Metaplay Docs

Appearance

Manual Cloud Deployments

This guide walks you through the steps for manually building and deploying a game server to the Metaplay Cloud from your local machine.

Dependencies ​

  • High-level understanding of Metaplay Cloud - We recommend reading the Introduction to Cloud Deployments to understand the key concepts of cloud deployments.
  • An environment in Metaplay Portal - To be able to deploy a game server to the Metaplay Cloud, you need a project with an environment to deploy to. Contact us to get started!
  • Having the required tools installed on your system - To follow the steps provided, you need: Docker, Metaplay CLI, and optionally, jq.

Metaplay CLI ​

The Metaplay CLI is a powerful utility that provides various commands for interacting with cloud deployments in the Metaplay Cloud. The CLI helps you obtain the required credentials as well as easily fetch relevant details required for building, pushing, and deploying a game server to the Metaplay Cloud.

Install the CLI ​

You can find the CLI install instructions on the CLI's GitHub page.

Using the CLI ​

The Metaplay CLI serves a couple of different, important functions:

  1. It allows you to log into the Metaplay Portal and obtain associated tokens for interacting with different Metaplay APIs.
  2. It allows you to obtain ephemeral Kubernetes and AWS credentials which are needed for pushing images and deploying game servers into environments.

To use the tool, you should first log in:

bash
metaplay auth login

This will pop up a browser and allow you to log in using your Metaplay Portal account. The tokens and the session are by default valid for an hour, after which you'll need to log in again to obtain fresh tokens. If you want to end your session earlier, you can invoke the logout command, which will remove your tokens. Otherwise, the tokens automatically expire after the validity period.

Build the Server Docker Image ​

The next step is to create a game server image with Metaplay SDK and Docker. You need a unique tag for this build. In this walkthrough, we use current timestamps, but in a CI job, you should use the git commit hash or similar instead.

Build the Docker image:

bash
export IMAGE_TAG=$(date +%s)
metaplay build image gameserver:$IMAGE_TAG

Deploy a Game Server ​

You can easily deploy the built image into a target cloud environment using the CLI:

bash
metaplay deploy server ENVIRONMENT gameserver:$IMAGE_TAG

For more details on configuring deployments, take a look at Configuring a Deployment.

INFO

When specifying the target environment for a Deployment, you should use the environment's ID, e.g., lovely-wombats-build-quickly. You can find the environment ID in the Metaplay Portal » Your Project » Environments » look at top-right corner of the environment info card.

If successfully executed, you will be able to visit a LiveOps Dashboard by following the link displayed in the Metaplay Portal. Navigate to the correct environment, and you will find 'Quick Link' on the landing page.

Connect to a Game Server ​

To configure your game client to connect to a deployment, go to the Metaplay Portal and navigate to the target environment; there you will find detailed information under the 'Configure Client' tab.

Tips and Tricks ​

The Metaplay CLI also provides identity and authentication services to build automation pipelines. This section contains some examples of how to do this.

Automate with JSON

Always use the --format=json flag with the commands to get easily parseable JSON output. Check out jq for a handy tool to process the JSON outputs.

Get Environment Details ​

You can inspect an environment:

bash
$ metaplay get environment-info lovely-wombats-build-quickly --format=json
Metaplay CLI dev, interactive mode
{
  "deployment": {
    "admin_hostname": "lovely-wombats-build-quickly-admin.p1.metaplay.io",
    "aws_region": "eu-west-1",
    "cdn_distribution_arn": "arn:aws:cloudfront::252344532344:distribution/E2A41KRAPDI3P",
    "cdn_distribution_id": "E2A41KRAPDI3P",
    "cdn_s3_fqdn": "lovely-wombats-build-quickly-assets.p1.metaplay.io",
    ...

The output will be a JSON object that contains details about the infrastructure and environment where the game server can be deployed.

For more advanced usages of the CLI, you can get a list of supported commands by:

bash
metaplay --help

Direct Access to Cloud Resources ​

Although Metaplay Cloud is a fully managed platform that keeps you hassle-free from the underlying infrastructure and cloud-native implementation, in some cases, you may need to directly access certain cloud resources, for example, to persist secrets outside of the game server image. For such advanced use cases, please visit the Interacting with AWS page.