Using a wrapper utility (wrappingGsdk)

Your game server needs to be integrated with the Game Server SDK (GSDK) in order to work with Thundernetes. However, if you want to try your game server without integrating with GSDK you can use a wrapper utility application which:

integrates with GSDK
starts and monitors (“wraps”) your game server executable

We have built such a utility (called ‘wrappingGsdk’) in the MpsSamples repo. This utility is also published as container image under the name mpswrapper on GitHub Container Registry here which should be used as the container image in the GameServerBuild definition.

The game server needs to be built and packaged in a place where your Kubernetes cluster can access it. Kubernetes workloads can use volumes to access data external to the Pod. For this sample, we will demonstrate the use of Azure Files storage to place the game server files but you are free to use the storage service of your choice.

NOTE: Azure Files Premium is recommended for optimal performance, if you are running your cluster on Azure.

Your game server should NOT be integrated with GSDK, since the wrappingGsdk application is already integrated. It should be compiled as a Linux executable (ELF).

As soon as you create an Azure Files account, create a Files share and copy your game server there. You should make sure that Kubernetes knows how to authenticate to your Azure Storage account. One way to do that is create a Kubernetes Secret using the below script:

SECRET_NAME=azure-secret # name of the Kubernetes secret object
SHARE_NAME=thundernetesshare # name of the Azure Files share
ACCOUNT_KEY=YOUR_ACCOUNT_KEY # key for your Azure Storage account
kubectl create secret generic $SECRET_NAME --from-literal=azurestorageaccountname=$SHARE_NAME --from-literal=azurestorageaccountkey=$ACCOUNT_KEY

When the secret is created, you are ready to create your Thundernetes GameServerBuild. The `containers’ part of the YAML should look like this:

containers:
  - image: ghcr.io/playfab/mpswrapper:0.1.0 
    name: mpswrapper
    command: ["/bin/bash", "-c", "chmod +x /assets/fakegame && ./wrapper -g /assets/fakegame"] # we use /assets since this is the folder specified on volumeMounts.mountPath below
    ports:
    - containerPort: 80 # your game server port, change it to the appropriate one
      protocol: TCP # your game server port protocol
      name: gameport # required field
    volumeMounts:
    - name: azure # must be the same as volumes.name below
      mountPath: /assets # the path that the files will be mounted
volumes:
- name: azure # must be the name as volumeMounts.name below
  azureFile:
    secretName: azure-secret
    shareName: fakegame # the share name of the Azure Files account where you placed your game files
    readOnly: false

Using a wrapper utility (wrappingGsdk)

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