Advanced Configuration of Server Images

This section covers the required information that you need to inject your own configuration to the server image.

Before You Begin

This document serves as a guideline for custom image creation. In order to have your own customized server image, you need to have advanced knowledge of Packer, Docker, Nomad, and Linux.

Creating Custom Server Image

Your custom server image needs to be created based on our current server image. Also, it needs to follow our naming scheme. The image name should match the expectation of the terraform scripts when creating a cluster.

AWS

The naming scheme in AWS is as follows:

genvidtech-server-{{user `version` | clean_resource_name}}-{{isotime \"20060102-150405\" | clean_resource_name}}

So your image name needs to have 3 main sections:

  • It should start with [prefix]-server-. By default, the prefix value for server ami is genvidtech. But you can have your own value. The prefix is equivalent to the variable server_ami_prefix.

  • Then you need to add a version. The version needs to fit a pattern of type Major(int).Minor(int).Patch(int).Build(int)[.label(string)]. (having label is optional) For example, your version can be 1.25.0.156 or 1.25.0.185.test.

  • After the version, you need the date and time. It should follow this format: -yyyymmdd-hhmmss.

As an example, your image name should finally be like this: genvidtech-server-1.26.0.236-20210227-005755 if you are using genvidtech as a prefix.

Note that our terraform code selects the most recent image that fits the regex.

Azure

The naming scheme in Azure is as follows:

"capture_container_name": "genvidtech-server"
"capture_name_prefix": "{{user `version`}}"
"storage_account": "{{user `storage_account_name`}}"
"location": "{{user `azure_location`}}"
"resource_group_name": "{{user `resource_group_name`}}"

In Azure, you need to build your custom .vhd using Packer and keep it in your storage account. You must provide the resource group name as well as storage account.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you build a custom server image, you should build the game as well because our toolings (genvid-azure-image create-images) expects both the server and game images to be in the same storage account and container.

Then, you should follow these two rules:

  • The server image name should be [prefix]-server. It is called capture_container_name in Packer. By default, the prefix value for server image is genvidtech. But you can have your own value. The prefix is equivalent to the variable server_iamge_prefix.

  • As for the version, it is called capture_container_name in Packer and you can choose any string for that.

Since you need to provide game image as well, make sure that the name of game image is [prefix]-wingame. The prefix is equivalent to the variable wingame_image_prefix. Also, you need to have the same version as your server image. For more information on Azure game naming scheme, please check:

"capture_container_name": "genvidtech-wingame"
"capture_name_prefix": "{{user `version`}}"
"storage_account": "{{user `storage_account_name`}}"
"resource_group_name": "{{user `resource_group_name`}}"

Configuring Nomad

You do not need to configure Nomad from scratch. In our implementation, we consider having external Nomad configuration file(s) under: /etc/nomad.d

All you need is to store your required configuration as a JSON file or hcl file in this directory.

Example

In Genvid MILE SDK 1.24 and above, Nomad is unable to mount the host system into docker containers [1]. Instead, it requires leveraging the CSI drivers. Here is how you can enable it using advanced server image customization.

To leverage CSI drivers, you first need to add “option” in the Nomad Client configuration to enable using your own image. The example of required configuration is as follows:

{
  "client": [
    {
      "options": [
        {
          "docker.volumes.enabled": "true"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

See also