How to Install and Use CockroachDB on a VPS

How to Install and Use CockroachDB on a VPS

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database designed for cloud-native resilience. You can run a single-node instance on your Breeze for development or small production workloads.

Install CockroachDB

curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v24.1.0.linux-amd64.tgz | tar -xz
sudo cp cockroach-v24.1.0.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/cockroach
sudo cp -r cockroach-v24.1.0.linux-amd64/lib/* /usr/local/lib/cockroach/

cockroach version

Start a Single-Node Cluster

# Create data directory
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/cockroach
sudo useradd -r -s /usr/sbin/nologin cockroach
sudo chown cockroach:cockroach /var/lib/cockroach

# Start in insecure mode for development
cockroach start-single-node --insecure \
  --store=/var/lib/cockroach \
  --listen-addr=localhost:26257 \
  --http-addr=localhost:8080 \
  --background

Create a Database and Table

cockroach sql --insecure --host=localhost:26257

CREATE DATABASE myapp;
USE myapp;

CREATE TABLE users (
    id UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
    email STRING UNIQUE NOT NULL,
    created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT now()
);

INSERT INTO users (email) VALUES ('admin@example.com');

Systemd Service

For production use on your Breeze, create a systemd unit file that starts CockroachDB with TLS certificates enabled. Use cockroach cert create-ca and cockroach cert create-node to generate certificates before switching from insecure mode.