Contortions needed to create an AWS RDS database using UTF-8

Shell log.sh

brew install rds-command-line-tools


rds-create-db-parameter-group mysql-utf8-55 --db-parameter-group-family mysql5.5 --description "MySQL 5.5 configured for UTF-8"

rds-modify-db-parameter-group mysql-utf8-55 \
    --parameters="name=character_set_server, value=utf8, method=immediate" \
    --parameters="name=character_set_client, value=utf8, method=immediate" \
    --parameters="name=character_set_results,value=utf8,method=immediate" \
    --parameters="name=collation_server, value=utf8_general_ci, method=immediate" \
    --parameters="name=collation_connection, value=utf8_general_ci, method=immediate"

# For an existing instance:
rds-modify-db-instance instance-name --db-parameter-group-name mysql-utf8-55
rds-reboot-db-instance instance-name