This tutorial shows you how build a simple Ruby application with CockroachDB and Active Record. CockroachDB provides an Active Record adapter for CockroachDB as a RubyGem.
For a more realistic use of Active Record with CockroachDB in a Rails app, see our examples-orms
repository.
Step 1. Start CockroachDB
Choose your installation method
You can create a CockroachDB Serverless cluster using either the CockroachDB Cloud Console, a web-based graphical user interface (GUI) tool, or ccloud
, a command-line interface (CLI) tool.
Create a free cluster
Organizations without billing information on file can only create one CockroachDB Serverless cluster.
- If you haven't already, sign up for a CockroachDB Cloud account.
- Log in to your CockroachDB Cloud account.
- On the Clusters page, click Create Cluster.
- On the Select a plan page, select Serverless.
- On the Cloud & Regions page, select a cloud provider (GCP or AWS) in the Cloud provider section.
- In the Regions section, select a region for the cluster. Refer to CockroachDB Cloud Regions for the regions where CockroachDB Serverless clusters can be deployed. To create a multi-region cluster, click Add region and select additional regions. A cluster can have at most six regions.
- Click Next: Capacity.
- On the Capacity page, select Start for free. Click Next: Finalize.
On the Finalize page, click Create cluster.
Your cluster will be created in a few seconds and the Create SQL user dialog will display.
Create a SQL user
The Create SQL user dialog allows you to create a new SQL user and password.
- Enter a username in the SQL user field or use the one provided by default.
- Click Generate & save password.
- Copy the generated password and save it in a secure location.
Click Next.
Currently, all new SQL users are created with admin privileges. For more information and to change the default settings, see [Manage SQL users on a cluster.
Get the root certificate
The Connect to cluster dialog shows information about how to connect to your cluster.
- Select General connection string from the Select option dropdown.
- Open a new terminal on your local machine, and run the CA Cert download command provided in the Download CA Cert section. The client driver used in this tutorial requires this certificate to connect to CockroachDB Cloud.
Get the connection string
Open the General connection string section, then copy the connection string provided and save it in a secure location.
The connection string is pre-populated with your username, password, cluster name, and other details. Your password, in particular, will be provided only once. Save it in a secure place (Cockroach Labs recommends a password manager) to connect to your cluster in the future. If you forget your password, you can reset it by going to the SQL Users page for the cluster, found at https://cockroachlabs.cloud/cluster/<CLUSTER ID>/users
.
Follow these steps to create a CockroachDB Serverless cluster using the ccloud
CLI tool.
The ccloud
CLI tool is in Preview.
Install ccloud
Choose your OS:
You can install ccloud
using either Homebrew or by downloading the binary.
Use Homebrew
- Install Homebrew.
Install using the
ccloud
tap:brew install cockroachdb/tap/ccloud
Download the binary
In a terminal, enter the following command to download and extract the ccloud
binary and add it to your PATH
:
curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/ccloud/ccloud_darwin-amd64_0.6.12.tar.gz | tar -xJ && cp -i ccloud /usr/local/bin/
Use the ARM 64 binary if you have an M-series Mac:
curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/ccloud/ccloud_darwin-arm64_0.6.12.tar.gz | tar -xJ && cp -i ccloud /usr/local/bin/
In a terminal, enter the following command to download and extract the ccloud
binary and add it to your PATH
:
curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/ccloud/ccloud_linux-amd64_0.6.12.tar.gz | tar -xz && cp -i ccloud /usr/local/bin/
In a PowerShell window, enter the following command to download and extract the ccloud
binary and add it to your PATH
:
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"; [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12; $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; $null = New-Item -Type Directory -Force $env:appdata/ccloud; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/ccloud/ccloud_windows-amd64_0.6.12.zip -OutFile ccloud.zip; Expand-Archive -Force -Path ccloud.zip; Copy-Item -Force ccloud/ccloud.exe -Destination $env:appdata/ccloud; $Env:PATH += ";$env:appdata/ccloud"; # We recommend adding ";$env:appdata/ccloud" to the Path variable for your system environment. See https://docs.microsoft.com/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_environment_variables#saving-changes-to-environment-variables for more information.
Run ccloud quickstart
to create a new cluster, create a SQL user, and retrieve the connection string.
The easiest way of getting started with CockroachDB Cloud is to use ccloud quickstart
. The ccloud quickstart
command guides you through logging in to CockroachDB Cloud, creating a new CockroachDB Serverless cluster, and connecting to the new cluster. Run ccloud quickstart
and follow the instructions:
ccloud quickstart
The ccloud quickstart
command will open a browser window to log you in to CockroachDB Cloud. If you are new to CockroachDB Cloud, you can register using one of the single sign-on (SSO) options, or create a new account using an email address.
The ccloud quickstart
command will prompt you for the cluster name, cloud provider, and cloud provider region, then ask if you want to connect to the cluster. Each prompt has default values that you can select, or change if you want a different option.
Select General connection string, then copy the connection string displayed and save it in a secure location. The connection string is the line starting postgresql://
.
? How would you like to connect? General connection string
Retrieving cluster info: succeeded
Downloading cluster cert to /Users/maxroach/.postgresql/root.crt: succeeded
postgresql://maxroach:ThisIsNotAGoodPassword@blue-dog-147.6wr.cockroachlabs.cloud:26257/defaultdb?sslmode=verify-full&sslrootcert=%2FUsers%2Fmaxroach%2F.postgresql%2Froot.crt
- If you haven't already, download the CockroachDB binary.
Run the
cockroach start-single-node
command:$ cockroach start-single-node --advertise-addr 'localhost' --insecure
This starts an insecure, single-node cluster.
Take note of the following connection information in the SQL shell welcome text:
CockroachDB node starting at 2021-08-30 17:25:30.06524 +0000 UTC (took 4.3s) build: CCL v21.1.6 @ 2021/07/20 15:33:43 (go1.15.11) webui: http://localhost:8080 sql: postgresql://root@localhost:26257?sslmode=disable
You'll use the
sql
connection string to connect to the cluster later in this tutorial.
The --insecure
flag used in this tutorial is intended for non-production testing only. To run CockroachDB in production, use a secure cluster instead.
Step 2. Get the code
Clone the code's GitHub repository.
git clone https://github.com/cockroachlabs/example-app-ruby-activerecord
Step 3. Configure the dependencies
Install
libpq
for your platform.For example, to install
libpq
on macOS with Homebrew, run the following command:brew install libpq
Configure
bundle
to uselibpq
.For example, if you installed
libpq
on macOS with Homebrew, run the following command from theexample-app-ruby-activerecord
directory:bundle config --local build.pg --with-opt-dir="{libpq-path}"
Where
{libpq-path}
is the full path to thelibpq
installation on your machine (e.g.,/usr/local/opt/libpq
).Install the dependencies:
bundle install
Step 4. Run the code
Set the
DATABASE_URL
environment variable to the connection string to your CockroachDB Cloud cluster:$ export DATABASE_URL="postgresql://root@localhost:26257/defaultdb?sslmode=disable"
$ export DATABASE_URL="{connection-string}"
Where
{connection-string}
is the connection string you copied earlier.The app uses the connection string saved to the
DATABASE_URL
environment variable to connect to your cluster and execute the code.Run the code to create a table and insert some rows:
ruby main.rb
The output should be similar to the following:
-- create_table(:accounts, {:force=>true, :id=>:integer}) -> 0.1998s account: 1 balance: 1000 account: 2 balance: 250
What's next?
Read more about using Active Record, or check out a more realistic implementation of Active Record with CockroachDB in a Rails app in our examples-orms
repository.
You might also be interested in the following pages: