How do I setup traffic to my home dedicated game server?
Hey all!
I found this post and I'm looking to do this same thing the only difference is that my ISP is providing me with a Dynamic IP address so I've personally seen it change multiple times a day at times.
For more context, I am hosting a dedicated gaming server at home using my ISP and have ports 7777, 7778, 27015 UDP and 27020 (TCP for RCON) forwarded successfully through my router to my local server (internal IP is 192.168.1.100). Since my ISP doesn't provide any static IP addresses, I was looking into doing this through Linode/Akamai. From what I read, I believe it's possible to get a static IP for the node itself that players can use so they don't have to reach out for the new IP every time my ISP changes it.
Is this possible to forward those ports 7777, 7778, 27015 UDP and 27020 (TCP for RCON) from my local LAN to the node server which should have public static IP? If so what are the steps required for that?
I already have a node setup for a different domain so I image that I can't use that one right? I'd have to spin up another node for this, if the above is possible?
If all the above is true an possible, how would the node server, with the public static IP address, know where my local sever is located at? I'm not really sure what that would look like or what would be involved in that?
Lastly, I have purchased a domain for this but I would actually rather have the players use the public static IP address, from the Linode/Akamai server, with the query port.
That way players can just use:
steam://connect/123.456.78.90:27015 versus using my domain (join.examplegameserver.com)
I originally wanted to do this via Cloudflare DNS ran into some roadblocks and figured that this would be more scalable down the road.
Ultimately, I'm not really sure how/if this would be possible if my gateway ISP public address is always changing. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Dan
3 Replies
jhartman
Linode Staff
Although my home IP is generally pretty stable, I have definitely ran into issues when it's changed without me realizing it. In order to help prevent this from being an issue in the future, I implemented a Dynamic DNS (DDNS) script that curls my current IP address and uses the CloudFlare API (where I host my domain records) to automatically update DNS records if my address has changed.
I set this up on one of my personal Linux machines, but the Bash script linked below should also work on MacOS. Similarly, I included a Windows PowerShell script that should accomplish similar results although I have not personally tested it:
Personally, that's the route that I would recommend since it doesn't require a Linode in the middle acting as a router in addition to your local router's port forwarding rules AND it allows you to use a domain name for your server. That said, since Linode's are administered IPs that do not change on their own, the guide below provides more insight into how to configure it to act as a router:
If I understand your setup correctly, your local game server would be forwarded from your local router to your Linode, and then inbound requests to your Linode's IP would then be forwarded back to your home IP. I think that ultimately the issue will persist since your Linode will still need to have the your home's most up-to-date IP in order to process requests. As I understand it, your home will maintain connection with your Linode (outbound-to-Linode), but not the other way around (inbound-to-home).
@jhartman Thank you! This is great information! I will absolutely take a deeper dive into this!
You're understanding is correct that my "local game server would be forwarded from your local router to your Linode, and then inbound requests to your Linode's IP would then be forwarded back to your home"
Is there anyway to use that curl script with the Linode to keep track of the ip if it changes?
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