ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on AWS RDS

Question

I created an external user with '%' hostname to allow remote access. I get the following error while connecting the local MySQL to remote AWS RDS:

ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'instance.cvxqy8tbi2bk.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com' (110).

I tried commenting the #bind-address = localhost but no solution. Any pointers for this?

Solution

Anyone encountering this issue today should check out this YouTube video at around 6:05:

AWS RDS MySQL Database Setup | Step by Step Tutorial.

In a nutshell, you have to create a new inbound security rule to allow an external connection.