sknnr/squad44-server repository overview

⁠squad44-server

Run Squad44 dedicated server in a container. Optionally includes helm chart for running in Kubernetes.

Squad44 is awesome and the game needs more players now that development has resumed under new ownership. This is my contribution to the community.

Disclaimer: This is not an official image. No support, implied or otherwise is offered to any end user by the author or anyone else. Feel free to do what you please with the contents of this repo.

⁠Usage

The processes within the container do NOT run as root. Everything runs as the user steam (gid:10000/uid:10000 by default). If you exec into the container, you will drop into /home/steam as the steam user. Squad44 will be installed to /home/steam/squad44. Any persistent volumes should be mounted to /home/steam/squad44 and be owned by 10000:10000.

To configure things like Admins and reservered groups, map rotations, MOTD, etc - there are a couple of ways you can do this. You can either get the container up and running, and then once it is online, stop the container and then edit the files in your persistent volume and once done, start the container again. Or you can make your own local copies of those configuration files (examples found under the examples directory in this project) and then base64 encode the files and pass that value into the container. Either option is fine.

⁠Creating base64 encoded config files

If you would like to pass configuration files such as Admins.cfg and MapRotations.cfg to the container as base64 encoded values. This is a bit more complex so a basic understanding of working with Linux would definitely be helpful. Remember, this is not required, this is just an alternative to editing the values in the volume. Here is an example of that process:

1. Make a copy of the config file from ./example_configs from this repo
2. Edit the copy of the file with the values you desire, then save
3. Base64 encode the file with the following command for example: ADMINS=$(cat Admins.cfg | base64)
   • This creates a local variable called ADMINS that holds the base64 encoded value of the Admins.cfg file
   • you can print the value back out like this: printf $ADMINS
   • In this example, you could then set ADMINS_B64_ENCODED=${ADMINS}
   • You can also just copy and paste that value into a compose file or however you plan on launching the container
   • When the container launches it will decode that value and write it out to the appropriate file on the server

⁠Ports

Game ports are arbitrary. You can use which ever values you want above 1000. Make sure that you are port forwarding (DNAT) correctly to your instance and that firewall rules are set correctly. Documentation that I read on the wiki states that you need 2 game ports and 2 query ports. This seems odd to me but it is what it is.

⁠Environment Variables

You do not have to pass any variables that are marked as False for required if you want to keep the default.

⁠Docker

To run the container in Docker, run the following command:

docker volume create squad44-persistent-data
docker run \
  --detach \
  --name squad44-server \
  --mount type=volume,source=squad44-persistent-data,target=/home/steam/squad44 \
  --publish 7787:7787/udp \
  --publish 7788:7788/udp \
  --publish 27165:27165/udp \
  --publish 27166:27166/udp \
  --publish 21114:21114/tcp \
  --env=SERVER_NAME='Squad44 Containerized' \
  --env=RCON_PASSWORD='PLEASE-CHANGE-ME' \
  --stop-timeout 90 \
  sknnr/squad44-server:latest

⁠Docker Compose

To use Docker Compose, either clone this repo or copy the compose.yaml file out of the container directory to your local machine. Edit the compose file to change the environment variables to the values you desire and then save the changes. Once you have made your changes, from the same directory that contains the compose and the env files, simply run:

docker-compose up -d

To bring the container down:

docker-compose down --timeout 90

compose.yaml file:

services:
  squad44:
    image: sknnr/squad44-server:latest
    ports:
      - "7787:7787/udp"
      - "7788:7788/udp"
      - "27165:27165/udp"
      - "27166:27166/udp"
      - "21114:21114/tcp"
    env_file:
      - default.env
    volumes:
      - squad44-persistent-data:/home/steam/squad44
    stop_grace_period: 90s

volumes:
  squad44-persistent-data:

default.env file:

SERVER_NAME="Squad44 Containerized"
RCON_PASSWORD="PLEASE-CHANGE-ME"

⁠Podman

To run the container in Podman, run the following command:

podman volume create squad44-persistent-data
podman run \
  --detach \
  --name squad44-server \
  --mount type=volume,source=squad44-persistent-data,target=/home/steam/squad44 \
  --publish 7787:7787/udp \
  --publish 7788:7788/udp \
  --publish 27165:27165/udp \
  --publish 27166:27166/udp \
  --publish 21114:21114/tcp \
  --env=SERVER_NAME='Squad44 Containerized' \
  --env=RCON_PASSWORD='PLEASE-CHANGE-ME' \
  --stop-timeout 90 \
  docker.io/sknnr/squad44-server:latest

⁠Quadlet

To run the container with Podman's new quadlet subsystem, make a file under (when running as root) /etc/containers/systemd/enshrouded.container containing:

[Unit]
Description=Squad44 Game Server

[Container]
Image=docker.io/sknnr/squad44-server:latest
Volume=squad44-persistent-data:/home/steam/squad44
PublishPort=7787-7788:7787-7788/udp
PublishPort=27165-27166:27165-27166/udp
PublishPort=21114:21114/tcp
ContainerName=squad44-server
Environment=SERVER_NAME="Squad44 Containerized"
Environment=RCON_PASSWORD="PLEASE-CHANGE-ME"

[Service]
# Restart service when sleep finishes
Restart=always
# Extend Timeout to allow time to pull the image
TimeoutStartSec=900

[Install]
# Start by default on boot
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

⁠Kubernetes

I've built a Helm chart and have included it in the helm directory within this repo. Modify the values.yaml file to your liking and install the chart into your cluster. Be sure to create and specify a namespace as I did not include a template for provisioning a namespace.

⁠Troubleshooting

⁠Connectivity

If you are having issues connecting to the server once the container is deployed, I promise the issue is not with this image. You need to make sure that the ports are open on your router as well as the container host where this container image is running. You will also have to port-forward the game-port and query-port from your router to the private IP address of the container host where this image is running. After this has been done correctly and you are still experiencing issues, your internet service provider (ISP) may be blocking the ports and you should contact them to troubleshoot.

⁠Storage

I recommend having Docker or Podman manage the volume that gets mounted into the container. However, if you absolutely must bind mount a directory into the container you need to make sure that on your container host the directory you are bind mounting is owned by 10000:10000 by default (chown -R 10000:10000 /path/to/directory). If the ownership of the directory is not correct the container will not start as the server will be unable to persist the savegame.