my running notes for hosting a personal ATLAS server

Server info for various games played within the Cohhmunity will be posted here.
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DoogenAC
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:19 pm
Location: East Coast, USA
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Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:05 am

Hi Folks, I am keeping an eye out on personal Atlas server developments, so far it looks like the server I use at home might run a single world. I have another machine here that might run another server; that is probably NOT enough

I believe this creates a 1x1 grid (Just not enough for multiplayer play, but could be fine for sandboxing / small groups).

From what I've learned so far chatting with others, and TL;DR, I am NOT ready to do this:
  • You'd need to have as much as 32gb of RAM to host one fair sized, small region/world server.
    Serving up the world does not really come with a map ready to go. Server admins have to edit the assets and pull in islands, quests, etc. This area needs a lot of improvement, but will be an area of some real creativity and innovation for server owners.
    It might be the case (learning here!) that each server may need to be accessible via an external IP address; running 2+ servers may create a port mapping challenge
    Of course this is the ARK engine so the networking will be working on ports that ARK, DnL and other servers likes to run on.
    (I'm wondering if I did have 2-3 computers to run a small world, VPNing them to create public IPs might be a feasible setup, but I expect that would create a performance problem)
    No word yet how the servers share storage;
    A likely setup would probably wind up being an AWS hosted Virtual network; rough guess is hosting charges would be tens (maybe fifty) bucks / month / server. That's probably a little high. I'm not going to do that at this point.
    My single 4 CPU(ht)4770k , 32gb RAM i7 and a few SSDs is probably fine for hosting a development world where XML could be configured, tested, etc. might be more than enough for low pop/development use (I can run 4 concurrent ARK or REND or DNL or Conan or 7D2D servers on it); I have not confirmed RAM requirement, I've also seen one suggestion that a 1x1 needs at least 4GB ram. I am hopeful that one server needs about 1.5 cores and 8gb RAM from a planning point of view)
    Multiple servers communicate using a unique identifier. Not sure I love the security model so far. lol.
    A "redis" (redistribution?) service is also run and appears to be a coordinating / database server for your world server farm
Technical Resources (still very much works in progress):
A solid setup guide is coming together at https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/fo ... ver-guide/ (starts you off with a 2x2 "four server" grid)
[unverified, looks good] see setup videos at https://www.twitch.tv/cpjet64/videos
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DoogenAC
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:19 pm
Location: East Coast, USA
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Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:23 am

Also for now several of us are playing (and allying w/ neighbors) on the NA PvE server. About six of us working steadily together, the teamwork has been great! It's been a busy week, and we can use more folks! we've taken one ghost ship out so far!
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DoogenAC
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:19 pm
Location: East Coast, USA
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Sat Dec 29, 2018 3:51 pm

On my discord I have a text file with ~3 pages of notes on server setup. because it's really all CPJET64's work, I'll refer you all to his terrific and helpful community first, https://discord.gg/9X74mq in the ROLES area type role twitch

my discord is https://discord.gg/4TJ7d3z - see the #Atlas channel.
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