Hosting a server through AWS

[|BoM| SammyWhammy]

I have another 6 months or so of the free Amazon Web Services trial and was hoping to use it to host a 7DTD server. Does anyone have any experience with this or how to host the server on a remote linux system in general?

Thanks for any help!

[Gorilla Snacks]

https://aws.amazon.com/documentation/

It's all in there.

[|BoM| SammyWhammy]

I'm not sure if you were actually trying to be helpful or condescending, but that resource is a little saturated with things I don't need and documentation is in general not very intuitive to navigate. I'm more interested in if anyone with experience doing this has a more streamlined guide or insight into server performance / quirks.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond, though.

[salman.the.exorcist]

Hi Bom,

First I would like to thank you for your post, I have read it like few days ago and got me really curious about the "AWS" (Amazon Web Services). I didn't want to post a reply before doing a little of reading and experimenting with AWS.

Now, the good news, a friend of mine and my self we both were able to subscribe for the "Free Tier" and like you said they offered us a 12-month free-of-charge to try/experiment/explore/learn about the different services and features AWS offer (Amazon Web Services).

So finally we figured it out, how to run a game server for 7-Days-To-Die on AWS, I must say it has been a total "Thrill", it actually worked and we both were able to connect to our new game-server and play the game together.

I am thinking of reparing a step-by-step guidline/tutorial on how we have accomplished that, I really would like to add screenshots, so it would be really easy to follow, I haven't done this before so not sure how simple to include pictures in the post here. But I will try to figure it out.

But for now, really quick summary of what we did to accomplish that is (and I hope these steps would be helpful enough for now to get you setup and up and running Bom):

1) Google Chrome is our main Internet Browser,

2) Loged into: https://aws.amazon.com/ [Make sure you login with Root Credentials, there is a very small blue print under the login boxes which states something like "Click here to Login with Root credentials" or something]

3) Accessed "AWS Managment Console" (This option was under "My Account")

4) now you are on the "AWS management Console" page, under "Compute" Category, click on "EC2" (Mind you, there is EC2 Container options too, but we need to click on the "EC2" option)

5) now you should be on the "EC2 Dashboard".

6) from the Left-hand-side, look for "Instances" Category, when you find it, click on the "+" sign (Plus-Sign) next to it to expand the list, and then from the list click on "Instances". So in other words: click on "Instances" which is underneath "Instances". (Sounds funny i know).

7) now there should be a blue button that appears on the page "Launch Instance", click on it.

8) you should now be redirected to another page with a title "Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI).

9) now you could select an AMI (Amazon MAchine Image), what we have selected is "Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Base - ami-f067c893", by clicking on the "Select button" next to this title.

10) now you should be redirected to next page with the title: "Step 2: Choose an Instance Type" . this will be pre-selected for you based on the free-tier, so just go ahead and click on the next button below "Next:Configure Instance..."


11) .....

12) ....


I really need to step here for the time being, i need to get ready for work. But I will try to come back and at least finish the above steps. For the time bening, I hope these steps would be helpful to get you on the right path and get your game-server up and running.

so briefly, the whole idea is simply to get a Virtual Server up and running (Following the steps above).

Once that is done, you will need to use Micrsoft-Windows-Remote-Desktop-App to access your new virtual server (I am running Windows 10 on my computer, but any Edition of Windows usually comes with pre-installled App. for Remote-Desktop, so try to look for it in the Programs list under the "Start-menu".)

To access your virtual server via MS.Windows-Remote-Desktop-APp, you will need the following three information (maybe 4):
A) Public DNS address of your AWS EC2 virtual server.
B) Username
C) Password
D) decreypt-key (you will be asked to save on your computer during one of the above steps when setting up your EC2.

So once you are loged in successfully to your virtual-server, you will need to install the game via SteamCMD (Here is is URL to help you with that just in case: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

After that you will use SteamCMD to install 7DTD on the virtual server, during this process you will need to the game's App_Id, which is: 251570


I really need to go now, I hope this is helpful for the time bening. Good Luck Bom. Please I surely look forward to your progress and feedback, I hope it works out. I will come back later on to check on the disccussion to see if you have had any trouble following the steps.

Best Wishes & Hugs,

~Sam~

[600piecesof8]

I really appreciated your reply to SixArnsDonkey - I just hate people posting one link "it is all in here". I guess, he could google himself, but he asked for experience and not just a link.

Anyway, apparantly there are load blancing issues, if people explore in different directions. Dev's have been notified and requested to give some command to pre-generate the world.

[CptnHarlock]

Salman.the.exorsist: excellent post and nice explaining. :) I use AWS for work quite alot and I play 7D2D a lot.

My only note here would be: Keep an eye on the network traffic generated. 7D2D generates LOTS of network traffic. You have a quota and will very quickly top it if you are not watchful.

[|BoM| SammyWhammy]

So here has been my experience with 7DTD hosted through AWS...
First off I used a Linux based machine for my server since they tend to be more lightweight and use less resources. I installed the server with the SteamCMD and launched the game, though each time the game launched the process would end after a few seconds.
Watching the processes closer on launch showed me that the 7DTD server would quickly climb to using all of the server's resources before crashing. After a little more research and feedback from other user's on Reddit I came to the conclusion that those machines really didn't have the memory needed to host a game like 7DTD.

Also, there is little risk in using too much traffic on free tier. The trial isn't based on max data, but rather on days of uptime per month. Where you can get in trouble with that tier is having multiple servers / instances active at one time.

[CptnHarlock]

Originally posted by |BoM| SammyWhammy:

So here has been my experience with 7DTD hosted through AWS...
First off I used a Linux based machine for my server since they tend to be more lightweight and use less resources. I installed the server with the SteamCMD and launched the game, though each time the game launched the process would end after a few seconds.
Watching the processes closer on launch showed me that the 7DTD server would quickly climb to using all of the server's resources before crashing. After a little more research and feedback from other user's on Reddit I came to the conclusion that those machines really didn't have the memory needed to host a game like 7DTD.

Also, there is little risk in using too much traffic on free tier. The trial isn't based on max data, but rather on days of uptime per month. Where you can get in trouble with that tier is having multiple servers / instances active at one time.

Good point on the traffic cap - wasn't aware of that, I was probably thinking of my Linode instances. I never really tried the free-tier since I needed more power than the free tier offered and a static (elastic?) IP. Cheers!

[GoZippy]

Hey - this is a couple months old now - but I was wondering if you ever got it up? I am looking to make use of my old webhosting servers (co-lo setup, private servers) which are no longer hosting any websites really. If all goes well I would transition the server to an amazon instance that can scale easier if the bandwidth and memory needs are needing to be bumped up more. My webservers are running centos mostly - cpanel and web host manager software for the reseller webhost services. I have ssh access and can install whatever to test things out cheaply on our webservers before spending any money on a dynamic instance of AWS with ec2.

Ideas welcome - what are the steps to install on centos? Do I need stemCMD? A clear and concise guide to setting up a game server would be appreciated for sure.

[|BoM| SammyWhammy]

Sorry I didn't notice this until now.. I was using the free tier of AWS and it was simply too lightweight on resources to run the server. Otherwise setting up and starting the server was easy. I just installed steam and used steam cmds to install the game server and launch.
My AWS server was using Ubuntu I believe.

[Aribo]

Originally posted by |BoM| SammyWhammy:

I have another 6 months or so of the free Amazon Web Services trial and was hoping to use it to host a 7DTD server. Does anyone have any experience with this or how to host the server on a remote linux system in general?

Thanks for any help!

Hey Bom, Although not within my quote, Id like to mention Salman the exorcist for his nice contribution and response. Great Support is always appreciated and respect Salman, Thank you.

Other Viewers of this discussion May wish to view the detailed article on this subject from the official wiki.

https://7daystodie.gamepedia.com/Linux_Server_with_Amazon_Linux_AMI

Hope this helps, thanks to all support here