Game Server Wrapper

The game server wrapper, also known as the wrapper, gswrapper or gsw, can be used to launch your game server executable inside the container image that runs your GameFabric Armadas or Vessels.

By starting the executable as a wrapper it can enable various convenience features.

The following features are available:

• Parameter templating
• Configuration file templating,
• Shutdown handling,
• Log tailing, and
• Crash reporting.

Pre-requisites

Before using the wrapper, make sure that:

• You have a container image that contains your game server binary (see Building and Pushing Container Images),
• You have either an Armada or Vessel configured to run the container image (see Running your Game Server).

If your game server cannot run in GameFabric because it is missing vital information such as IP address or port numbers, the wrapper can already help with its templating features.

Integration

The wrapper is a binary executable file. It is executed as the main command in the container and in turn executes your game server binary, passing it its command-line arguments.

Here are the steps to do this this:

• Add the wrapper to your container image
  • Download the binary file
  • Make it executable
  • Build and push the new image
• Configure GameFabric
  • Use the new image
  • Configure the wrapper

Add the Wrapper to your Container Image

Releases of the wrapper are publicly available at: https://github.com/gamefabric/gswrapper/releases.

Depending on how you create your container image, the integration for it can be as simple as:

ARG version=v2.3.0

ADD https://github.com/GameFabric/gswrapper/releases/download/${version}/gsw_linux_x86_64 \
    /app/gsw
RUN chmod +x /app/gsw

This downloads the x86 architecture build for Linux and makes it executable.

We provide builds for common used architectures and operating systems. Contact us if you need a build that is not available.

INFO

The wrapper is dependency-free with one exception. It communicates with the Agones sidecar container via localhost which is always available in GameFabric. If you want to run it locally for development, you need run the Agones SDK server dummy locally (see Agones documentation).

We use semantic versioning, which indicates that minor and patch updates are safe to use without breaking changes.

Finally, push your new image to the GameFabric image registry, and ensure that the Armada or Vessel uses it.

Configure GameFabric

Whether you're using an Armada or a Vessel, configuring them to use the wrapper is the same. Go to Settings > Containers and update the command and arguments for your game server container image.

Before:

# Command
/app/gameserver 

# Arguments
<ARG> [--option]

After (with the wrapper):

# Command
/app/gsw 

# Arguments
[--gsw-option] -- /app/gameserver <ARG> [--option]

This executes the wrapper instead of the game server (assuming gameserver is the executable of your game server), but lets the wrapper pass the arguments on to your game server binary.

Features

The wrapper provides a number of convenience features to facilitate the integration with GameFabric, such as tailing of log files or handling crashes and unclean exits.

Templating

The wrapper collects basic runtime information from Agones, like IP address and ports, and the set of environment variables for your game server.

It is able to pass the collected information as command-line arguments to your game server, or to render them into configuration files.

TIP

The information collected is also available by directly querying the information via the Agones SDK.

The wrapper uses the standard Go templating syntax to configure the command line to run your game server.

Command-line Arguments

The available template variables are:

Placeholder	Type	Description
{{.GameServerIP}}	string	The IP given by Agones to the game server.
{{.GameServerPort}}	uint16	The port given by Agones to the game server. Defaults to the port named game, or if there is no port with that name, to the first port found. A different name can be configured using --ports.primary.
{{.Ports}}	map[string]uint16	The known game server ports.
{{.Env}}	map[string]string	The environment variables.

Example:

/app/gsw -- /app/gameserver --port={{ .GameServerPort }} --query-port={{ .Ports.query }} --servername={{ .Env.POD_NAME }}

Configuration Files

The wrapper can be configured to render a templated configuration file before executing the game server.

It needs a template file as input, which must be available in the wrapper's container, and an output file path.

The available template variables are the same as for the command-line arguments.

Command-line argument	Environment variable	Description
--config.template-path	CONFIG_TEMPLATE_PATH	Path at which to write the game server configuration file.
--config.output-path	CONFIG_OUTPUT_PATH	Path to the configuration file template.

Example:

# template.yaml
gameserver:
  ip: "{{ .GameServerIP }}"
  port: "{{ .GameServerPort }}"
  {{- if .Env.POD_NAME }}
  servername: "{{ .Env.POD_NAME }}"
  {{- end }}

/app/gsw --config.template-path=template.yaml --config.output-path=config.yaml -- /app/gameserver --config=config.yaml

Log Tailing

The wrapper supports tailing log files and printing them to stdout using the wrapper's logger. This can be used to enable log collection for log files, which would otherwise be inaccessible.

In a containerized environment, only logs that are printed to stdout from the first process (PID 1) are collected and are available to be displayed and searched. Log files, on the other hand, would otherwise be lost as soon as the container of the game server is stopped.

Command-line argument	Environment variable	Description
--tail-log.paths	TAIL_LOG_PATHS	Paths from which to tail log files. Can be passed multiple times.

Example:

/app/gsw --tail-log.paths=gameserver.log --tail-log.paths=error.log -- /app/gameserver

Shutdown Handling

The wrapper can terminate the game server after an elapsed amount of time, by shutting it down after a configured duration, depending on its state (Scheduled, Ready, Allocated).

This is useful to force the shutdown of stuck game servers or to allow fleet compaction.

Command-line argument	Environment variable	Description
--shutdown.scheduled	SHUTDOWN_SCHEDULED	Shutdown when the game server has been Scheduled for the given duration (default: 0s, disabled).
--shutdown.ready	SHUTDOWN_READY	Shutdown when the game server has been Ready for the given duration (default: 0s, disabled).
--shutdown.allocated	SHUTDOWN_ALLOCATED	Shutdown when the game server has been Allocated for the given duration (default: 0s, disabled).

Example:

/app/gsw --shutdown.ready=1h --shutdown.allocated=24h -- /app/gameserver

Crash Reporting

Lastly, the crash handler can be configured to run an executable in the event of a server crash. This executable could, for instance, run a debugger on the coredump file to generate a stack trace or to upload the full dump. The path to the executable must be specified, and the executable file itself must be present at the path in the image and carry the executable flag.

Command-line argument	Environment variable	Description
--crashhandler.exec	CRASHHANDLER_EXEC	Path to the crash handler executable.
--crashhandler.args	CRASHHANDLER_ARGS	Crash handler arguments. Can be passed multiple times.
--crashhandler.max-execution-time	CRASHHANDLER_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME	Timeout after which the crash handler should be aborted (default: 30m). Please add the time unit, as the default is nanoseconds.

Example:

/app/gsw --crashhandler.exec=crash.sh --crashhandler.args="{{ .GameServerIP }}" --crashhandler.args="{{ .GameServerPort }}" --crashhandler.max-execution-time=5m

Summary

The wrapper provides a number of convenience features to facilitate the integration with GameFabric. The offered features could all be implemented in the game server itself, however. Especially using the Agones SDK to implement signaling of state and to obtain runtime information about your running game server instances is recommended.

A more technical but up-to-date documentation about the features can be found here, along with the latest version: https://github.com/GameFabric/gswrapper.