Self hosting

  1. Prerequisites
  2. Architecture
  3. Alternative: Using Docker
  4. Frontend
    1. Serving the files with Nginx
    2. Environment variables
    3. Hosting the frontend on Cloudflare Pages
  5. Backend
    1. Environment variables
  6. Usage with wrappers

The LicenseGate GitHub repository is a monorepo containing both the frontend and backend code. The frontend is built with SvelteKit and the backend is a NodeJS Express server.

Prerequisites

  • VPS with NodeJS >= 16.x installed
  • MySQL database
  • SMTP server

Architecture

LicenseGate consists of two parts:

The frontend is the web interface that users interact with. It is a static site that can be hosted on any static file server (e.g. Nginx, Cloudflare Pages, …). The frontend is not a running server, it is just a collection of static files.

The backend is the server that the frontend communicates with and that performs the verification of licenses. The backend is a NodeJS Express server that can be hosted anywhere that supports NodeJS (e.g. Your own VPS, Heroku, Vercel, …).

The frontend and backend need to be served under separate domains or subdomains. For example, the frontend should be served under https://licensegate.example.com and the backend under https://api.licensegate.example.com.

Alternative: Using Docker

LicenseGate can alternatively be hosted using docker instead of manually setting up the components. The GitHub repository contains the required files to host the LicenseGate dashboard (frontend and backend) including:

  • Automatic SSL certificate through letsencrypt
  • Reverse-proxy through Caddy

The SMTP-Server for delivering E-Mails is not included and needs to be provided externally.

For more information on how to set up LicenseGate with Docker, refer to the Docker setup guide.

Frontend

  1. Clone the GitHub repository: git clone https://github.com/DevLeoko/license-gate, which creates a folder named “license-gate”
  2. Navigate to the frontend directory: cd frontend.
  3. Setup the environment variables in .env (see below for an example). For security reasons the .env file in the backend directory should be empty when building the frontend.
  4. Run npm install and npm run build
  5. The build output is in the frontend/build directory.

The files should be served directly under a domain or subdomain and not in a subdirectory. For example, the files should be served under https://licensegate.example.com and not https://example.com/licensegate.

Serving the files with Nginx

  1. Create a new folder for the frontend files: mkdir -p /var/www/licensegate
  2. Copy the files to the new folder: cp -r frontend/build/* /var/www/licensegate
  3. Create a new Nginx server block: nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/licensegate
  4. Add the following configuration to the server block:
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name licensegate.example.com;

    root /var/www/licensegate;
    index index.html;

    location / {
      try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html =404;
    }
}
  1. Enable the server block: ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/licensegate /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/licensegate
  2. Reload Nginx: systemctl reload nginx
  3. The frontend should now be accessible at https://licensegate.example.com

Environment variables

Variable name Description Example
PUBLIC_BACKEND_URL The URL of the backend server https://api.licensegate.io
PUBLIC_RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY The site key for reCAPTCHA (v2 - invisible). This is used to protect signup and password-rest pages 6Lc...
PUBLIC_GOOGLE_AUTH_CLIENT_ID The client ID for Google OAuth. This is used to allow users to sign in with their Google account. Set to none to disable. 1234....apps.googleusercontent.com 
PUBLIC_BACKEND_URL=https://api.licensegate.example.com
PUBLIC_RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY=6Lc...
PUBLIC_GOOGLE_AUTH_CLIENT_ID=none

Hosting the frontend on Cloudflare Pages

The easiest way to host the frontend is to use Cloudflare Pages. (These steps do not require the steps above)

  1. Fork the GitHub repository
  2. Sign in to your Cloudflare account and go to “Workers & Pages”
  3. Click “Create application”
  4. Select “Pages” and then “Connect to Git”
  5. Select the forked repository
  6. Set these build settings:
    • Build command: cd frontend && npm i && npm run build
    • Build output directory: frontend/build
    • Environment variables: As described below

Backend

  1. Clone the GitHub repository: git clone https://github.com/DevLeoko/license-gate, which creates a folder named “license-gate”
  2. Navigate to the backend directory: cd backend.
  3. Setup the environment variables .env (see below for an example)
  4. Run npm install, npm run prisma-up and npm run prisma-gen to setup the database and generate the Prisma client.
  5. Run npm run start to start the backend server.

Environment variables

Variable name Description Example
NODE_ENV The environment the server is running in. Set to production in production. production
HEX_USER_ID_OFFSET The offset to add to the user ID when converting it to a hex string. You can set this to 0. a3f
PORT The port the server should listen on. 3000
DATABASE_URL The URL to the MySQL database. mysql://user:password@host/db
SMTP_HOST The hostname of the SMTP server. smtp.example.com
SMTP_USERNAME The username for the SMTP server. user
SMTP_PASSWORD The password for the SMTP server. password
SMTP_PORT The port of the SMTP server. 587
SMTP_SENDER The email address that should be used as the sender. LicenseGate <[email protected]>
JWT_SECRET The secret used to sign the JWT tokens. (any random string will do) secret
RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY The secret key for reCAPTCHA (v2 - invisible). This is used to protect signup and password-rest pages a4c...
SIGN_IN_URL The URL of the frontend sign in page. https://licensegate.example.com/auth/login
RESET_PASSWORD_URL The URL of the frontend reset password page. https://licensegate.example.com/auth/password
CORS_ORIGIN The frontend origin that is allowed to access the server. Set to * to allow any origin. https://licensegate.example.com
GOOGLE_AUTH_CLIENT_ID The client ID for Google OAuth. This is used to allow users to sign in with their Google account. Set to none to disable. 1234....apps.googleusercontent.com 
NODE_ENV=production
HEX_USER_ID_OFFSET=0
PORT=3000
DATABASE_URL="mysql://user:password@host/db"
SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
SMTP_USERNAME=user
SMTP_PASSWORD=password
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_SENDER="LicenseGate <[email protected]>"
JWT_SECRET=secret
RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY=a4c...
SIGN_IN_URL=https://licensegate.example.com/auth/login
RESET_PASSWORD_URL=https://licensegate.example.com/auth/password
CORS_ORIGIN=https://licensegate.example.com
GOOGLE_AUTH_CLIENT_ID=none

Usage with wrappers

LicenseGate wrapper libraries, by default, use the public LicenseGate server which is provided under api.licensegate.io. In order to use your self-hosted licensing server, you will need to configure your server url when using wrappers. Refer to the wrapper documentation for detailed instructions.

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