How to manage SQLite databases on a Linux Ubuntu server with Lite Queen and Systemd

Published on Sep 25, 2024

This guide will walk you through the steps to run Lite Queen with Linux's Sytemd. Let's start.

Let's start by putting a copy of Lite Queen in a folder:

horse@ubuntu-arm-helsinki:~/test$ tree
.
└── lite-queen

0 directories, 1 file

Creating the Systemd Unit: Here are the commands we're going to run alongside comments.

touch litequeen.service

# folder that'll hold the data for Lite Queen
mkdir data

# Create a symbolic link for the systemd service file
sudo ln -s /home/horse/test/litequeen.service /etc/systemd/system/litequeen.service


# let's add the systemd unit configuration
cat <<EOL > litequeen.service
[Unit]
Description=Lite Queen 

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
ExecStart=/home/horse/test/lite-queen --port 8080 --hostname 0.0.0.0 --data_dir /home/horse/test/data

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=1s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOL

Activate and run it:

First we enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable litequeen.service

Then we start it:

sudo systemctl start litequeen.service

And last we verify everything is working as it should:

sudo systemctl status litequeen.service

horse@ubuntu-arm-helsinki:~/test$ sudo systemctl status litequeen.service
● litequeen.service - Lite Queen
    Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/litequeen.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
    Active: active (running) since Mon 2024-06-24 03:37:30 UTC; 52s ago
  Main PID: 245180 (lite-queen)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 4407)
    Memory: 1.5M
        CPU: 6ms
    CGroup: /system.slice/litequeen.service
            └─245180 /home/horse/test/lite-queen --port 8080 --hostname 0.0.0.0 --data_dir /home/horse/test/data

Jun 24 03:37:30 ubuntu-arm-helsinki systemd[1]: Started Lite Queen.
Jun 24 03:37:30 ubuntu-arm-helsinki lite-queen[245180]: 2024/06/24 03:37:30 Lite Queen running on http://0.0.0.0:8080
Jun 24 03:37:30 ubuntu-arm-helsinki lite-queen[245180]: 2024/06/24 03:37:30 App is not registered. Running with limited functionality...

Expose and secure it: To make it accessible to the internet via a domain, with some added security, let's set up Caddy(you're free to use any another webserver/reverse proxy like Nginx, etc).

litequeen.example.com {

    @blocked {
        not remote_ip xx.xx.xx.xx # Whitelisted IP Address, replace with your own
        not remote_ip yy.yy.yy.yy # We can add multiple IP adresses too
    }
    respond @blocked "Not allowed" 403

    basicauth * { 
        # Password hashed with Caddy's hash-password command
        testing $2a$14$0EaqE/lqNro14adPf/c2COOdqfXukT5hXIS9.ZwRj0FMBQcWTYxR.
    }

    reverse_proxy :8080
}

And there you have it! Lite Queen should now be secured with basic authentication and accessible to only users with a certain IP address at https://litequeen.example.com. Happy hosting!