Quickstart: a self-hosted backend in five minutes

This takes a bare Linux server to a running backend with an API, sign-in, realtime and files, on your own PostgreSQL. You need a Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Rocky or Alma server (amd64 or arm64) and sudo. For Docker, see installation.

#1. Install

curl -fsSL https://slonbase.com/install.sh | sudo sh

It installs PostgreSQL if the machine has none, creates a role and a database for slonbase, installs slonbase and creates your first superuser, asking for your email and printing a generated password. See installation for every step by hand.

The server listens on 127.0.0.1:8090. From your computer, open a tunnel and then http://127.0.0.1:8090/_/:

ssh -L 8090:127.0.0.1:8090 you@your-server

#2. Create a collection

Sign in to the dashboard, choose New collection, name it posts and add the fields title (text) and published (bool). Under API rules, make the list and view rules public (empty) for this tryout.

#3. Call the API

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/health
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/collections/posts/records

Creating records needs a token. Sign in as the superuser and send it:

TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/collections/_superusers/auth-with-password \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"identity":"you@example.com","password":"your password"}' | jq -r .token)

curl -s -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/collections/posts/records \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"title":"Hello, slonbase","published":true}'

#4. Use an SDK and realtime

The PocketBase JavaScript SDK works against slonbase's API:

import PocketBase from "pocketbase";

const pb = new PocketBase("http://127.0.0.1:8090");

// realtime: this runs for every change to posts, from anywhere
pb.collection("posts").subscribe("*", (e) => console.log(e.action, e.record.title));

await pb.collection("posts").create({ title: "Live", published: true });
const page = await pb.collection("posts").getList(1, 20, { filter: "published = true" });

Because every collection is a table, the same data is one SQL query away:

sudo -u postgres psql slonbase -c 'select id, title from slonbase.posts'

#Next

• Put a reverse proxy with HTTPS in front: deployment.
• Add users with an auth collection, and rules to match: the API guide.
• Run more than one app from the same server: projects.
• Extend it with JavaScript hooks.