Use an SSH tunnel so that the Django server thinks it works inside AWS?

Question

How can you make the local Django development server assume that it is running on your AWS network using SSH tunneling?

In my scenario, I am running a local Django server, i.e. python manage.py runserver and Redis as a cache (Elasticache). When my application runs in AWS, it has access to Elasticache, but locally it won’t (and that’s good). If for some reason I want to test my local environment using Elasticache, I need to use SSH tunneling somehow to make AWS assume that it is working inside the VPC network.

I tried to get this to work using below. I have confirmed that I can connect locally using SSH tunneling with Redis Desktop Manager , so 100% I know that AWS supports this, my problem now does the same thing with Django.

Here is what I tried:

 > python manage.py runserver 8000 > ssh -i mykey.pem [e-mail] -L 6379:localhost:6379 

I get a "Error 60 connect to" message when I visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/ .

What am I doing wrong here?

Notes:

• [e-mail] is not a Redis server, but another AWS EC2 Instance that has access to Elasticache, which I want to use as a tunnel.
• mykey.pem has access and the correct permission.
• The ec2 exam has all access rights and access ports.
• SSH tunneling with Redis Desktop Manager has been tested, and it works for this software.
• Elasticache and EC2 instances are in the same region and can connect to each other.

Answer 1

 ssh -i mykey.pem [e-mail] -L 6379:localhost:6379 

This will send requests from your local computer (at: 6379) to localhost:6379 to the EC2 instance. This is not what you want (unless you use redis for local use in an EC2 instance)

Use the Elasticache IP address instead.

 ssh -i mykey.pem [e-mail] -L 6379:<elasticache-ip>:6379