Seeking Advice for Server Setup

[neomac3444]

Hey Guys, 

 

New to the forum and Unraid. Its been 10+ years since I have played with a server, last server was Ubuntu. I'm not new to servers but there are certainly more options on how to do things today. So I am setting up a server to do the following and am just seeking a little advice after reading many guides and posts for different examples of each.

 

I have settled on Unraid 6.12

 

These are the services I intend to run:

 

Plex

SMB - Local

Phone/Photo Backup - for entire family (includes those outside of my house)

Game Servers w/ Friends - Ark, Minecraft, SmallLands, Satisfactory

 

My first question is not sure what the better methods are for setting up communications to the open world. It used to be you just open a port on your router and direct traffic to that port and done. However, was reading many different sets of advice about setting up a reverse proxy with using a platform like Cloudflare and Nginx. Is that really the recommended method even though I will not be "Hosting" a website on my server?

 

My second question is for game servers. Is it better to be running these in a VM and just let them be in their own VM for each server? Or is a docker like AMP or Pterodactyl a better way to go about setting up multiple servers? 

 

Thanks for the advice!

Marc

[trurl]

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/security/

 

See the Apps page for more about game server dockers.

[neomac3444]

Thanks for the reply. 

 

Any thoughts on which is better? AMP or Pterodactyl?

[Newtious]

On 1/10/2024 at 7:32 AM, neomac3444 said:

Thanks for the reply. 

 

Any thoughts on which is better? AMP or Pterodactyl?

I have a 50 instance of AMP and I dont use it..   I didnt find it very intuitive to learn how to use..  and I always got frustrated with it..   the main panel is like the exact same design as the "instance" panel.. and it made it confusing as hell..   you start the "instance" then open the "instance" to change settings and details ect.. and start the game..  half the shit never worked right for me..  and It was clunky and I could not change a bunch of stuff at the same time between instances (like setting up 20 instances at the same time)..  I had to do it one at a time or things never worked right..

on top of that I got shit customer service..   I get it that the guys likely brilliant and like aspergers or autism spectrum real levels of smart but the social skills took a serious hit kinda situation..  

I looked at buying the real expensive version of amp.. so that I "could" sell game servers.. or really just let friends run their own without me having to do backend work for it..(my interest honesty)  so I can say that with 15 rack mount servers in my basement and 3gb fiber up/down.. i have the capacity to start a small business hosting cheap servers..  I REALLY wanted amp to work out..  my vote would be to try pterodactyl

[TimTheSettler]

On 1/10/2024 at 10:32 AM, neomac3444 said:

Thanks for the reply. 

 

Any thoughts on which is better? AMP or Pterodactyl?

 

I'm not sure you need these unless you're running a lot of servers like Newtious does.  I run a Minecraft server and a couple other game servers for friends and family.  I don't need to manage them in any special way.

 

On 1/9/2024 at 1:35 PM, neomac3444 said:

My first question is not sure what the better methods are for setting up communications to the open world. It used to be you just open a port on your router and direct traffic to that port and done. However, was reading many different sets of advice about setting up a reverse proxy with using a platform like Cloudflare and Nginx. Is that really the recommended method even though I will not be "Hosting" a website on my server?

 

This is what I do.  I run DuckDNS so that my friends can find my server easily and port forwarding to the port for the game.

 

Here's some additional info about security (beyond the link that trurl has):

• If you expose a port on your router pointing to your unRAID server then keep in mind that someone will find out that the port is open and "listening".  This will happen regardless of you having a host name or not (since people port scan IP addresses all the time).
• If someone finds an open port then the first assumption is that the port is being used for whatever app typically uses that port so a way to hide the purpose of a port is to use an unconventional port number for that app (or game).  The drawback is that services or games might expect a specific port number.
• Trust the app or game to have decent security to block bad requests to the port (this is debatable).
• The docker app is self-contained.  If someone gains control of the app then they can only see the data that the docker app has access to.  Be aware of this and limit what the docker has access to (this is one reason why using the "privileged" flag is a bad idea).  This is why I like dockers.  They are like a VM but for a very specific purpose with a small footprint.