Match Broker Allocators

A list of the available Catena Match Broker allocators and their configurations.

Local Baremetal Allocator

The CatenaLocalBareMetalAllocator can start and manage game server processes alongside the Catena backend. It is great for early development and testing locally or on a cloud machine with the capacity to run one or more game server(s).

It is necessary to configure the full path to the game server executable and any arguments necessary to start with the correct options/map/configuration/etc.

If the game server takes longer than 30 seconds to start up and begin fetching matches, then ReadyDeadlineSeconds should be increased accordingly.

MaxRunTimeMinutes is the maximum amount of time that the game server process should be running before it is killed by the allocator. This is a fallback to the ServerMaxLifetimeMinutes configuration in the Match Broker and should be longer than that value.

"MatchBroker": {
  "Allocators": [
    {
      "Allocator": "CatenaLocalBareMetalAllocator",
      "AllocatorDescription": "Local allocator",
      "Configuration": {
        "GameServerPath": "<the path to the game server>",
        "GameServerArguments": "<the server command-line arguments>",
        "ReadyDeadlineSeconds": 30,
        "ReaperConfiguration": {
          "AllocatorReaperPeriodSeconds": 10,
          "MaxRunTimeMinutes": 125
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

GameLift Allocator

The CatenaGameLiftAllocator handles several aspects of Amazon GameLift:

For game servers that already implement support for GameLift, it can proxy Catena matches into GameLift game sessions (when ProxyMatchesToGameLift is enabled). ProxyMatchesToGameLift should be disabled for game servers that implement the Catena (Server-Manager.md) APIs.

If enabled by AllowFleetGrowth, the allocator can automatically increase the maximum size of the GameLift fleet if necessary to support the game volume. This allocator will not decrease the maximum fleet size.

It is suggested that ReadyDeadlineSeconds be set to the time required for the GameLift auto-scaler to start an additional game server and for that game server to start requesting matches that may total several minutes.

"MatchBroker": {
  "Allocators": [
    {
      "Allocator": "CatenaGameLiftAllocator",
      "AllocatorDescription": "GameLift allocator",
      "Configuration": {
        "Profile": "<AWS credential profile>",
        "Region": "us-east-1",
        "ReadyDeadlineSeconds": 30,
        "FleetArn": "<the ARN of the GameLift fleet>",
        "FleetLocation": "<Fleet location, needed for Anywhere fleets>",
        "AllowFleetGrowth": false,
        "MaxFleetSize": 1,
        "ProxyMatchesToGameLift": true
      }
    }
  ]
}

EC2 Direct Allocator

The CatenaEc2DirectAllocator can start and manage game servers by starting and terminating AWS EC2 instances.

It is necessary to configure the profile, region, and template ID to use this allocator. This allocator does not interact with or start game server processes directly, so it is necessary to package the game server in an AMI.

If the game server takes longer than 30 seconds to start up and begin fetching matches, then ReadyDeadlineSeconds should be increased accordingly.

MaxRunTimeMinutes is the maximum amount of time that the game server instance should be running before it is terminated by the allocator. This is a fallback to the ServerMaxLifetimeMinutes configuration in the Match Broker and should be longer than that value.

"MatchBroker": {
  "Allocators": [
    {
      "Allocator": "CatenaEc2DirectAllocator",
      "AllocatorDescription": "EC2 direct allocator",
      "Configuration": {
        "Profile": "<AWS credential profile>",
        "Region": "us-east-1",
        "MaxInstanceCount": 1,
        "LaunchTemplateId": "<AWS launch template ID>",
        "ReadyDeadlineSeconds": 30,
        "ReaperConfiguration": {
          "AllocatorReaperPeriodSeconds": 10,
          "MaxRunTimeMinutes": 125
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}