Hello there! As the title suggests, I just had a few questions regarding the hosting options that exist out there, and whether or not a localhost would be viable in my situation. I’ll try to provide a clear picture of my setup and what I’m looking to do, but if I leave something out please feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them in detail.
My Setup
So first off, my setup… Currently I have an extra rig on standby that I’m almost certain can run an FXServer decently. IIRC, it has a Ryzen 3 3300x 4-core 8-thread CPU, a GTX 1650 GPU, four 8 GB sticks of 3200 MHz ECC memory, and a 256 GB NVMe SSD. I also have a fibre 1 gigabit home internet connection and would be using an ethernet cable to directly plug this machine into our router, and I plan to buy a 1 TB SATA SSD for storage on said machine. In short…
Ryzen 3 3300x 4-Core 8-Thread CPU
GTX 1650 8 GB GPU
4x 8 GB 3200 MHz ECC RAM
256 GB NVMe SSD & 1 TB SATA SSD
1 Gigabit Fibre Home Internet Connection
With that in mind, my questions are as follows:
My intial plan is to start with a server that has a maximum of between 32 and 64 slots, with a playerbase of around 100 maximum. My main concern is that my internet connection wouldn’t be able to handle such a load on it. Is locally hosting such a server with such a configuration practical? If not, is there anything I can really do about it?
Assuming a local host is practical in this situation, how much energy would I expect said machine to roughly use assuming an average 12-hour cycle where all slots are filled? Alongside that, what about in the worst case scenario where all slots are filled for 24 hours straight? Would a local host in this case be energy efficient?
Assuming a local host IS NOT practical, what kind of hosting options would ya’ll recommend I look more into? Are there any hosting options that would allow me to leverage my access to the existing hardware that I have without costing too much in the energy department? What about options that would allow me to have hardware I own used off-site to save on energy and internet costs?
And that should be it for now…please let me know if you have any advice on this matter! Thank you in advance!
This is quite an interesting case, my take is that you can very well host it locally without any significant issue. A few things to keep in mind though:
Make sure to get ample DDoS protection - best do it right from the start, it’s only a matter of time until someone gets salty and “buys” a DDoS attack for your server; you’d best be ready for that
Bandwidth-wise, you should be good, however I do recommend looking into caching proxies to optimize resource downloads so it doesn’t bottleneck as much
Components-wise, it’s all good and may very well even be classified as “overkill” assuming all of the available resources will be going to running the server and nothing else besides the OS
In regards to energy, it shouldn’t take that much; get an average load calculation for your components and it should be in the general ballpark of what to expect
And lastly, in regards to hosting options you’d need to source something locally if you want the hardware you have to be leveraged; if that’s not important to you, just rent a VPS from something like soyoustart or OVH hosting; I personally will never recommend Zap, however last time I used them (and had a negative experience) was almost 2 years ago so it’s worth reviewing if you wish
Couple things I found out when researching this for myself. My research is about a year or so old.
Game servers are magnets for hackers. Port sniffers find them easily, drawing out all the script kiddies. This is not including people that could seek you out specifically. someone you have banned or feels maligned in some way and wants to hack you or bring your server down.
DDoS attacks, viruses, trojans, rootkits and other nasty hacks are hard to prevent and requires hardening of your network infrastructure. Your ISP may be unable or simply unwilling to protect you with a home internet account.
Along the same lines, your ISP may not permit you to run a game server under their terms of service for a home internet account. You may be forced to set up a business account, which is an order of magnitude more expensive. In some cases, paying for hosting on a VPS would be more cost-effective.
Modern ISPs in urban areas offer unlimited data plans and terrific download speeds. However, upload speeds are shit. The exception is fiber-optic that comes to your door, which in most cases, the speed is bi-directional. With my market, however, fiber is only available in the most affluent neighborhoods. Not mine.
In most cases, I discovered VPS hosting offers more protection, faster throughput, and more technical knowledge than I have. And I worked as an IT professional before retiring. You just need to find the right provider. Not Zap. And not many of the others. I’d stay away from “game server hosting” that has a point and click slick web interface and pay for aa bare metal, dedicated host on a backbone with sufficient processor power, RAM, and a nice fast SSD to build your dream server.
EXTREMELY late reply and I apologize for that…but I appreciate the answers given! Very informative and very helpful; I just wish I could mark both of your posts as the answer. lol
One more thing that you brought up though… Malware and general hacking attempts. Is there any reasonable way to prevent that by actions I can do myself on my own machine, with the assumption of course that I’m willing to learn? Or would I have to contact my ISP about that?
Mostly, I’m unsure of what I’d specifically be looking for, whether it be hardware, software, or simply knowledge. I’m fairly privacy conscious and take many common steps to protect said privacy online, but nothing absolutely insane, and I take it that wouldn’t be enough to stop would-be hacking attempts.
My personal choice, run a Linux server. There are far fewer viruses for Linux. Most exploits are written for the Windows world because that’s where the most users are. I estimate only 10% of gamers run Linux. And as for FiveM it’s much closer to zero since the clients do not run natively on Linux. But the servers do.
A reverse proxy to protect any ports facing the outside world.
As few ports facing the Internet as possible.
Run facing ports on oddball ports to make it a little harder.
Do not allow root access on any port.
If you have SSH access to your server, set up encrypted keys for passwordless access. This sounds crazy, WAT! NO PASSWORDS? but by disabling password access, there’s no chance of a brute force attack. Using a strong encryption key, unless someone gets this key from you, there’s no getting in.
Use SFTP for file transfers. This is along the same lines as above, the encryption key is needed to access, by denying password logins you are much safer.
Some research will be needed, but setting up a fortress Linux server is rewarding. Not just for games, but you can run so much more to enrich your personal data.
