# How to build a distributed backend API with Yugabyte and postREST

Before we jump to the action, I want to present our main actors.

**PostgREST** is a standalone web server that turns your PostgreSQL database directly into a RESTful API. The structural constraints and permissions in the database determine the API endpoints and operations.

**Yugabyte** it's a NewSQL database. Combines the strength of both worlds, ACID default support and horizontal scalability. In their words "*Modern applications need a cloud-native database that eliminates tradeoffs and silos. The world's leading enterprises are modernizing from Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and other legacy RDBMSs to YugabyteDB for mission-critical applications.*"

First, we need to spin up our Yugabyte. The easiest way to do this is using a dockerfile.

```dockerfile
version: '2'
services:
  db:
    image: yugabytedb/yugabyte:latest
    user: root
    command:  "bin/yugabyted start --daemon=false"
    ports:
      - "7000:7000"
      - "9000:9000"
      - "5433:5433"
      - "9042:9042" # live chat
    restart: always             # run as a service
    volumes:
        - /yb_data:/home/yugabyte/yb_data
```

Then, we are going to configure the DB for the testing

```sql
--Create schema
create schema api;
-- CreateTable and dummy values to test
create table api.todos (
  id serial primary key,
  done boolean not null default false,
  task text not null,
  due timestamptz
);

insert into api.todos (task) values
  ('finish tutorial 0'), ('pat self on back');

--Create an user and configure all the required grantees
create role web_anon nologin;

grant usage on schema api to web_anon;
grant select on api.todos to web_anon;

create role authenticator noinherit login password 'mysecretpassword';
grant web_anon to authenticator;
```

After that, we need to configure our postREST to connect to our local Yugabyte container. We will use the Yugabyte DB and the user/password created in the previous step.

```nginx
db-uri = "postgres://authenticator:mysecretpassword@localhost:5433/yugabyte"
db-schemas = "api"
db-anon-role = "web_anon"
```

And we start the web server

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1691180877741/91b1a5bc-1d23-40a5-8c4f-937a5be4b5ee.png align="center")

Then, we can run our docker file

```powershell
docker-compose up
```

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1691181215148/fa3810a4-24e6-4916-9887-aaf49d836ec1.png align="center")

now, we have a RESTful API to consume our data.

```bash
postgres@MSI:/home/felipe$ curl http://localhost:3000/todos
[{"id":1,"done":false,"task":"finish tutorial 0","due":null},
 {"id":2,"done":false,"task":"pat self on back","due":null}]
postgres@MSI:/home/felipe$
```

Or by web

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1691181448850/f88c70b1-b63e-4911-9914-65aefa14178b.png align="center")

In the next article, we will see how to add other operations PUT/POST/DELETE

Thanks for reading