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Connecting with psql

This guide explains how to connect to a Hydra database using the psql command-line tool. It walks through the necessary setup, connection process, and execution of a simple SQL query.

Variables

To connect to a Hydra database, you only need one environment variable — the connection URI.

Variable

Description

Purpose

HYDRA_URI

Full Hydra connection string from Elestio

Encodes all connection info in one URI

A typical URI looks like this:

postgresql://<USER>:<PASSWORD>@<HOST>:<PORT>/<DATABASE>

You can find the details needed in the URI from the Elestio service overview details. Copy and replace the variables carefully in the URI example provided above.

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Prerequisites

While following this tutorial, you will need to have psql already installed; if not head over to https://www.postgresql.org/download/ and download it first.

Connecting to Hydra

Open your terminal and run the following command to connect to your Hydra database using the full connection URI:

psql HYDRA_URI

If the connection is successful, you’ll see output similar to this. Here it will show you the database you tried to connect to, which in this case is Elestio:

psql (17.4, server 14.13 (Debian 14.13-1.pgdg120+1))
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, compression: off, ALPN: none)
Type "help" for help.

elestio=# 

To ensure you're connected correctly, run this command inside the psql prompt:

SELECT version();

You should receive output like the following:

version
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PostgreSQL 16.8 (Debian 16.8-1.pgdg120+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0, 64-bit
(1 row)