1. If you don't already have one, create a Google Cloud Account. You'll receive a $300 credit to use over 3 months.

2. Visit this link and click on the "Create Instance" button.

3. Choose PostgreSQL as your database engine.

4. Enter the following settings, BUT DO NOT AND YES DO NOT click the "Create Instance" button YET! (We'll do that after the next step.)

   Instance ID: pikachu # Choose any name for your instance.
   Password: pikachu # For testing purposes, we're using a simple password "pikachu". In a production environment, use a strong password.
   Choose a Cloud SQL edition: Enterprise # Opt for the Enterprise edition as it is cheaper.
   Preset for this edition: Sandbox # Select the Sandbox preset as it is also cheaper.
   Region: us-central1 # For testing, we're using the default region. In production, select the region that is closest to your server for best performance.
   Machine shapes: Shared Core/1 vCPU, 0.614 GB # Choose the cheapest instance as we don't need a high-end machine for storing web scraping data.
   Storage Capacity: 10 GB
   Enable automatic storage increases: Yes # Enable this feature so you don't have to worry about running out of storage. (Awesome feature!)
   Enable deletion protection: No # Disable this feature, otherwise you'll need to change this setting later to delete the instance.
   

   

5. In the "Connections" > "Authorized Network" tab:

   • Click "Add Network"
   • Enter "0.0.0.0/0" to allow access from any IP (for testing only; in production, add your region's CIDR which you can find here)

   

6. Click the "Create Instance" button now. The instance creation will take approximately 20 minutes.

7. In Vscode, create a new file main.py and paste the following code to test the connection:

   from sqlalchemy import create_engine, Column, Integer, String
   from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
   from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker
   
   # Create a database connection URL
   db_url = 'postgresql://postgres:PASSWORD@IP_ADDRESS:5432/postgres'
   engine = create_engine(db_url)
   Session = sessionmaker(bind=engine)
   session = Session()
   
   # Define a model
   Base = declarative_base()
   
   class User(Base):
       __tablename__ = 'users'
       id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
       name = Column(String)
   
   # Create the table
   Base.metadata.create_all(engine)
   
   # Insert a record
   new_user = User(name='John Doe')
   session.add(new_user)
   session.commit()
   
   # Query records
   users = session.query(User).all()
   for user in users:
       print(user.id, user.name)
   
   # Print a success message
   print("Hurray! database connection is working.")    

8. In the pasted code:

   • Replace PASSWORD with the password you set when creating the instance (like, pikachu)
   • Replace IP_ADDRESS with the instance's IP address, which you can find in the Cloud SQL instance page

   

9. Run the code. You should see the following output:

   1 John Doe
   Hurray! database connection is working.
   

   

10. Finally, to use the PostgreSQL database in Botasaurus:

    • Open the backend/scrapers.py file
    • Add the following line, replacing PASSWORD and IP_ADDRESS with your values:

      Server.set_database_url('postgresql://postgres:PASSWORD@IP_ADDRESS:5432/postgres')

Deleting the instance will permanently erase all data associated with it. Make sure to download any important data before proceeding.

To delete the instance, go to the Google Cloud SQL Instances page and delete the instance.

After deleting the instance, you will not incur any further charges.