+++ title = "Admin" weight = 12 [menu.main] name = "Admin" identifier = "graphql-admin" parent = "graphql" +++
This article presents the Admin API and explains how to run Dgraph with GraphQL.
The simplest way to start with Dgraph GraphQL is to run the all-in-one Docker image.
docker run -it -p 8080:8080 dgraph/standalone:master
That brings up GraphQL at localhost:8080/graphql
and localhost:8080/admin
, but is intended for quickstart and doesn't persist data.
Once you've tried out Dgraph GraphQL, you'll need to move past the dgraph/standalone
and run and deploy Dgraph instances.
Dgraph is a distributed graph database. It can scale to huge data and shard that data across a cluster of Dgraph instances. GraphQL is built into Dgraph in its Alpha nodes. To learn how to manage and deploy a Dgraph cluster, check our deployment guide.
GraphQL schema introspection is enabled by default, but can be disabled with the --graphql_introspection=false
when starting the Dgraph alpha nodes.
Dgraph's GraphQL runs in Dgraph and presents a GraphQL schema where the queries and mutations are executed in the Dgraph cluster. So the GraphQL schema is backed by Dgraph's schema.
{{% notice "warning" %}} this means that if you have a Dgraph instance and change its GraphQL schema, the schema of the underlying Dgraph will also be changed! {{% /notice %}}
When you start Dgraph with GraphQL, two GraphQL endpoints are served.
At /graphql
you'll find the GraphQL API for the types you've added. That's what your app would access and is the GraphQL entry point to Dgraph. If you need to know more about this, see the quick start and schema docs.
At /admin
you'll find an admin API for administering your GraphQL instance. The admin API is a GraphQL API that serves POST and GET as well as compressed data, much like the /graphql
endpoint.
Here are the important types, queries, and mutations from the admin
schema.
scalar DateTime
"""
Data about the GraphQL schema being served by Dgraph.
"""
type GQLSchema @dgraph(type: "dgraph.graphql") {
id: ID!
"""
Input schema (GraphQL types) that was used in the latest schema update.
"""
schema: String! @dgraph(pred: "dgraph.graphql.schema")
"""
The GraphQL schema that was generated from the 'schema' field.
This is the schema that is being served by Dgraph at /graphql.
"""
generatedSchema: String!
}
type Cors @dgraph(type: "dgraph.cors"){
acceptedOrigins: [String]
}
"""
SchemaHistory contains the schema and the time when the schema has been created.
"""
type SchemaHistory @dgraph(type: "dgraph.graphql.history") {
schema: String! @id @dgraph(pred: "dgraph.graphql.schema_history")
created_at: DateTime! @dgraph(pred: "dgraph.graphql.schema_created_at")
}
"""
A NodeState is the state of an individual Alpha or Zero node in the Dgraph cluster.
"""
type NodeState {
"""
Node type : either 'alpha' or 'zero'.
"""
instance: String
"""
Address of the node.
"""
address: String
"""
Node health status : either 'healthy' or 'unhealthy'.
"""
status: String
"""
The group this node belongs to in the Dgraph cluster.
See : https://dgraph.io/docs/deploy/#cluster-setup.
"""
group: String
"""
Version of the Dgraph binary.
"""
version: String
"""
Time in nanoseconds since the node started.
"""
uptime: Int
"""
Time in Unix epoch time that the node was last contacted by another Zero or Alpha node.
"""
lastEcho: Int
"""
List of ongoing operations in the background.
"""
ongoing: [String]
"""
List of predicates for which indexes are built in the background.
"""
indexing: [String]
"""
List of Enterprise Features that are enabled.
"""
ee_features: [String]
}
type MembershipState {
counter: Int
groups: [ClusterGroup]
zeros: [Member]
maxLeaseId: Int
maxTxnTs: Int
maxRaftId: Int
removed: [Member]
cid: String
license: License
}
type ClusterGroup {
id: Int
members: [Member]
tablets: [Tablet]
snapshotTs: Int
checksum: Int
}
type Member {
id: Int
groupId: Int
addr: String
leader: Boolean
amDead: Boolean
lastUpdate: Int
clusterInfoOnly: Boolean
forceGroupId: Boolean
}
type Tablet {
groupId: Int
predicate: String
force: Boolean
space: Int
remove: Boolean
readOnly: Boolean
moveTs: Int
}
type License {
user: String
maxNodes: Int
expiryTs: Int
enabled: Boolean
}
directive @dgraph(type: String, pred: String) on OBJECT | INTERFACE | FIELD_DEFINITION
directive @secret(field: String!, pred: String) on OBJECT | INTERFACE
type UpdateGQLSchemaPayload {
gqlSchema: GQLSchema
}
input UpdateGQLSchemaInput {
set: GQLSchemaPatch!
}
input GQLSchemaPatch {
schema: String!
}
input ExportInput {
format: String
"""
Destination for the backup: e.g. Minio or S3 bucket or /absolute/path
"""
destination: String
"""
Access key credential for the destination.
"""
accessKey: String
"""
Secret key credential for the destination.
"""
secretKey: String
"""
AWS session token, if required.
"""
sessionToken: String
"""
Set to true to allow backing up to S3 or Minio bucket that requires no credentials.
"""
anonymous: Boolean
}
type Response {
code: String
message: String
}
type ExportPayload {
response: Response
exportedFiles: [String]
}
type DrainingPayload {
response: Response
}
type ShutdownPayload {
response: Response
}
input ConfigInput {
"""
Estimated memory the caches can take. Actual usage by the process would be
more than specified here. The caches will be updated according to the
cache_percentage flag.
"""
cacheMb: Float
"""
True value of logRequest enables logging of all the requests coming to alphas.
False value of logRequest disables above.
"""
logRequest: Boolean
}
type ConfigPayload {
response: Response
}
type Config {
cacheMb: Float
}
type Query {
getGQLSchema: GQLSchema
health: [NodeState]
state: MembershipState
config: Config
getAllowedCORSOrigins: Cors
querySchemaHistory(first: Int, offset: Int): [SchemaHistory]
}
type Mutation {
"""
Update the Dgraph cluster to serve the input schema. This may change the GraphQL
schema, the types and predicates in the Dgraph schema, and cause indexes to be recomputed.
"""
updateGQLSchema(input: UpdateGQLSchemaInput!) : UpdateGQLSchemaPayload
"""
Starts an export of all data in the cluster. Export format should be 'rdf' (the default
if no format is given), or 'json'.
See : https://dgraph.io/docs/deploy/#export-database
"""
export(input: ExportInput!): ExportPayload
"""
Set (or unset) the cluster draining mode. In draining mode no further requests are served.
"""
draining(enable: Boolean): DrainingPayload
"""
Shutdown this node.
"""
shutdown: ShutdownPayload
"""
Alter the node's config.
"""
config(input: ConfigInput!): ConfigPayload
replaceAllowedCORSOrigins(origins: [String]): Cors
}
You'll notice that the /admin
schema is very much the same as the schemas generated by Dgraph GraphQL.
- The
health
query lets you know if everything is connected and if there's a schema currently being served at/graphql
. - The
state
query returns the current state of the cluster and group membership information. For more information aboutstate
see here. - The
config
query returns the configuration options of the cluster set at the time of starting it. - The
getGQLSchema
query gets the current GraphQL schema served at/graphql
, or returns null if there's no such schema. - The
getAllowedCORSOrigins
query returns your CORS policy. - The
updateGQLSchema
mutation allows you to change the schema currently served at/graphql
.
Enterprise Features like ACL, Backups and Restore are also available using the GraphQL API at /admin
endpoint.
On first starting with a blank database:
- There's no schema served at
/graphql
. - Querying the
/admin
endpoint forgetGQLSchema
returns"getGQLSchema": null
. - Querying the
/admin
endpoint forhealth
lets you know that no schema has been added.
You can validate a GraphQL schema before adding it to your database by sending
your schema defnition to the /admin/schema/validate
endpoint, as in the
following HTTP request example:
Request header:
path: /admin/schema/validate
method: POST
content-type: application/json
Request body:
type Person {
name: String
}
This endpoint returns a JSON response that indicates if the schema is valid or
not, and provides and error if isn't valid. In this case, the schema is valid,
so the JSON response includes the following message: Schema is valid
.
There are two ways you can modify a GraphQL schema:
- Using
/admin/schema
- Using the
updateGQLSchema
mutation on/admin
The /admin/schema
endpoint provides a simplified method to add and update schemas.
To create a schema you only need to call the /admin/schema
endpoint with the required schema definition. For example:
type Person {
name: String
}
If you have the schema definition stored in a schema.graphql
file, you can use curl
like this:
curl -X POST localhost:8080/admin/schema --data-binary '@schema.graphql'
On successful execution, the /admin/schema
endpoint will give you a JSON response with a success code.
Another option to add or modify a GraphQL schema is the updateGQLSchema
mutation.
For example, to create a schema using updateGQLSchema
, run this mutation on the /admin
endpoint:
mutation {
updateGQLSchema(
input: { set: { schema: "type Person { name: String }"}})
{
gqlSchema {
schema
generatedSchema
}
}
}
Regardless of the method used to upload the GraphQL schema, on a black database, adding this schema
type Person {
name: String
}
would cause the following:
- The
/graphql
endpoint would refresh and serve the GraphQL schema generated from typetype Person { name: String }
: that's Dgraph typePerson
and predicatePerson.name: string .
(see this article on how to customize the generated schema) - The schema of the underlying Dgraph instance would be altered to allow for the new
Person
type andname
predicate. - The
/admin
endpoint forhealth
would return that a schema is being served. - The mutation would return
"schema": "type Person { name: String }"
and the generated GraphQL schema forgeneratedSchema
(this is the schema served at/graphql
). - Querying the
/admin
endpoint forgetGQLSchema
would return the new schema.
Given an instance serving the GraphQL schema from the previous section, updating the schema to the following
type Person {
name: String @search(by: [regexp])
dob: DateTime
}
would change the GraphQL definition of Person
and result in the following:
- The
/graphql
endpoint would refresh and serve the GraphQL schema generated from the new type. - The schema of the underlying Dgraph instance would be altered to allow for
dob
(predicatePerson.dob: datetime .
is added, andPerson.name
becomesPerson.name: string @index(regexp).
) and indexes are rebuilt to allow the regexp search. - The
health
is unchanged. - Querying the
/admin
endpoint forgetGQLSchema
would return the updated schema.
Adding a schema through GraphQL doesn't remove existing data (it only removes indexes).
For example, starting from the schema in the previous section and modifying it with the initial schema
type Person {
name: String
}
would have the following effects:
- The
/graphql
endpoint would refresh to serve the schema built from this type. - Thus, field
dob
would no longer be accessible, and there'd be no search available onname
. - The search index on
name
in Dgraph would be removed. - The predicate
dob
in Dgraph would be left untouched (the predicate remains and no data is deleted).