Skip to main content

Distributed GraphQL with Postgraphile and Supabase

Your apps will run faster if the APIs they call are physically located close to your end users. This tutorial will use CloudFlow to deploy the open-source Postgraphile container to multiple datacenters. We will configure it to use Supabase as the Postgres database backend.

The Postgraphile container we will use is available on DockerHub.

note

Before starting, create a new CloudFlow Project and then delete the default Deployment and ingress-upstream Service to prepare the project for your new deployment.

Prerequisites​

Create a Database on Supabase​

Create a new Postgres instance for Postgraphile to connect to. For this tutorial we will be using Supabase as they provide free, managed Postgres instances. But any Postgres database will work.

  1. Visit https://app.supabase.com/ and click "New project".
  2. Select a name, password, and region for your database. Make sure to save the password, as you will need it later.
  3. Click "Create new project". Creating the project can take a while, so be patient.
  4. Once the project is created, navigate to the "Database" tab on the left.

You have just created an empty database on Supabase. Postgraphile will populate it with metadata upon first connection.

Get Your Connection String​

Your connection string will be of the form postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@[YOUR-SUPABASE-ENDPOINT]:5432/postgres. An example (with mock credentials) would look like, postgresql://postgres:abc1234@db.abcxyzabcxyzabcxyzabcxyz.supabase.co:5432/postgres.

  1. Go to Settings, and then Database.
  2. Scroll down to the "Connection string" section and copy the connection string from the "URI" tab. (Do not use the connection string in "Connection pooling", as Postgraphile is doing connection pooling of its own.)
  3. Insert the password you saved earlier into the string at [YOUR-PASSWORD].

Create a Deployment for Postgraphile​

Next, create the deployment for Postgraphile as postgraphile-deployment.yaml. This will direct CloudFlow to run the Postgraphile open source container. Substitute YOUR_CONNECTION_STRING accordingly.

postgraphile-deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: postgraphile
  name: postgraphile
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: postgraphile
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: postgraphile
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: graphile/postgraphile:latest
        imagePullPolicy: Always
        name: postgraphile
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: ".5Gi"
            cpu: "500m"
          limits:
            memory: ".5Gi"
            cpu: "500m"
        env:
        - name: DATABASE_URL
          value: YOUR_CONNECTION_STRING

Apply this deployment resource to your Project with either the Kubernetes dashboard or kubectl apply -f postgraphile-deployment.yaml.

Expose the Postgraphile Console on the Internet​

We want to expose the Postgraphile console on the Internet. Create ingress-upstream.yaml as defined below. Note that it directs port 80 traffic to port 5000 on the Postgraphile container.

ingress-upstream.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    app: ingress-upstream
  name: ingress-upstream
spec:
  ports:
  - name: 80-80
    port: 80
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 5000
  selector:
    app: postgraphile
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: ClusterIP

Apply this service resource to your Project with either the Kubernetes dashboard or kubectl apply -f ingress-upstream.yaml.

See the pods running on CloudFlow's network using kubectl get pods -o wide.

The -o wide switch shows where your GraphQL API is running according to the default AEE location optimization strategy. Your GraphQL API will be optimally deployed according to traffic.

Finally, follow the instructions that configure DNS and TLS.

Experiment with Postgraphile​

Now, you can start using the GraphiQL interface of Postgraphile by visiting the https://YOUR.DOMAIN.COM/graphiql, substituting YOUR.DOMAIN.COM according to your DNS and HTTPS configuration.