How to get just-in-time access to RDS Postgres

If you  normally have no access to a production database and need to jump in for a  short task, this walk through shows the exact flow. You start with zero  standing permission, request only the role you need, then connect with  short-lived credentials that map cleanly back to your own identity.

No more shared logins. No guessing who touched what.

This episode  of the Five minutes to zero standing access series follows a simple path. Try  to connect. Fail. Request the right role in P0. Get it approved. Then connect  again with the temporary credentials AWS gives you.

There’s  something grounding about watching the failure turn into a clean, auditable  connection. It’s the sort of thing that removes friction for developers and  tightens control for security at the same time.

Once the JIT  access is live, you can run the diagnostics you asked for.

You can read  from PG stat tables that match the reader role you selected. You cannot read  customer data or anything outside the permissions you requested. The  boundaries hold. And when the access expires, it ends without cleanup work or  follow-up tickets.

What this enables

P0 gives teams a way to reach an RDS Postgres database only when they need it and only for the role they select. No standing credentials. No shared users.

Every action maps back to a real identity so any session recording or audit log tells a clean story. It also means you can grant narrow roles like stats reader without opening the door to the underlying data.

How it works

• A user tries to connect to the database and gets a password failure because no standing access exists
• They open P0, request access to Postgres, choose a specific role and give a reason for the request
• The request routes to the right owner throughP0’s approval flow
• Once approved, the user refreshes their AWS configuration, adds the correct profile and reconnects
• The connection succeeds because P0 issued temporary credentials tied to that user
• They can read metadata in PG stat tables but cannot read protected data since the role limits that scope
• Any activity ties back to the individual, not a shared account

Why this matters

Database access tends to drift toward convenience. A shared password here... a long-lived role there. Everyone means well, but it’s hard to keep track of who touched a system or why they had permission. JIT access cuts through all of that.

With P0, you can enforce zero standing access.

Developers ask for what they need. Approvers stay in control. The system grants only the narrow set of permissions required for the job. Then it all winds down on its own. No loose credentials. No cleanup cycles. And no question about which user performed which action.

See for yourself

Watch the video to see for yourself how P0 helps!