How to modify my.ini parameters of an Amazon RDS instance

Question

While launching a MySQL 5.5 RDS instance, Amazon uses a default parameter group to configure the my.ini parameters, but the console doesn't allow me to modify them. How can I achieve this? (e.g. setting the storage engine to MyISAM by default or setting character set ...)

Answer 1

If you're looking for these parameters to modify, then AWS has to say no...

Because of architectural differences between Aurora MySQL and MySQL, some MySQL parameters and status variables do not apply to Aurora MySQL.

The following MySQL parameters do not apply to Aurora MySQL:

• innodb_adaptive_flushing
• innodb_adaptive_flushing_lwm
• innodb_checksum_algorithm
• innodb_doublewrite
• innodb_flush_method
• innodb_flush_neighbors
• innodb_io_capacity
• innodb_io_capacity_max
• innodb_log_buffer_size
• innodb_log_file_size
• innodb_log_files_in_group
• innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct
• innodb_use_native_aio
• innodb_write_io_threads
• thread_cache_size

The following MySQL status variables do not apply to Aurora MySQL:

• innodb_buffer_pool_bytes_dirty
• innodb_buffer_pool_pages_dirty
• innodb_buffer_pool_pages_flushed

Reference: AWS RDS User Guide

Answer 2

This is documented here: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/2935