lcow.md

Linux Containers on Windows

You can use LocalMultiplayerAgent to debug your Linux game server by running it on a container in Windows using Docker for Windows. You can see more information abour running Linux containers on Windows here. If you are new to the container world, you can check an intro here. In essense, all you need to is run the agent with the -lcow parameter as well as properly configure your LocalMultiplayerSettings.json file.

To run your containerized Linux game servers on Windows, you'll need to perform the following steps:

• Download latest version of LocalMultiplayerAgent from the Releases page on GitHub
• Install Docker Desktop on Windows
• Make sure it's running Linux Containers
• You should mount one of your hard drives, instructions here
• Your game server image can be published on a container registry or can be locally built.
• You should run SetupLinuxContainersOnWindows.ps1 Powershell file which will create a Docker network called "PlayFab"
• You should properly configure your LocalMultiplayerSettings.json file. Below you can see a sample, included in MultiplayerSettingsLinuxContainersOnWindowsSample.json:

{
    "RunContainer": true,
    "OutputFolder": "C:\\output\\UnityServerLinux",
    "NumHeartBeatsForActivateResponse": 10,
    "NumHeartBeatsForTerminateResponse": 60,
    "TitleId": "",
    "BuildId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
    "Region": "WestUs",
    "AgentListeningPort": 56001,
    "ContainerStartParameters": {
        "ImageDetails": {
            "Registry": "mydockerregistry.io",
            "ImageName": "mygame",
            "ImageTag": "0.1",
            "Username": "",
            "Password": ""
        }
    },
    "PortMappingsList": [
        [
            {
                "NodePort": 56100,
                "GamePort": {
                    "Name": "game_port",
                    "Number": 7777,
                    "Protocol": "TCP"
                }
            }
        ]
    ],
    "DeploymentMetadata": {
        "Environment": "LOCAL",
        "FeaturesEnabled": "List,Of,Features,Enabled"
    },
    "SessionConfig": {
        "SessionId": "ba67d671-512a-4e7d-a38c-2329ce181946",
        "SessionCookie": null,
        "InitialPlayers": [ "Player1", "Player2" ]
    }
}

This file is also included in the latest LocalMultiplayerAgent zip package. Some notes:

1. You must set RunContainer to true. This is required for Linux game servers.
2. Modify imageDetails with your game server docker image details. Image may be built locally (using docker build command) or be hosted in a remote container registry.
3. StartGameCommand and AssetDetails are optional. You don't normally use them when you use a Docker container since all game assets + start game server command can be packaged in the corresponding Dockerfile. DeploymentMetadata is also optional and can contain up to 30 dictonary mappings of custom metadata to be passed to the container as the buildMetadata field.
4. Last, but definitely not least, pay attention to the casing on your OutputFolder variable, since Linux containers are case sensitive. If casing is wrong, you might see a Docker exception similar to error while creating mount source path '/host_mnt/c/output/UnityServerLinux/PlayFabVmAgentOutput/2020-01-30T12-47-09/GameLogs/a94cfbb5-95a4-480f-a4af-749c2d9cf04b': mkdir /host_mnt/c/output: file exists

• After you perform all the previous steps, you can then run the LocalMultiPlayerAgent with the command LocalMultiplayerAgent.exe -lcow (lcow stands for Linux Containers On Windows)