Containers

How to add a game Part 5 (Containers)

Servers run in pods/containers, there are multiple container types per game depending on the needs.

Containers

There are three types of containers: Main game server, init container and a sidecar. Each container must be have its Basic Info defined, that is to say, they must be named, described and given a type and an image. Once the Basic Info is set on the containers, Environment Variables, Volume Mounts and Ports can be defined.

Container Types

  • Main Gamer container: Primary application container, it has the game in it and the main process.

  • Init Container: Runs the initialization process, it runs before the main container.

  • Sidecar: Runs alongside the main container.

Container images

Each container must have an image selected so it can run an OS inside with the pre-installed system components, and requirements for expected tools. Images get updated and pushed to containers on each container creation; there are available images:

  • PingCore Windows Base 2025 Server Full: This is a full Windows server image with all necessary system components, runtimes and frameworks. Full Windows means more demanding requirements and base memory consumption on idle.

  • PingCore Windows base 2025 Server Core: A stripped down, light-weight Windows server image with minimal system components and requirements. Good middle-point between full Windows and Linux.

  • PingCore Ubuntu Base 24.x: Linux variant with the latest Ubuntu (Public) release. Most efficient.

Resource Allocation

Only Main container can have its resources modified. CPU and memory are overridden by game-level settings at provisioning time. These values are not used for deployed servers. There are 4 sliders that can be adjusted, 2 for CPU and 2 for RAM (Request and Limit for each).

Working Directory

Optionally, there's a working directory that can be set to determine and specify the directory for the container. Eg. C:\\Users\\Administrator or /app.

Environment Variables

Defined container variables, these variables are applicable within a container. Most useful for replacing a widely used variable without a static value. Eg. $LOCATION. Env variables must be named in uppercase and must have a set value.

Volume Mounts

Mounted volumes are PVCs or Ephemeral volumes that are attached to container PVCs. These volumes will be mounted onto deployed servers and read/write access can be enabled or disabled.

Port Requirements

Each container must have a set amount of ports available for mapping template fields. The ports are mapped at the deployment level. Each port requires a port name, a protocol (TCP/UDP/TCP+UDP) and a range of consecutive ports (if any). There's a toggle for marking ports as RCON ports for multi-purpose ports.

Note that these are abstract port requirements. Actual port-to-field mappings will be configured at the Deployment Spec level, allowing this container to be reused across different template sets as discussed in the templates article.