Q:

How do I initialize character set settings for a new RDS MySQL instance

I would like to set the following variable for my Amazon RDS server, where do I provide this setting when I create a new RDS instance?
character_set_server=utf8mb4
Note: I want these settings to be permanent and I don't want to modify them every time I re-start the server.

A:

You need to use an RDS DB Parameter Group to do that.
You can create new parameter groups through the aws dashboard but you won't be able to actually change any of the parameters.  You'll need to use an API client for that.
As a warning, I don't think RDS yet supports using utf8mb4 in a parameter group.  I get an error from the API when I attempt to set character_set_server to that value.

