Access Server: Join a New Standalone Access Server to an External MySQL DB Server

Description

Access Server includes a DB Convert feature to migrate the local SQLite3 database to an external MySQL database. This is useful in the following scenarios:

• Moving the local configuration (using SQLite3) to an external location (using MySQL) for centralized management, separate from the local virtual machine hosting Access Server.
• Changing the database backend from SQLite3 to MySQL.
• Sharing a single external MySQL database across multiple Access Servers nodes.

This article explains how to join a new Access Server (node 2) to an existing external MySQL database that is already being used by another Access Server (node 1).

Prerequisites

• Access Server Requirements:
  • A newly installed Access Server (node 2) using the same version as the existing Access Server (node 1).
  • Console access and root privileges for node 2.
• MySQL Database Requirements:
  • An external MySQL database configured and accessible.
  • MySQL server details:
    • IP/Domain
    • Username
    • Password
    • Port

Steps: Configure Access Server to use the external MySQL database

1. Connect to the new Access Server console and get root privileges.

2. Stop openvpnas service:
   

   service openvpnas stop

3. Edit as.conf:

   nano /usr/local/openvpn_as/etc/as.conf

4. Look for the lines starting with config_db, user_prop_db, and certs_db.
5. Comment out the current lines (SQLite-related) by adding a # at the start of each line, and add the MySQL database connection strings instead:

   # certificates database
   # certs_db=sqlite:///~/db/certs.db
   certs_db=mysql://<username>:<password>@<MySQL-Server-URL>:<port>/as_certs
   
   # user properties DB
   # user_prop_db=sqlite:///~/db/userprop.db
   user_prop_db=mysql://<username>:<password>@<MySQL-Server-URL>:<port>/as_userprop
   
   # configuration DB
   # config_db=sqlite:///~/db/config.db
   config_db=mysql://<username>:<password>@<MySQL-Server-URL>:<port>/as_config

   Replace the placeholders as follows:
   username = MySQL database username
   password = MySQL user password
   MySQL-Server-URL = MySQL server IP address or domain name
   port = MySQL server port (e.g., 3306 by default).

6. Save and exit the file — ctrl+x, y, then enter.

7. Start openvpnas service
   

   service openvpnas start

After these steps, the new Access Server (node 2) will use the external MySQL database and share the same configuration as node 1.

If you have further questions, please submit a ticket.