Guides & Tutorials
Deploy a Full-Stack App with VPS & PostgreSQL
End-to-end tutorial on launching a high-performance VPS, configuring Nginx, and connecting to 1st Managed PostgreSQL.
Deploy a Full-Stack App with 1st VPS & PostgreSQL
In this tutorial, you will learn how to provision a high-performance 1st Cloud VPS, attach a 1st Managed PostgreSQL instance, and deploy a containerized application with automated SSL.
Architecture Overview
graph LR
User[User Browser / Client] -->|HTTPS :443| Nginx[Nginx Reverse Proxy]
Nginx -->|Port :3000| App[Dockerized Web App on 1st VPS]
App -->|Encrypted TLS / VPC| DB[(1st Managed PostgreSQL)]
Step 1: Provision Resources via API
deploy-infra.sh
# 1. Create a private VPC
VPC_ID=$(curl -s -X POST https://api.1st-services.com/v1/networking/vpcs \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRST_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name": "app-vpc", "region": "us-east-1"}' | jq -r .data.id)
# 2. Launch Managed PostgreSQL in the VPC
DB_URI=$(curl -s -X POST https://api.1st-services.com/v1/databases \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRST_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{\"name\":\"app-db\",\"engine\":\"postgresql\",\"version\":\"16\",\"plan\":\"db-standard-2\",\"vpc_id\":\"$VPC_ID\"}" | jq -r .data.connection_uri)
# 3. Launch VPS in the same VPC
curl -X POST https://api.1st-services.com/v1/vps/instances \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRST_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{
\"name\": \"app-web-01\",
\"plan\": \"vps-standard-2\",
\"region\": \"us-east-1\",
\"image\": \"ubuntu-24.04-lts\",
\"vpc_id\": \"$VPC_ID\"
}"
Step 2: Configure Application Environment
Connect to your VPS instance via SSH:
Terminal
ssh root@<VPS_IP_ADDRESS>
Create your .env configuration file pointing securely to your 1st Managed PostgreSQL instance:
/opt/app/.env
NODE_ENV=production
PORT=3000
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://firstadmin:P4ssw0rd!@pg-cluster-9918231.db.1st-services.com:5432/defaultdb?sslmode=require"
Step 3: Run with Docker Compose
/opt/app/docker-compose.yml
version: '3.8'
services:
web:
image: ghcr.io/myorg/myapp:latest
restart: always
env_file: .env
ports:
- "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
caddy:
image: caddy:2-alpine
restart: always
ports:
- "80:80"
- "443:443"
volumes:
- ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile
- caddy_data:/data
- caddy_config:/config
volumes:
caddy_data:
caddy_config:
/opt/app/Caddyfile
api.yourdomain.com {
reverse_proxy web:3000
}
Start the containers:
Terminal
docker compose up -d
Your full-stack application is now live, secured with automated TLS certificates, and connected to high-performance managed database infrastructure.