one_click_kag_server

one_click_kag_server is a program which tries to fully automate the creation of a King Arthur’s Gold server.

It will:

Create a virtual machine for you on DigitalOcean
Configure the machine to run KAG
Create SSH keys
Upload and setup mods
Setup security configuration such as list of admins
Deploy the KAG server with automatic restarts enabled

It can also help with common maintenance tasks such as:

Restarting the server with different configuration, such as new mods
Viewing the server logs
Opening a TCPR console
Opening an SSH connection to the server

Everything can be configured from a single config file (see config.yaml).

This is a viable alternative to running a server on your local machine, without the hassle of setting up port forwarding etc. It’s also an alternative to dedicated KAG hosting sites such as https://gshost.us/, with the advantage of costing less and not charging based on configuration such as max players. For example, a minimum spec server on DigitalOcean costs $0.007/hour or $5/month (see here). Since this project makes it easy to create and delete servers, you may want to run a more expensive, powerful machine for just a couple of hours and then delete it when you’re done.

An admin interface for RCON access can be deployed with the rcon command, using kagtcprlib.

Contact Eluded#1367 on Discord if you have any feedback or need help getting set up.

Instructions

Setup

Before using one_click_kag_server, there are a few things to setup.

Install Python (3.7+) on your system. https://www.python.org/downloads/
Clone this repository. If you don’t have Git installed you can also click Code -> Download ZIP from GitHub.
Install one_click_kag_server requirements. Open a terminal in this directory and run pip install -r requirements.txt
Make an account on DigitalOcean. See https://cloud.digitalocean.com/registrations/new
Setup a payment method on DigitalOcean
Create an API token on DigitalOcean.
- Go to API
- Click Generate New Token
- Choose a name for the token and give it both read and write scope

Estimated time: ~10 minutes.

Creating a server

This section describes how to create a server, assuming you have followed the setup instructions above.

Edit config.yaml with a text editor to configure your server.
- secrets
  - digitalocean_key the DigitalOcean API token you created earlier. Do not share this with anyone, since it gives full access to your account.
- droplet configures the virtual machine
  - name is the name of the virtual machine (make sure it only contains characters URL-safe characters, so no spaces)
  - region is the short name (a.k.a. slug) for the DigitalOcean region to deploy the server in. If you want a US based server you can leave it as nyc1. For an EU server you could try ams3. For a full list of possible regions see https://slugs.do-api.dev/ (open the Regions tab).
  - image is the type of virtual machine to deploy. Don’t change this unless you know what you’re doing.
  - size_slug is the size of the machine to deploy. Think about this carefully because there are many options, though more powerful machines are more expensive. For a full list of possible sizes see https://slugs.do-api.dev/ (open the Droplet Sizes tab).
  - backups is whether or not to configure backups. You shouldn’t need them, since it’s so easy just to delete and re-create your server later.
- kag configures the KAG server
  - autoconfig can contain any regular option from KAG’s autoconfig.cfg
    - sv_name the name of the server
    - sv_info the server description
    - sv_maxplayers the max number of players
    - sv_gamemode the gamemode (e.g. TDM or CTF)
    - sv_register whether to list the server publicly
    - sv_password the password to connect to the server (can be empty for a public server)
    - sv_rconpassword the RCON password for the server
    - security_seclevs path to seclevs file. Don’t change this.
  - mods is a list of mods to use. If you add a mod here, also copy it into the Mods directory in this project.
  - security
    - superadmins list of usernames of superadmins
    - admins list of usernames of admins
Open a terminal in this directory and run python -m one_click_kag_server.main up to deploy the server.
- You should see a bunch of log messages whilst the server is being configured.
- After around 2 minutes the server should be ready, and you should see a message saying DONE. Server running at {ip_address}. Your server should be ready to play on.

If you wish to have multiple config files with different names then you can pass the --config-file option to switch between them.

Remember to destroy the droplet with one_click_kag_server down once you’ve finished with the server, since it will be costing you money as long as it’s running.

If you have any issues with the above then please report them to me on Discord (Eluded#1367).

Commands

one_click_kag_server offers a few different commands for maintenance of the server.

up

Run python -m one_click_kag_server.main up to deploy the virtual machine and start KAG.

down

Run python -m one_click_kag_server.main down to destroy the virtual machine.

restart-kag

Run python -m one_click_kag_server.main restart-kag to restart the KAG server. This will also upload any new mods or configuration, for example if you’ve changed autoconfig in config.yaml.

kag-logs

Run python -m one_click_kag_server.main kag-logs to view the KAG logs in real-time.

ssh

Run python -m one_click_kag_server.main ssh to open an SSH connection to the server. This requires SSH to be installed on your system.

rcon

Run python -m one_click_kag_server.main rcon to open a web based RCON client for remote administration of the KAG server.

Important notes

State

Information about the server is stored in a state file (by default state.pkl in this directory). Every time one_click_kag_server runs, this file is updated. If you delete or move the file then information about the server will be lost, and one_click_kag_server will create a brand new server if you run it again. If you lose your state file, you may need to manually login to DigitalOcean and delete your droplet(s). Also, if you want to deploy multiple servers then you may need multiple state files (use the --state-file argument to change this.)

SSH Keys

one_click_kag_server creates a new SSH key pair for virtual machines access, and uploads this to your DigitalOcean account. These keys can be found under ssh_keys/. If you want to access the server with some other SSH client then you need to use this key pair. For example $ ssh -i ssh_keys/one_click_kag_server_aa0ff419 root@$SERVER_HOST.

Automatic setup & deployment for King Arthur's Gold servers

one_click_kag_server