend adding a single digit - usually 1 - as a prefix to the source database port. For example, if you connect SQL Server, your database’s default port is 1433. Therefore, we recommend using port 11433 as the SSH high port for your first SQL Server connector, port 11434 for your second connector, and so on.

• Internal IP address or name of the local database host machine
• Internal open port for communication with the database host
• File path to the private key on the SSH host machine (this is normally id_rsa.pem or simply id_rsa)

Use the values above to replace the placeholder variables in the following script, then run it on the SSH host in a single line:

TIP: To track the progress of this script, remove the -f flag and add the -v flag to enable verbose logging. Without the flag, you will not see confirmation when the script finishes running successfully.

autossh -M 0 -f -N -R <SSH_HIGH_PORT>:<LOCAL_DB_MACHINE_NAME_OR_IP>:<LOCAL_DB_MACHINE_PORT> <FIVETRAN_SSH_USERNAME>@<FIVETRAN_SUPPLIED_IP> -g -i <PATH_TO_PRIVATE_KEY> -o ServerAliveInterval=10 -o ServerAliveCountMax=1 -o ExitOnForwardFailure=yes

If you use this autossh script again later for the same SSH high port, you need to terminate your original autossh script before proceeding.

After establishing a successful Reverse SSH connection, enter the following into the Fivetran setup form for your database:

Field	Value	Description
Host	localhost	Allows your SSH host to handle port routing
Port	{ SSH high port }	e.g., 13306. The port that your SSH host will translate
User	{ Database user }
Password	{ Database user’s password }
Database	{ Database name }	The name of the database you want to replicate
Connection Method	Connect via an SSH Tunnel
SSH Host	{ IP Address }	Supplied by Fivetran
SSH Port	22
SSH User	fivetran

All fields in { brackets } must be replaced with your own values.

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AWS PrivateLink BETAlink

AWS PrivateLink allows VPCs and AWS-hosted or on-premises services to communicate with one another without exposing traffic to the public internet. Learn more in AWS’ PrivateLink documentation.

Fivetran uses PrivateLink to move your data securely between our system and your AWS-hosted or on-premises source. PrivateLink works differently depending on your source type:

• If your data source is hosted in AWS, Fivetran can connect to your source using a PrivateLink connection. We query and process the data from the source into our system.
• If your data source is hosted on-premises, Fivetran can use AWS Direct Connect to access your source data. AWS Direct Connect establishes a private network connection between your premises and an AWS VPC. We connect to that AWS VPC using a PrivateLink connection, then query and process the data from the source into our system. Learn more in AWS’ Direct Connect documentation.

You can also use PrivateLink with the following destinations:

• RedshiftPRIVATE PREVIEW
• SnowflakeBETA

Prerequisiteslink

To set up AWS PrivateLink, you need:

• A Fivetran instance configured to run in AWS
• An AWS-hosted (EC2, RDS, or S3 only) or on-premises* source in one of our supported regions

* Your on-premises source must be one of our supported databases. See a complete list in our Databases documentation.

How you connect AWS PrivateLink to your source depends on whether your source is hosted in AWS or on-premises. Follow the setup instructions for your source type below.

Configure PrivateLink for AWS-hosted sourcelink

We support connecting to the following AWS-hosted sources using PrivateLink:

• Amazon EC2
• Amazon RDS
• Amazon S3
• Amazon Aurora

NOTE: Amazon S3 does not require any configuration. If your S3 bucket is in the same region as your Fivetran account, your network traffic does not traverse the public Internet. The Amazon S3 Gateway Endpoints ensures that regional traffic stays within the AWS network.

You must have an AWS endpoint service configured for your source before you set up a PrivateLink connection with Fivetran. AWS endpoint services only work with network load balancers (NLB), so you must create an NLB inside your VPC if you do not already have one. The NLB receives requests from Fivetran and routes it to your source.

Since endpoint service configurations are out of Fivetran’s control, we recommend that you contact your AWS representatives for help setting up PrivateLink. However, we do provide the following high-level instructions based on how customers typically configure their data sources:

1. In your VPC, create an NLB for your data source and configure it for each subnet (availability zone) in which the service should be available. For help, see the Create an NLB section.

   IMPORTANT: Skip this step if your data source is already running behind an NLB.

2. Create a VPC endpoint service configuration and specify your NLB.

3. Whitelist Fivetran’s AWS VPC Account ID (arn:aws:iam::834469178297:root) to allow access to your VPC endpoint service. Send the service name (VPCe) to your Fivetran account manager. For example, com.amazonaws.vpce.<region_id>.vpce-svc-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

   TIP: To learn how to whitelist the Fivetran account ID, see AWS’ endpoint service permission documentation.

4. Whitelist the Fivetran VPC network for your network firewalls’ region (NACLs, Security Groups) to allow access to the service/source/destination.

   Cluster	VPC Network
   AWS Donkey/Services us-east-1 North Virginia, USA	10.128.0.0/18
   AWS Donkey/Services us-west-2 Oregon, USA	10.129.0.0/18
   AWS Donkey/Services ap-southeast-2 Sydney, Australia	10.130.0.0/18
   AWS Donkey/Services eu-west-2 London	10.131.0.0/18
   AWS Donkey/Services eu-central-1 Frankfurt	10.132.0.0/18

5. Send the host name of the service/source to your Fivetran account manager. Fivetran will finish the setup on our side.

6. To activate the connection, accept the interface endpoint connection request from Fivetran. By default, connection requests must be manually accepted. However, you can configure the acceptance settings for your endpoint service so that any connection requests are automatically accepted.

Configure PrivateLink for on-premises sourcelink

Contact your account manager for help setting up PrivateLink for your on-premises source. Our team will help you set up AWS Direct Connect to an AWS VPC, which Fivetran can connect to using PrivateLink.