Add new databases

Please be sure of your agent type and version and pick the right documentation accordingly.

Node.js

This is the documentation of the forest-express-sequelize and forest-express-mongoose Node.js agents that will soon reach end-of-support.

forest-express-sequelize v9 and forest-express-mongoose v9 are replaced by @forestadmin/agent v1.

Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.

Ruby on Rails

Python

PHP

Add new databases

It's becoming quite common to have multiple databases when building a web application. Especially when designing your app with micro services. Here you'll learn how to add new databases.

Add new database

To connect a new database on your project, you need to follow the following steps:

• Stop your agent. The following process will generate files and using nodemon while following this process can cause mis-generation of the .forestadmin-schema.json file.

• Add a new environment variable, inside your .env file (It will be ANOTHER_DB_URL in this example), which represents the connection url string of the database you want to add.

• Edit the database config file located to config/databases.js to add a new object with the following syntax in the array:

[
  {
    name: 'your_first_database_connection',
    // Models associated to a connection should be in a dedicated folder.
    // If your setup already works, you'll need to update the modelsDir associated to your existing connection
    // by changing this variable value
    modelsDir: path.resolve(
      __dirname,
      './models/your_first_database_connection'
    ),
    connection: {
      url: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
      options: {
        /* Database options can be empty, but should match with your requirements */
      },
    },
  },
  {
    name: 'name_of_the_connection',
    modelsDir: path.resolve(__dirname, './models/name_of_the_connection'),
    connection: {
      url: process.env.ANOTHER_DB_URL,
      options: {
        /* Database options can be empty, but should match with your requirements */
      },
    },
  },
];

• Run forest schema:update command and follow instructions.

  • It should generate all the required files. ⚠️ Be aware that existing files will remain untouched when switching from a single database to a multi-database setup. If you made any modifications in the models of your existing connection. In this example, you may want to check the freshly generated models that will be located in the ./models/your_first_database_connection folder.

  • As stated on the forest schema:update documentation, when switching from a single to a multiple database setup, existing models in the ./models folder will remain untouched, and you'll need to move them to the correct location (According to you config/databases.js file) or simply remove them if you never made any modifications on the models themselves.

• Start the agent, and display the added models with the layout editor. Everything should work as expected