bbc2 / space-linux

Experiment with Space Engineers in Wine

Space Engineers server on Linux (actually with Wine in a Docker container)

This is yet another experiment to run Space Engineers on Linux. It kind of works but performance is not very good, especially during autosaving.

Features

• The container image built by Docker Compose is self-contained except for the three mounted directories (see instructions below).
• The Torch Server GUI is displayed locally by Xpra over SSH (no need for VNC, remote desktop or X forwarding).

Runtime Requirements

• Ability to run container images (e.g. Podman or Docker).
• Enough storage space for the container image (about 5 GiB) and the data directory (about 6 GiB).

Usage

Build the container image with Docker Compose:

make build

Export and upload the image to the host that will run it. Then create the directories to be mounted:

mkdir --parents /path/to/data/{ssh_admin,ssh_etc,torch}

In /path/to/data/ssh_admin, create an authorized_keys file with the SSH public keys you want to accept for the authentication of administrators.

Create a container with the following parameters:

• Mounted directories:
  • /path/to/data/torch to /home/admin/torch
  • /path/to/data/ssh_etc to /etc/ssh
  • /path/to/data/ssh_admin to /home/admin/.ssh
• Published ports:
  • TCP 22 for SSH (and the Torch Server GUI via Xpra).
  • UDP 27016 for the game server.

Make sure those ports are not blocked by the host's firewall.

Connect to the container with SSH or Xpra:

SL_REMOTE_HOST=foo.example.net make connect-remote-xpra

Note that this Makefile target is only an example. Feel free to modify the actual connection command. For example, you may need to adjust the SSH command with --ssh.

The Torch Server can crash for many reasons, for example if you start the server without a world. In such a case, the server will restart automatically and you'll have to try again with a different configuration.

Acknowledgments

I got ideas from the following:

• https://github.com/soyasoya5/se-torchapi-linux
• https://github.com/mmmaxwwwell/wine6
• TorchAPI/Torch#514