Can't connect to heroku postgresql database from local node app with sequelize

Question

I'm trying to connect to a Heroku postgresql database from a local nodejs app with Sequelize. I followed this two guides an everything is working perfectly fine on the heroky server side, but my node app won't connect to heroku when I run it locally on my Mac.

• http://sequelizejs.com/articles/heroku
• https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/connecting-to-heroku-postgres-databases-from-outside-of-heroku

Here is how I start the local app:

DATABASE_URL=$(heroku config:get DATABASE_URL) nodemon

Gets me:

Sequelize: Unable to connect to the database:

But I get the correct URL by doing this:

echo $(heroku config:get DATABASE_URL)

And those commands are working fine:

heroku pg:psql
psql $(heroku config:get DATABASE_URL)

Here is my nodejs code :

var match = process.env.DATABASE_URL.match(/postgres:\/\/([^:]+):([^@]+)@([^:]+):(\d+)\/(.+)/)
sequelize = new Sequelize(match[5], match[1], match[2], {
    dialect:  'postgres',
    protocol: 'postgres',
    port:     match[4],
    host:     match[3],
    logging: false
})

sequelize
.authenticate()
.complete(function(err) {
    if (!!err) {
        log('Sequelize: Unable to connect to the database:', err);
    } else {
        http.listen(process.env.PORT || config.server.port, function(){
            log('Web server listening on port '+process.env.PORT || config.server.port);
        });
    }
});

I tried to add native: true to the sequelize options, but then I get:

    /Users/clement/Projets/XMM/node_modules/sequelize/lib/sequelize.js:188
      throw new Error('The dialect ' + this.getDialect() + ' is not supported.
            ^
Error: The dialect postgres is not supported. (Error: Please install postgres package manually)
    at new module.exports.Sequelize (/Users/clement/Projets/XMM/node_modules/sequelize/lib/sequelize.js:188:13)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/clement/Projets/XMM/server.js:17:14)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
    at startup (node.js:119:16)
    at node.js:929:3

Even after doing:

npm install pg
npm install -g pg
brew install postgresql

This is working by the way:

var pg = require('pg');
pg.connect(process.env.DATABASE_URL+'?ssl=true', function(err, client, done) {
    if (err) return console.log(err);
    client.query('SELECT * FROM pg_catalog.pg_tables', function(err, result) {
        done();
        if(err) return console.error(err);
        console.log(result.rows);
    });
});

But i'd rather use Sequelize.

Answer 1

OK, found the answer by browsing sequelize source code : https://github.com/sequelize/sequelize/blob/master/lib/dialects/postgres/connection-manager.js#L39

To activate SSL for PG connections you don't need native: true or ssl: true but dialectOptions.ssl: true so the following did finally work:

sequelize = new Sequelize(process.env.DATABASE_URL, {
    dialect: 'postgres',
    protocol: 'postgres',
    dialectOptions: {
        ssl: true
    }
});

To work around the self signed certificate bug on node-postgres version 8 mentioned at SequelizeConnectionError: self signed certificate you can use instead:

sequelize = new Sequelize(process.env.DATABASE_URL, {
    dialect: 'postgres',
    protocol: 'postgres',
    dialectOptions: {
        ssl: {
            require: true,
            rejectUnauthorized: false
        }
    }
});

Answer 2

You no longer need to parse the DATABASE_URL env variable, there is a Sequelize constructor which accepts the connection URL:

sequelize = new Sequelize(process.env.DATABASE_URL, {
    dialect: 'postgres',
    protocol: 'postgres',
    dialectOptions: {
        ssl: true
    }
});

Answer 3

One needs to add dialectOptions under ssl

 "development": {
    "username": process.env.DB_USERNAME,
    "password": process.env.DB_PASSWORD,
    "database": process.env.DB_NAME,
    "host": process.env.DB_HOST,
    "dialect": process.env.DB_DIALECT,
    "dialectOptions": {
        ssl: {
            require: true,
            rejectUnauthorized: false
        }
    }
},

Source is as per official sequelize github