Node.js ORM mysql connect via SSH tunnel - node.js

Question

I'm trying to set up a node.js application which uses node-orm2. However our cloud hosted DB can only be connected via SSH tunnel. Checking the ORM doc I can not see any config option to connect to the DB via SSH tunnel. Is there any way to set up this or I need to find some way to connect without SSH?

Answer 1

I updated the code example for tunnel-ssh 1.1.0, because it's actually the only working example on the internet (for so far i searched..).
It was quite a hassle to get this new tunnel-ssh configured...
var mysql = require('mysql');
var Tunnel = require('tunnel-ssh');
module.exports = function (server) {
return new Object({
tunnelPort: 33333, // can really be any free port used for tunneling
/**
* DB server configuration. Please note that due to the tunneling the server host
* is localhost and the server port is the tunneling port. It is because the tunneling
* creates a local port on localhost
*/
dbServer: server || {
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: 33333,
user: 'username',
password: 'yourpwd',
database: 'yourdb'
},
/**
* Default configuration for the SSH tunnel
*/
tunnelConfig: {
remoteHost: '127.0.0.1', // mysql server host
remotePort: 3306, // mysql server port
localPort: 33333, // a available local port
verbose: true, // dump information to stdout
disabled: false, //set this to true to disable tunnel (useful to keep architecture for local connections)
sshConfig: { //ssh2 configuration (https://github.com/mscdex/ssh2)
host: 'your_tunneling_host',
port: 22,
username: 'user_on_tunneling',
password: 'pwd'
//privateKey: require('fs').readFileSync('<pathToKeyFile>'),
//passphrase: 'verySecretString' // option see ssh2 config
}
},
/**
* Initialise the mysql connection via the tunnel. Once it is created call back the caller
*
* #param callback
*/
init: function (callback) {
/* tunnel-ssh < 1.0.0
//
// SSH tunnel creation
// tunnel-ssh < 1.0.0
var me = this;
me.tunnel = new Tunnel(this.tunnelConfig);
me.tunnel.connect(function (error) {
console.log('Tunnel connected', error);
//
// Connect to the db
//
me.connection = me.connect(callback);
});
*/
/* tunnel-ssh 1.1.0 */
//
// SSH tunnel creation
//
var me = this;
// Convert original Config to new style config:
var config = this.tunnelConfig;
var newStyleConfig = {
username: config.sshConfig.username,
port: config.sshConfig.port,
host: config.sshConfig.host,
// SSH2 Forwarding...
dstPort: config.remotePort,
dstHost: config.remoteHost,
srcPort: config.localPort,
srcHost: config.localHost,
// Local server or something...
localPort: config.localPort,
localHost: config.localHost,
privateKey: config.privateKey
}
me.tunnel = tunnel(newStyleConfig, function (err) {
console.log('Tunnel connected', err);
if (err) {
return callback(err);
}
me.connection = me.connect(callback);
});
},
/**
* Mysql connection error handling
*
* #param err
*/
errorHandler: function (err) {
var me = this;
//
// Check for lost connection and try to reconnect
//
if (err.code === 'PROTOCOL_CONNECTION_LOST') {
console.log('MySQL connection lost. Reconnecting.');
me.connection = me.connect();
} else if (err.code === 'ECONNREFUSED') {
//
// If connection refused then keep trying to reconnect every 3 seconds
//
console.log('MySQL connection refused. Trying soon again. ' + err);
setTimeout(function () {
me.connection = me.connect();
}, 3000);
}
},
/**
* Connect to the mysql server with retry in every 3 seconds if connection fails by any reason
*
* #param callback
* #returns {*} created mysql connection
*/
connect: function (callback) {
var me = this;
//
// Create the mysql connection object
//
var connection = mysql.createConnection(me.dbServer);
connection.on('error', me.errorHandler);
//
// Try connecting
//
connection.connect(function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('Mysql connected as id ' + connection.threadId);
if (callback) callback();
});
return connection;
}
}
);
};

Answer 2

Finally it was resolved by dropping orm2 and using node-mysql and tunnel-ssh modules as in the code below.
var mysql = require('mysql');
var Tunnel = require('tunnel-ssh');
module.exports = function (server) {
return new Object({
tunnelPort: 33333, // can really be any free port used for tunneling
/**
* DB server configuration. Please note that due to the tunneling the server host
* is localhost and the server port is the tunneling port. It is because the tunneling
* creates a local port on localhost
*/
dbServer: server || {
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: 33333,
user: 'username',
password: 'yourpwd',
database: 'yourdb'
},
/**
* Default configuration for the SSH tunnel
*/
tunnelConfig: {
remoteHost: '127.0.0.1', // mysql server host
remotePort: 3306, // mysql server port
localPort: 33333, // a available local port
verbose: true, // dump information to stdout
disabled: false, //set this to true to disable tunnel (useful to keep architecture for local connections)
sshConfig: { //ssh2 configuration (https://github.com/mscdex/ssh2)
host: 'your_tunneling_host',
port: 22,
username: 'user_on_tunneling',
password: 'pwd'
//privateKey: require('fs').readFileSync('<pathToKeyFile>'),
//passphrase: 'verySecretString' // option see ssh2 config
}
},
/**
* Initialise the mysql connection via the tunnel. Once it is created call back the caller
*
* #param callback
*/
init: function (callback) {
//
// SSH tunnel creation
//
var me = this;
me.tunnel = new Tunnel(this.tunnelConfig);
me.tunnel.connect(function (error) {
console.log('Tunnel connected', error);
//
// Connect to the db
//
me.connection = me.connect(callback);
});
},
/**
* Mysql connection error handling
*
* #param err
*/
errorHandler: function (err) {
var me = this;
//
// Check for lost connection and try to reconnect
//
if (err.code === 'PROTOCOL_CONNECTION_LOST') {
console.log('MySQL connection lost. Reconnecting.');
me.connection = me.connect();
} else if (err.code === 'ECONNREFUSED') {
//
// If connection refused then keep trying to reconnect every 3 seconds
//
console.log('MySQL connection refused. Trying soon again. ' + err);
setTimeout(function () {
me.connection = me.connect();
}, 3000);
}
},
/**
* Connect to the mysql server with retry in every 3 seconds if connection fails by any reason
*
* #param callback
* #returns {*} created mysql connection
*/
connect: function (callback) {
var me = this;
//
// Create the mysql connection object
//
var connection = mysql.createConnection(me.dbServer);
connection.on('error', me.errorHandler);
//
// Try connecting
//
connection.connect(function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('Mysql connected as id ' + connection.threadId);
if (callback) callback();
});
return connection;
}
}
);
};

Answer 3

You can use the settings parameters to node-orm2 in order pass an options object to the underlying driver. For example, if you are using a mysql then you can pass an ssl option. See https://github.com/felixge/node-mysql#ssl-options in this case.

Answer 4

Thanks for the existing answers in this thread. The following solution worked for me:
function connect() {
return new Promise(async resolve => {
let tunnelPort = 33000 + Math.floor(Math.random() * 1000);
Tunnel({
//First connect to this server over ssh
host: '6.6.6.6',
username: 'vagrant',
privateKey: await fs.readFile('path/to/private_key'),
//And forward the inner dstPort (on which mysql is running) to the host (where your app is running) with a random port
dstPort: 3306,
localPort: tunnelPort
}, (err) => {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('Tunnel connected');
let connection = mysql.createConnection({
//Now that the tunnel is running, it is forwarding our above "dstPort" to localhost/tunnelPort and we connect to our mysql instance.
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: tunnelPort,
user: 'root',
password: 'password',
database: 'dbName'
});
connection.on('error', err => { throw err; });
connection.connect((err) => {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('Mysql connected as id ' + connection.threadId);
resolve(connection);
});
});
})
}