Run Hasura GraphQL engine on Kubernetes

Introduction

This guide assumes that you already have Postgres running and helps you set up the Hasura GraphQL engine on Kubernetes and connect it to your Postgres database.

Deploying Hasura using Kubernetes

Step 1: Get the Kubernetes deployment and service files

The hasura/graphql-engine/install-manifests repo contains all installation manifests required to deploy Hasura anywhere. Get the Kubernetes deployment and service files from there:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hasura/graphql-engine/stable/install-manifests/kubernetes/deployment.yaml
$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hasura/graphql-engine/stable/install-manifests/kubernetes/svc.yaml

Step 2: Set the Postgres database url

Edit deployment.yaml and set the right database url:

env:
  - name: HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL
    value: postgres://<username>:<password>@hostname:<port>/<dbname>

Examples of HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL:

• postgres://admin:password@localhost:5432/my-db
• postgres://admin:@localhost:5432/my-db (if there is no password)

Note

• If your password contains special characters (e.g. #, %, $, @, etc.), you need to URL encode them in the HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL env var (e.g. %40 for @).

  You can check the logs to see if the database credentials are proper and if Hasura is able to connect to the database.

• The Hasura GraphQL engine needs access permissions on your Postgres database as described in Postgres permissions.

Step 3: Create the Kubernetes deployment and service

$ kubectl create -f deployment.yaml
$ kubectl create -f svc.yaml

Step 4: Open the Hasura console

The above creates a LoadBalancer type service with port 80. So you should be able to access the console at the external IP.

For example, using Docker-for-desktop on Mac:

$ kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
hasura       LoadBalancer   10.96.214.240   localhost     80:30303/TCP   4m
kubernetes   ClusterIP      10.96.0.1       <none>        443/TCP        8m

Head to: http://localhost and the console should load!

Step 5: Track existing tables and relationships

See Setting up a GraphQL schema using an existing Postgres database to enable GraphQL over the database.

Securing the GraphQL endpoint

To make sure that your GraphQL endpoint and the Hasura console are not publicly accessible, you need to configure an admin secret key.

Add the HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET env var

Update the deployment.yaml to set the HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET environment variable.

...
spec:
   containers:
     ...
     command: ["graphql-engine"]
     args: ["serve", "--enable-console"]
     env:
     - name: HASURA_GRAPHQL_DATABASE_URL
       value: postgres://<username>:<password>@hostname:<port>/<dbname>
     - name: HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET
       value: mysecretkey
     ports:
     - containerPort: 8080
       protocol: TCP
     resources: {}

Note

The HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET should never be passed from the client to the Hasura GraphQL engine as it would give the client full admin rights to your Hasura instance. See Authentication & Authorization for information on setting up authentication.

(optional) Use the admin secret key with the CLI

In case you're using the CLI to open the Hasura console, use the admin-secret flag when you open the console:

hasura console --admin-secret=<myadminsecretkey>

Hasura GraphQL engine server logs

You can check the logs of the Hasura GraphQL engine deployed on Kubernetes by checking the logs of the GraphQL engine service, i.e. hasura:

$ kubectl logs -f svc/hasura

{"timestamp":"2018-10-09T11:20:32.054+0000", "level":"info", "type":"http-log", "detail":{"status":200, "query_hash":"01640c6dd131826cff44308111ed40d7fbd1cbed", "http_version":"HTTP/1.1", "query_execution_time":3.0177627e-2, "request_id":null, "url":"/v1/graphql", "user":{"x-hasura-role":"admin"}, "ip":"127.0.0.1", "response_size":209329, "method":"POST", "detail":null}}
...

See:

• https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/logging for more details on logging in Kubernetes.
• Hasura GraphQL engine logs for more details on Hasura logs

Updating Hasura GraphQL engine

This guide will help you update the Hasura GraphQL engine running on Kubernetes. This guide assumes that you already have the Hasura GraphQL engine running on Kubernetes.

Step 1: Check the latest release version

The current latest version is:

hasura/graphql-engine:v2.3.0

All the versions can be found at: https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine/releases.

Step 2: Update the container image

In the deployment.yaml file, update the image tag to this latest version.

For example, if you had:

containers:
  - image: hasura/graphql-engine:v1.0.0-alpha01

you should change it to:

containers:
  - image: hasura/graphql-engine:v2.3.0

Step 3: Rollout the change

$ kubectl replace -f deployment.yaml

Note

If you are downgrading to an older version of the GraphQL engine you might need to downgrade your metadata catalogue version as described in Downgrading Hasura GraphQL engine

Advanced

• Setting up migrations