Find Database DNS / Endpoint via SQL

How to get Database identifier using SQL

Often there is a need for client programs to find "where am I logged into?". This blog post provides a few ways to know more to answer this question. 

When more and more applications are breaking out of the regular (database + application) architecture, this gets more and more important in scenarios when you're not 100% sure "where" you just logged into.

Some common scenarios, where this is helpful are:

- Proxy between application and Database

- Load Balancer (application Load balancers & Database Load Balancers)

- Serverless Database Clusters

- Auto Scaling Instances (for e.g. EC2 based)

- To confirm whether the Database server quietly changed since last invocation (in the current session)

PSQL only - :HOST variable

When connected via PSQL, the HOST variable can tell which server you're currently connected to.  

postgres10@postgres=> SELECT :'HOST' db;

                            db

----------------------------------------------------------

 postgres10.xyz.ap-southeast-2.rds.amazonaws.com

(1 row)

Caveats:

• This variable can be set during session, so probably it is a good idea to use it only in trusted environments.
• This would need good testing with Proxy based architectures, since the value returned is what the client 'thinks' it connected to.
• Also note that if the client was connected via IP address, this method doesn't do a reverse DNS lookup, so what you'd get is the IP address.

→ psql -U postgres10 -h 172.31.45.165

psql (15devel, server 10.13)

Type "help" for help.

postgres10@postgres=> SELECT :'HOST' db;

      db

---------------

 172.31.45.165

(1 row)

PSQL only - \conninfo

Similar to the method above, another psql only method is to get Connection Info via the \conninfo command. This is more descriptive (and so may be not very well suited for some needs) but additionally doesn't work very well with SELECTs.

postgres10@postgres=> \conninfo

You are connected to database "postgres" as user "postgres10" on host "postgres10.xyz.ap-southeast-2.rds.amazonaws.com" (address "1.2.3.4") at port "54321".

RDS Only - Lambda invocation

Another way to get the Server Endpoint is to use a Lambda function and let that return the Server endpoint. You can read more about how to use Lambda with RDS servers here.

Aurora Postgres only - aurora_replica_status() function

When connected to Aurora Postgres, one additional way for a client to know which of the servers it is connected to (in the cluster), it can use the Aurora function aurora_replica_status() that tells which server you're currently connected to. One additional benefit with this mechanism is that it is executed on the server, and thus returns a true picture of the servers present (and their role) in the cluster.

apg2@pg=> select server_id from aurora_replica_status();

server_id
-----------
apg2b
apg2a
(2 rows)