question

Hi, we recently got Linux servers working in Thunderhead. Here's PlayFab's instructions (and here's what worked for us):

1. Ensure the GSDK works in your server build

2. Build and compile in your engine for Linux

3. Ideally, test in Ubuntu and make sure your Linux instance works

4. If it works, you need to create a Docker container with a Linux image (we use Ubuntu, as does PlayFab) and your server executable.

4a. Set up Docker, create a Dockerfile

4b. It'll look something like this (we needed to install cURL on our containers due to Unity requirements):

FROM ubuntu:latest
COPY /path/to/server
COPY /path/to/shellFileToRunServerIfApplicable
RUN apt-get -y update
RUN apt-get -y install curl wget
WORKDIR /root/
ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/bash", "/shellFileToRunServerIfApplicable.sh"]

Next, run and build your docker. If the container runs and doesn't exit/error-out, use 'docker ps' instead of 'docker ps -a' in these next steps.

5. Obtain the container registry login information from PlayFab by calling GetContainerRegistryCredentials and it will return a URL, username, and password. Save these for the next steps.

6. Using docker, upload your running container to the PlayFab registry.

6a. These are the docker commands you should run, in order:

docker build -t [nameOfYourBuild] .
docker run -p [YourInboundServerPort]:[YourOutboundServerPort] [nameOfYourBuild] 
docker ps
***this will show running containers, get your container ID from here***

docker commit [container id] [tagOfYourContainer] 
docker login -u [user] -p [pass] [repo] 
***use the username/password and repo URL you got from PF earlier***

docker tag [tagOfYourContainer] [repo]/[tagOfYourContainer] 
docker push [repo]/[tagOfYourContainer] 
docker stop [container id]

7. Next, once the container is uploaded successfully, you need to actually create the server build.

7a. Use the ListContainerImages call to ensure the container was successfully uploaded to the registry.

7b. Then use ListContainerImageTags to get the tags for the selected container. When you have the most recent tag (probably "latest"), you're almost done!

8. You need to actually create the server build.

8a. Call the CreateBuildWithCustomContainer API and pass in your desired build parameters

For "BuildName", give it whatever name you want.

"ContainerFlavor" needs to be 'CustomLinux'

For "ContainerImageReference", pass in the name and tag that was uploaded earlier (and the ones you confirmed in the "ListContainerImages" and "ListContainerImageTags" calls)

For "MultiplayerServerCountPerVm", assign however many server containers you want per-virtual machine.

For "Ports", add any internal port your game server uses

For "RegionConfigurations", add any of the regions you want to push this build to.

The docs don't say VmSize is required, but I think it is, so ensure you select a VM size.

We went the route of creating an app to do most of this for us when we create new builds. Also, I'm not 100% positive, but I think you need to be authenticated for some or all of these calls. If so, use the Authentication API to call GetEntityToken with your secret key.

If all went well, you should get a valid response, and can now manage your Server builds in the GameManager like you can with Windows containers. I think in the (near?) future, adding Linux builds will be easier and supported by the PlayFab web GUI, although I'm not sure when this will be available.