drpsychick/linuxgsm-ark repository overview

⁠Docker image: drpsychick/linuxgsm-ark⁠

• Source: https://github.com/DrPsychick/docker-linuxgsm-ark⁠
• Image: https://hub.docker.com/r/drpsychick/linuxgsm-ark⁠
• Based on: https://github.com/GameServerManagers/LinuxGSM-Docker⁠

⁠Known & Solved issues:

• All ARK servers in a cluster MUST run with the same user as they share files on the host system
  • Ideally setup docker with user namespace mapping (--userns-remap), to keep the container user generic (UID=1000) and map it to what you need on the host
• Each ARK server REQUIRES dedicated ports, because the ports are communicated to the client (docker port mapping will not work!)
  • you can configure only three ports for ARK. It will automatically use game client port +1 as the fourth port.
  • see https://ark.gamepedia.com/Dedicated_Server_Setup#Network⁠

⁠Usage:

• create a docker container (with appropriate mounts, ports and ENV - see below)
• start/stop the container as you wish
• BACKUP the _saved and shared_clusters directories when the servers are offline.

Directories:

• serverfiles contains the dedicated ARK server files (downloaded from steam) and links to the directories below
• serverfiles_mods contains - what a surprise - steam workshop mods (downloaded from steam)
• <yourserver>_saved contains the save game, config, logs, ... for your individual ARK server instance : BACKUP!
• shared_clusters shared directory of clusters where ARK stores survivors to download to a world : BACKUP!

⁠Clusters:

To run a cluster with multiple worlds you need:

• RAM, a lot of it. Expect to provide at least 5G per server.
• mount the same shared_clusters directory in each docker container
• mount individual _saved directories in each docker container
• use the -clusterid=<clustername> and -NoTransferFromFiltering parameters for ShooterGame in each docker container
• run two servers, go to a drop/obelisk/Tek+ Transmitter and travel to the other server
• enjoy!

⁠Helpful commands:

• look inside: docker run --rm -it --name lgsm-ark --entrypoint /bin/bash drpsychick/linuxgsm-ark
  • from within the container, take lgsm/config-lgsm/arkserver/_default.cfg as a starting point for your arkserver.cfg which you need to put into the _saved directory
  • start the server once with mounted directories and stop it when it is fully available - this will create all config files needed.
  • modify the .ini files (created by ARK during first start) in your serverfiles_saved/Config directory to suit your needs
• run server with directories mounted, environment variables, ports, ...:
  • --tty is required, see entrypoint.sh of base image
  • RCON_* variables are required for healthcheck to work
  • you need to publish all ports, each server needs his own ports (if you run them on the same IP)

docker run --rm -it --name lgsm-ark --memory=5G --tty \
  --env ARK_MODS="731604991,889745138" \
  --env RCON_PORT=27020 --env RCON_PASS=mypass \
  --publish 7777:7777/udp --publish 7778:7778/udp --publish 27015:27015/udp --publish 27020:27020/tcp \
  --mount type=bind,source=$PWD/serverfiles,target=/home/lgsm/serverfiles \
  --mount type=bind,source=$PWD/serverfiles_mods,target=/home/lgsm/serverfiles_mods \
  --mount type=bind,source=$PWD/testark_saved,target=/home/lgsm/serverfiles_saved \
  --mount type=bind,source=$PWD/shared_clusters,target=/home/lgsm/serverfiles_clusters \
  drpsychick/linuxgsm-ark ./arkserver details

⁠Docker user namespace remap

Settings for the docker HOST

• first line: map UID/GID 0 within the container to UID/GID 1000 on the host
• second line: map any UID/GID > 0 within the container to 10000+ on the host
• both lines: everything within the container runs as user: "hostuser" and group: "hostgroup" on the host
• Be careful! Before switching an existing docker environment to use --userns-remap, make sure to exclude containers that need --priviledged AND take care of permissions (volumes) of existing containers. Search for more information on the web or on the links below.

/etc/subuid

hostuser:10000:65536

/etc/subgid

hostgroup:10000:65536

⁠Further reading:

• https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/userns-remap/⁠
• https://www.jujens.eu/posts/en/2017/Jul/02/docker-userns-remap/⁠