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Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 9:01 pm
by Zancarius
Since it appears that the Windows version of the Starbound server is somewhat unstable, I've discovered that the Linux version is much easier to manage but it does require some knowledge of the linker (easy!) and copying the Starbound assets to your target host (patience!).

To do so simply requires thus. First, create a directory tree accordingly (wherever you want--under your user, under a separate user, whatever):

starbound/
starbound/server

Then copy/upload the contents of your Steam/SteamApps/common/Starbound/linux64 directory to starbound/server. If you copied it to the correct location, this should place a starbound_server file under starbound/server on your remote host.

Next, copy/upload the contents of Steam/SteamApps/common/Starbound/assets to starbound/ (this will create a starbound/assets directory).

I should note that you can configure this by modifying the file bootstrap.config in the Starbound server directory and changing the assetSources path. I have no idea if this file will be overwritten in the future, so I've instead elected to keep it at sane defaults. Modify at your own risk.

Finally, set starbound_server as executable (chmod a+x starbound/server/starbound_server) and change to the server directory, then launch the server binary!

Code: Select all
$ cd starbound/server
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./starbound_server


What you're doing is setting the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the current directory (hence the dot) so that the linker looks for the supporting libraries here and then on the system path. The reason for this is because the Starbound server is dynamically linked; if it were statically linked, all the appropriate libraries would be compiled into the binary. Sadly, this isn't the case. So, it does imply that there may be breakage in the future.

Hope this helps!

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 7:09 am
by Grimblast
Highgrade was indicating it would be nice to have a server running the game all the time for multiplayer. You've already done the homework so I'll see about getting it on my box at the office and see how it goes! Now it's only beta so I hope they eventually put in a message when someone joins. It appears they hadn't thought about that or may be working on it so I'll check their forums and possibly suggest it there.

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:16 am
by Zancarius
You'll probably need to shutdown the MC server prior to launching Starbound as both are kinda memory hogs (Starbound is slightly less weighty at ~500-600MiB resident but tends to peg a CPU under load--probably a bug). I haven't seen any activity on MC for quite some time, and the connection attempts I have seen have failed because no one is reading the instructions to update to the specific version we're running.

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:01 pm
by Grimblast
I would hate to shut that down though. Never know when the urge to play may happen. I'll have to think about that before I go that route I suppose. Maybe give them some time to iron out their bugs in beta before we all decide to have the minecraft server taken down.

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:39 pm
by Zancarius
The problem is that Bukkit (and, really MC) both consume a crap ton of RAM. Either one refuses to run unless ~900 megs are allocated to the JVM. Starbound appears to use about 500-600 MiB resident (actually 633MiB right now, post patch, near as I can tell). The downside is that CPU use for Starbound is pretty high (45% for one user, 50%ish for two--not sure for more), whereas Bukkit can have > 5 people on it before it starts to creep up above 30%.

One other alternative might be to have a dedicated DigitalOcean VPS for one or the other. $10/mo for 1GiB, $20/mo for 2GiB isn't too bad and they're hosted on SSDs.

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 9:07 am
by Grimblast
You kinda read my mind. I was thinking of alternative hosting for such things but I wasn't sure what place might be best. I'll think about it and may have something setup.

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 3:27 pm
by Zancarius
There might also be a leak in the server. It's sitting at almost 1GiB resident at the moment. Soooo... that could be a problem.

Re: Running the Linux Server

PostPosted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:10 pm
by Highgrade
it might be nice to have it. However, i dont want to nuke one world so another can exsist lol. Oh and on the mc connection errors on my part I claim inebreation on my part lol.