Connect with a stricter SSL mode

The default connection string for Tiger Cloud uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) mode require. Users can choose not to use Transport Layer Security (TLS) while connecting to their databases, but connecting to production databases without encryption is strongly discouraged. To achieve even stronger security, clients may select to verify the identity of the server. If you want your connection client to verify the server’s identity, you can connect with an SSL mode of verify-ca or verify-full. To do so, you need to store a copy of the certificate chain where your connection tool can find it.

This section provides instructions for setting up a stricter SSL connection.

SSL certificates

As part of the secure connection protocol, the server proves its identity by providing clients with a certificate. This certificate should be issued and signed by a well-known and trusted Certificate Authority.

Because requesting a certificate from a Certificate Authority takes some time, Tiger Cloud services are initialized with a self-signed certificate. This lets you start up a service immediately. After your service is started, a signed certificate is requested behind the scenes. The new certificate is usually received within 30 minutes. Your certificate is then replaced with almost no interruption. Connections are reset, and most clients reconnect automatically. Free services do not supply SSL certificates.

With the signed certificate, you can switch your connections to a stricter SSL mode, such as verify-ca or verify-full.

For more information on the different SSL modes, see the PostgreSQL SSL mode descriptions.

Connect to your database with a stricter SSL mode

To set up a stricter SSL connection:

1. Generate a copy of your certificate chain and store it in the right location
2. Change your Tiger Cloud connection string

1. Use the openssl tool to connect to your Tiger Cloud service and get the certificate bundle

   Store the bundle in a file called bundle.crt.

   Replace $SERVICE_URL_WITH_PORT with your Tiger Cloud connection URL:

   openssl s_client -showcerts -partial_chain -starttls postgres \
                -connect $SERVICE_URL_WITH_PORT < /dev/null 2>/dev/null | \
                awk '/BEGIN CERTIFICATE/,/END CERTIFICATE/{ print }' > bundle.crt

2. Copy the bundle to your clipboard

   MacOS

   pbcopy < bundle.crt

   Linux

   xclip -sel clip < bundle.crt

   Windows

   clip.exe < bundle.crt

3. Navigate to https://whatsmychaincert.com/

   This online tool generates a full certificate chain, including the root Certificate Authority certificate, which is not included in the certificate bundle returned by the database.

4. Paste your certificate bundle in the provided box

   Check Include Root Certificate. Click Generate Chain.

5. Save the downloaded certificate chain to ~/.postgresql/root.crt
6. Change your Tiger Cloud connection string from sslmode=require to either sslmode=verify-full or sslmode=verify-ca

   For example, to connect to your database with psql, run:

   psql "postgres://tsdbadmin@$SERVICE_URL_WITH_PORT/tsdb?sslmode=verify-full"

Verify the certificate type used by your database

To check whether the certificate has been replaced yet, connect to your database instance and inspect the returned certificate. We are using two certificate providers - Google and ZeroSSL, that’s why chances are you can have a certificate issued by either of those CAs:

openssl s_client -showcerts -partial_chain -starttls postgres -connect <HOST>:<PORT> < /dev/null 2>/dev/null  | grep "Google\|ZeroSSL"