Contrast UI install never completes with RDS

Issue

When installing the Contrast UI in a distributed manner, as per the steps here: Distributed Configuration, I've used Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) as my backend database. The Contrast UI's Java process is starting but the migration scripts which run against the database always fail.

Cause

RDS uses a different set of default configurations than a local MySQL install.

Resolution

In the AWS console, go to RDS > Parameter groups and open the group used by your database. You can then click Edit Parameters and the Values box will become editable. The following parameters should be updated:

• max_allowed_packets should be set to  1073741824. This is 1GB and allows the database to handle larger packets and strings.
• log_bin_trust_function_creators should be set to 1. This enables triggers on the database which are required to create the Contrast schema.

Once these changes have been made, please restart the RDS instance and then restart the Contrast UI Java process. The installation should continue from where it got to.