Skip to main content
Version: v3.x

Run a Postgres Database Locally

Introduction​

This guide will take you through setting up a local Postgres database along with Adminer, a free database manager tool, using Docker Compose.

You can use any database management tool you prefer, we're using Adminer here. Some free and paid alternatives are: pgAdmin, dBeaver, psql, TablePlus, DataGrip, etc.

Step 1: Create Docker Compose file​

The following Docker Compose file contains a Postgres service along with an Adminer service configured to automatically connect to the Postgres database.

By default,

  • Postgres will run on port 5432 and the database connection string will be postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/dev
  • Adminer will run on port 8081 and can be accessed on http://localhost:8081/

You can change these in the Docker compose file in case you have other services running on those ports already.

Copy the following to a new file, say compose.postgres-adminer.yaml:

compose.postgres-adminer.yaml
version: "3.9"
services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "5432:5432" # Run Postgres on port 5432
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: user
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: password
      POSTGRES_DB: dev

  adminer:
    image: adminer:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      ADMINER_DEFAULT_DRIVER: pgsql # server=mysql, pgsql, sqlite, sqlite2, oracle, mssql, mongo, elastic
      ADMINER_DEFAULT_DB: dev
      ADMINER_DEFAULT_SERVER: postgres
      ADMINER_DEFAULT_USERNAME: user
      ADMINER_DEFAULT_PASSWORD: password
    ports:
      - "8081:8080" # Run Adminer on port 8081
    depends_on:
      - postgres
    configs:
      - source: adminer-index.php
        target: /var/www/html/index.php

configs:
  adminer-index.php:
    content: |
      <?php
        if(!count($$_GET)) {
          $$_POST['auth'] = [
            'server' => $$_ENV['ADMINER_DEFAULT_SERVER'],
            'username' => $$_ENV['ADMINER_DEFAULT_USERNAME'],
            'password' => $$_ENV['ADMINER_DEFAULT_PASSWORD'],
            'driver' => $$_ENV['ADMINER_DEFAULT_DRIVER'],
            'db'    => $$_ENV['ADMINER_DEFAULT_DB'],
          ];
        }
        include './adminer.php';
      ?>

Step 2: Start Postgres database and Adminer​

Run the Docker Compose file:

In directory with compose file, run:
docker compose -f compose.postgres-adminer.yaml up

Step 3: Manage your database via Adminer​

To access Adminer, head to: http://localhost:8081

You should see the Adminer console as follows:

Adminer

You can now create tables, add data, etc. on the Postgres database and iterate on your database schema.

Next Steps​

Connect the database to your supergraph​

You can connect the Postgres database to your supergraph using the Postgres data connector by following the steps in this guide and providing the database connection string as the following:

Connection string to connect to local supergraph
postgresql://user:[email protected]:5432/dev

As you iterate on your database schema you can update your supergraph metadata using the steps in this guide.

Connecting to your local database from the cloud

Note that as this is a locally running database you can connect to it directly from the data connector running locally, however, if you deploy your connector to Hasura DDN, the cloud-hosted version of your data connector won't be able to find your local database. You'll need to use a tool like ngrok to provide a tunnel to access your database from the cloud. This will expose the port, most likely 5432, on which the database is running and allow Hasura DDN to connect to it.

Connect to the database directly​

You can also connect to the database directly using other tools, such as psql, using the database connection string:

To connect using psql, run:
psql postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/dev
Loading...