Connecting Hasura to a DigitalOcean Postgres Database
Introduction
This guide explains how to connect a new or existing DigitalOcean Postgres database to a Hasura instance, either on Hasura Cloud or via one of our self-hosted solutions. If you're exploring DigitalOcean Postgres and are interested in migrating an existing Postgres database - such as from Heroku - check out their docs before continuing below.
If you plan on using Hasura Cloud, which we recommend, follow steps 1 and 2 below. If you're self-hosting a Hasura instance and already have a project running, skip to step 3.
Step 1: Sign up or log in to Hasura Cloud
Navigate to Hasura Cloud and sign up or log in.
Step 2: Create a Hasura Cloud project
On the Hasura Cloud dashboard, create a new project:
![Create Hasura Cloud project](/docs/2.0/assets/images/create-hasura-cloud-project-3b3f2033182d76a59c7cd12dc90fe02b.png)
After the project is initialized successfully, click on Launch Console
to open the Hasura Console in your browser.
On the Hasura Console, navigate to the Data
tab and choose Connect Existing Database
. Hasura will prompt you for a
Postgres Database URL. We'll create this in the next step and then come back here.
![Hasura Cloud database setup](/docs/2.0/assets/images/existing-db-setup-0c5807a4a16836b8789e886baee94d37.png)
Step 3: Create a Postgres DB on DigitalOcean
Log into DigitalOcean.
On the top right, click the Create
button. Then click on Databases
:
![Create database on DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/create-database-2b3f9e18946c84f49a1e28efcbc0b24f.png)
Scroll down and choose a Cluster configuration
, as well as a Datacenter
based on your requirements.
Scroll to the bottom and choose a unique database cluster name. Also, select a project the new database will be associated with.
![Select cluster name for database on DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/cluster-name-552af5b78fae57f75e4f3a5161b4fcc5.png)
Then click Create a Database Cluster
.
Step 4: Allow connections to your DB from Hasura
Navigate to the database cluster's Overview
page:
![Navigate to database settings in DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/db-settings-fcea8132a76c43a751c9e5259c521605.png)
Scroll down to Trusted sources
and click the Edit
button:
![Edit trusted sources for database in DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/edit-trusted-sources-fab05a7814aaf19b2455316188400689.png)
If you're using Hasura Cloud, you can quickly find your IP address from the Hasura Cloud IP
field on the project's
details view:
![Hasura Cloud IP field](/docs/2.0/assets/images/hasura-cloud-ip-86181dcc16cbac471b8a2c5237a23b24.png)
If you're using a self-hosted solution, you'll need to determine the IP address manually depending on your hosting service.
Enter the Hasura IP address that you copied:
![Add Hasura IP to database in DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/add-hasura-ip-565007b44c975f05f844a8e25d916a58.png)
Then click Save
.
If you're using a database user other than the default one, make sure to give it the right Postgres permissions.
Step 5: Get the database connection URL
The structure of the database connection URL looks as follows:
postgresql://<user-name>:<password>@<public-ip>:<postgres-port>/<db>?sslmode=require
To get it, navigate to the database cluster's Overview
page:
![Navigate to database overview in DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/db-overview-072a9dc932eefa96213ffde26144b810.png)
Scroll down to Connection details
. Select Public network
on the left and Connection string
on the right.
![Get the database connection string in DigitalOcean](/docs/2.0/assets/images/connection-string-5aa1b08b77b54468e3f94c25fdac4378.png)
Then click the Copy
button for the next step.
Step 6: Finish connecting the database
Back on the Hasura Console, enter the database URL that we retrieved in step 5:
![Database setup](/docs/2.0/assets/images/DO-complete-ac15c347f676c037c1ccac743208cc48.png)
Then click Connect Database
.
For security reasons, it is recommended to set database URLs as env vars and using the env vars to connect to the databases in place of the raw database URLs.
Voilà. You are ready to start developing.
![Hasura Console](/docs/2.0/assets/images/hasura-console-5685707ef939a6ca7cc2c5fb6ed7dda8.png)
Next steps
You can check out our 30-Minute Hasura Basics Course and other GraphQL & Hasura Courses for a more detailed introduction to Hasura.
If using Hasura Cloud, you can also click the gear icon to manage your Hasura Cloud project. (e.g. add collaborators, env vars or custom domains).
![Project actions](/docs/2.0/assets/images/project-manage-5b37a214a39b39b6287136606da021c4.png)
For more information on which Postgres features we support, check out this page.