Question

How to connect to external SQL Server behind VPN from a DigitalOcean K8S Cluster?

I have a DOKS cluster running Kubernetes Jobs, and one of these jobs needs to query an external database from a client that seats behind a VPN. I couldn’t find any relevant information on how to be able to access the external database from the cluster. Any help or pointers to the right direction? Thanks a lot!

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Nabeel • July 22, 2021

This isn’t really a problem of Kubernetes. It’s a problem of your SQL server and VPN settings. How would you access the database from a laptop without VPN access?

I don’t know the exact answer, but you could look into the following:

  • Can you grant access to the SQL server based on IP address? If so, you would need to add your DOKS cluster IP addresses to the allow list.
  • Can you programmatically connect to the VPN? Or, can you connect to the VPN from Linux? If so, you could embed the logic to connect to your VPN into your Kubernetes Job.

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