Anyone with VPS Experience?

Anyone with VPS Experience?

Todd Cope

Member #998

November 2000

I'm thinking about setting up some permanent servers for some of my games that have online multiplayer and was wondering if anyone here could provide any advice regarding the use of a VPS or other solutions for hosting custom game server software.

My server software is built using ENet, Allegro 5 (for timing), and curses, so I need to be able to install these dependencies, build my server software, and be able to run the software on the VPS.

I'm also curious how interacting with the software remotely is supposed to work. I imagine something like RDP or some kind of text-based terminal-like display.

jmasterx

Member #11,410

October 2009

For my game I use Amazon EC2. It only shut down once in 6 months and rebooted right away. It's not too expensive. You RDP into the machine. You can upgrade as needed, they have you covered for email, database, and a host of other features. I'm very happy with it. I require Windows hosting which is usually pricy, but the cost difference is negligible with them.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

Agui GUI API -> https://github.com/jmasterx/Agui
Agui 0.2 Release Thread -> https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/612830

MiquelFire

Member #3,110

January 2003

Digital Ocean is another VPS provider that is popular around these parts. Talking about curses, sounds like a Linux VPS is all you really need. The initial setup was confusing for me, but so was Amazon. Just getting the hang on how you manage them is the highest learning curve if you already know how to manage a Linux box.

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OICW

Member #4,069

November 2003

As I imagine about using commercial VPS solution is that you pay for a virtual machine and tell the provider what system to install (or probably even some kind of web interface to provide your own iso) and then you get access to that machine say via ssh if it's Linux. Then you can do all sorts of things you want provided it doesn't interfere with terms of use.

So, your best bet would be, in my opinion, to get some VPS running Linux and install whatever is needed for your game server tu run plus the gameserver itself and just run it.

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bamccaig

Member #7,536

July 2006

With Linux servers you typically will SSH into them (into a command shell). If you need a graphical server on the machine it should be possible to install X and do X11 forwarding, but since the servers are typically meant for headless operation the graphics hardware probably will suck (and similarly the virtual hardware will too). If you need the server to do graphics processing you may need to find a host specifically for game server hosting, but I've never heard of one that lets you customize your rig so I'd expect to pay big for it.

In order to install a custom OS the physical servers need to be hooked up to a KVM. IIRC from my past VPSes, I think that they use a virtual KVM instead (i.e., software), I think you use it from a Web browser... You typically have complete control over the OS and file system, but you do need to share hardware resources (i.e., you may be limited to so much CPU usage, etc., and penalized if you exceed it). A private dedicated server is the next step up. It will depend on what your performance requirements are server-side.

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jmasterx

Member #11,410

October 2009

How is Digital Ocean for:
-uptime / reliability
-Backup / database backup
-Running database instances with failover protection

I really like their bandwidth pricing and overall pricing, but since I want to provide a service people will pay for, my database can never, ever, lose data.

Agui GUI API -> https://github.com/jmasterx/Agui
Agui 0.2 Release Thread -> https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/612830

Thomas Fjellstrom

Member #476

June 2000

I used to use my own dedicated box to host some VPS's, now I just host most of that stuff on DigitalOcean. You can basically do just about anything you want with a VPS (other than illegal things), so they are a good route for game servers. Digital Ocean's $5 vps is a pretty good deal if you don't mind the lack of disk space.

jmasterx said:

How is DigitalOcean for:
-uptime / reliability
-Backup / database backup
-Running database instances with failover protection

I haven't had many issues with my droplets going down unannounced. There has been some downtime that was announced weeks or months in advance though.

They do support backing up your disk image, but it costs 20% of your droplet's price. They do not run databases for you nor can they back up your database directly.

If you need multiple db instances, you set up all of that yourself.

As with any service, there WILL be downtime. it'd unavoidable. You just have to plan for it, and handle it.

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Todd Cope

Member #998

November 2000

Thanks everyone for the details and discussion. I set up a Linux droplet on DigitalOcean and already have a server up and running. The curses interface is working nicely over SSH. I think this will work nicely for what I intend to do.

The whole process took about 20 minutes (I used the new PPA to install Allegro 5).

Update: Been playing with the VPS and it's quite usable for my needs. I am using GNU Screen to start a screen session to run the game server in. After I get my game server running in the screen session, I can disconnect from the session and close the SSH connection and the game server will continue to run.

If I need to get back into the server, I can SSH back into the VPS and reconnect to the screen session. It's a nice setup which works well for me on my unstable internet connection.

For anyone interested in how to do this, here are the steps:

ssh user@ip
<enter password> (if applicable)
screen (start a screen session)
cd <location of game server application>
<start game server command>
Ctrl+A, D (disconnect from the screen session)
exit (close the ssh session)

To get back in:

ssh user@ip
<enter password> (if applicable)
screen -d -r (reconnect to screen session)

GNU Screen allows you to run multiple sessions, which will be handy for running more than one server on the same VPS. All in all, I am quite pleased, and the price is affordable.