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How to set up a decentralized game/chat server (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 months ago by mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been kicking around the idea of running a server for games and chat woth some of my friends, but worry about everyone getting cut off when there's a disruption.

I've started looking into kubernetes out of curiosity, and it seems like we could potentially set up a cluster with master nodes at 3+ locations to hose whatever game server or chat server that we want with 100% uptime, solving my concerns.

Am I misunderstanding the kubernetes documentation, and this is just a terrible idea? Or am I on the right track?

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[-] msage@programming.dev 6 points 5 months ago

Not seeing LGSM, so dropping it here: https://linuxgsm.com/

I have a Matrix server with Jitsi installed, works for gaming and everything else.

Also, some older games (like Warcraft 3) require L2 connections to play multiplayer, which I managed to get working with OpenVPN, for both Linux and Windows players.

[-] ZonenRanslite@feddit.org 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

mumble is an easy to setup voice server. And as the others say, rent a vps.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works -3 points 5 months ago

I wasn't asking for recommendations for chat servers

[-] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 months ago

Yuh uh.

running a server for games and chat

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works -5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Read the rest of my post, asshole. I was asking about server cluster software.

This type of pointless snark is something I'd expect from hexbear, not blahaj

[-] papertowels@mander.xyz 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Read the rest of my post, asshole.

This type of pointless snark

Pot calling the kettle black here. Chill out, they were trying to help.

You wrote a post with a title that their comment helps with, no need to be a jerk, and maybe consider more specific titles that capture your actual ask.

It's currently akin to a post titled "how do I invest in a 401k?" And having the actual ask be the logistics of logging into vanguard.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works -4 points 5 months ago

You wrote a post with a title that their comment helps with,

Post titles just aren't great at detailing the real issue when you need to provide context. It's frustrating whem someone doesn't actually read the body of the post, because then the comments can be filled up with people answering the wrong question. Then someone that can actually answer the question might skip the post because there's already a bunch of comments under it.

If you're going to help, it's better to actually read through the provided context. Otherwise it's more likely to just end up being self-gratification.

It's kinda like the people who give up right-of-way at stop signs. Sure, it makes that person feel better about themselves, but the confusion just leads to everyone at the stop taking longer to get through the intersection.

[-] papertowels@mander.xyz 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Fair points, it is unfortunate that decentralized can mean self hosting your own alternative service or hosting a service in a distributed fashion.

The situation still could've been resolved without insulting someone who wanted to be helpful, but was maybe not careful.
Or implying that their behavior reflects poorly on the entire blahaj community. That community don't mean any harm.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works -3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Or implying that their behavior reflects poorly on the entire blahaj community

That user is a different person from the first one that responded.

The blahaj user's only contribution to the conversation was that snarky comment, and I brought it up because I've noticed a few users from that instance do that this past week, and not just to me. Like I said, I expect that behavior from hexbear, as blahaj users are usually nice to interact with.

And on the blowing up at the original commenter, I'm tired of people using me for their own self-gratification. And if you're not actually reading someone's question before saying something, that's generally what it is. Hopefully they learned to not make that mustake in the future

[-] passenger@sopuli.xyz 2 points 5 months ago

Kubernetes is too much. You could set up a matrix server for chat with jitsi for video meetings. Use element as client. Then add your game server(s).

For matrix/jitsi server setup use this playbook https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

It installs all you need for video, audio, and text chat.

Maybe change the config to be unfederated if you want a private server.

100% uptime is really not feasible so forget that. Even the commercial servers have downtimes.

[-] monkeyman512@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I think you are making it more complicated than needed. If you just want reliable service, just figure out who has the most reliable Internet and power and they can host the server. If you want to learn kubernets or docker swarm, you can try that but it will take a ton of upfront work.

Edit: Also get a UPS for the server.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 5 months ago

Chat server is easy: Matrix (actually multiple servers but same effect)

Game server is very hard. The game has to be made for it or you have to be very good at network application engineering to hack it in.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago

The game has to be made for it

Just for clarity, do you mean the game has to be made for self-hosted servers, or do you mean it has to be made to handle self-hosted servers across a cluster?

The former is already a thing with Minecraft, 7 Days to Die, etc. The latter... Yeah I'd have to do digging on that

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 5 months ago

The game has to be made for distributed servers. The game software expects that everything the server says is authorative, including for rollback. Multiple servers introduces an extra source of latency and it's just so hard to deal with.

I don't know too much about this.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 5 months ago

Actually I can provide a little more detail. Check out how Matrix handles event graph resolution/desync. It's why messages sometimes come in out of order. This is a fundamental problem with decentralization: authority breakdown. The homesever in Matrix is considered the authority for the clients, but within the Federation itself there is no true authoritative party or event history. If a server goes off federation for a while, a room will split, and once it re-federates it and other servers will have different event graphs, assuming something happened in those rooms in the meantime for both the defederated server and federated server(s).

Basically: videogames assume that within a certain amount of latency the server's state is permanent and authoritative. Federation breakdowns even for 500ms can destroy a games running state.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago

Thank you for the detailed explanation

It sounds like my friends and I are better off just having 1 primary server running everything, and pushing backups to 1 or 2 other servers that can be spun up if/when things go wrong with the primary server.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah probably.

Even big Minecraft servers are just many servers with load ballancers. The game has server redirects built in for this reason.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'd rent one (small) VPS for $10 a month and split the bill. As far as I know that's how most people do it. It's going to have >99.6% uptime, a fast datacenter internet connection at some central location and runs on enterprise hardware... The Kubernetes approach adds a lot of complexity, you'll have your games disconnect anyway once it fails over as you can't migrate the IP addresses. And there will be some additional traffic between the locations to keep everything in sync. And 4x chance of some of the hardware failing and someone needs to fix it. Unless I'm mistaken about how Kubernetes works.

[-] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 0 points 5 months ago

If avoiding downtime is your number one priority and you're willing to take on a lot of complexity to achieve it, then Kubernetes is probably the way to go. There are various chat platforms that can be distributed, but keeping a game server state synced between nodes isn't an easy task. There's a reason most multiplayer games are instanced.

I do find it a little odd that you're so concerned about uptime with a casual gaming server, but to each their own.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I do find it a little odd that you're so concerned about uptime with a casual gaming server, but to each their own.

Personally, part of it is that I don't want everything to be solely dependent on a box I own. I don't like the idea of lording a petty fiefdom over my friends. If there's multiple distributed boxes that are technically equal, then there's less potential for interpersonal friction.

Also, while I have the more powerful server, I also have very little free time. If my box stops working for whatever reason, I don't want my friends to have to wait 1-2 weeks for me to fix it

[-] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 2 points 5 months ago

In that case, why self-host? A cloud-based solution would accomplish this very easily.

this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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