Replacing CDO - server requirements

[whiskyjackson]

I'm be interested in helping with an effort to replace CDO. I have some linux server experience and have managed to get the code running on a couple of VPS servers as a proof of concept,although performance seems fairly sluggish. I wonder if any of the existing server admins would be willing to offer some insight as to likely server hardware requirements for a CDO replacement?

[neil]

Here's some information about the server I run (CSZO).

CSZO (about 40 games at the moment):

• 2.7 / 8 GiB of RAM used. During a tournament, you'd probably want at least 6GiB to satisfy the increased number of processes.
• 95% idle with a 4-core 3.2GHz Xeon E31230. CPU isn't really a concern usually.
• 180 GiB of disk used, after about 8 or 9 months: this will continue to grow linearly with time. Last time I checked in detail, ttyrecs were the biggest culprit, followed by old executables from daily trunk builds that can't be erased because someone still has a save at that version.
• Mean 12.7 disk transactions per second since boot (peak is much higher but I don't have records of that). Mean 432 blocks written per second.
• Monthly network utilization: ~80 GiB in, ~250 GiB out. My ISP plan covers 10 TB per month so no worries there.
• 95th percentile network bandwidth: 1.95 Mbps in, 3.02 Mbps out

If you have enough RAM, you can probably do web hosting etc with the leftover CPU (probably in a separate virtual machine for security) and make enough money to pay for the server. I pay 100 USD/month out of pocket for the server plus hosting and bandwidth, but that is quite cheap for the US, and I suspect European prices are probably higher on average.

As for the software: CSZO and CAO run essentially the same configuration of dgamelaunch + crawl, with daily trunk updates and all that. CDO's configuration is somewhat different, which is why it never provided trunk webtiles and never had shared webtiles/console games. You should definitely try to provide shared webtiles/console games: it's IMO bad for the community to have the games divided with webtiles players unable/unwilling to watch console games and vice versa.

Unfortunately, I've been terrible at documenting the config, but I can help you set it up if you'll help me document the process
I'm |amethyst on freenode. I don't read the fora regularly, so also send me a message there if you have more detailed questions.

Edit: Some preliminary documentation on the config is at: http://dobrazupa.org/setting-up-dgamela ... d-webtiles . It is nowhere near complete, though.

[mumra]

In the UK I've found dedicated servers as low as £27/mo: http://www.poundhost.com/ -- purely on bang for buck I don't think you can beat that, and I've used them before and never had any problems (they just don't do any server management for you). If you wanted to spend a bit more then these guys are awesome: http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/dedicated-servers/ (assuming you are looking for a UK server of course!)

[rebthor]

I pay 100 USD/month out of pocket for the server plus hosting and bandwidth, but that is quite cheap for the US, and I suspect European prices are probably higher on average.

Wow, that's cheap in one sense but I didn't realize you're shelling out $1200/year for hosting costs just so we can all play for free online. Thank you neil and if you put up a tip jar, I'd throw some $$ in it.

[WalkerBoh]

Wow, that's cheap in one sense but I didn't realize you're shelling out $1200/year for hosting costs just so we can all play for free online. Thank you neil and if you put up a tip jar, I'd throw some $$ in it.

On that note, does crawl have some sort of "Donate Money" feature? I'd gladly chip in now and then for server costs and such if someone tells me who to pay and how.

[galehar]

On that note, does crawl have some sort of "Donate Money" feature? I'd gladly chip in now and then for server costs and such if someone tells me who to pay and how.

No we don't. I think it would make sense to have donations pay for the servers but last time I looked, it didn't seem as easy as you'd think to set up.

[WalkerBoh]

On another site I frequent they set up a PayPal system that you could use to donate. No clue how hard it was to set up.

Anyways, probably worth considering! It's one thing to generously give time and effort for free to make crawl as great as it is, and quite another to also be financing it.

[mrbobbyg]

I want to second thanking Neil for the server. If you have a paypal, I would love to send you some cash.

[whiskyjackson]

Neil,

Thank you very much for providing this information. It is very helpful in understanding what level of resources is likely to be required. I agree with previous posters that it does not seem right for individuals to be self financing the server costs and it would be great if the Crawl developers considered established a donation feature to allow us to contribute towards server costs. Equally, while I'm happy to throw some money in the pot, I'm not sure I can justify self financing the server at £40-£50 GBP per month. Definetly keen to help out with getting something up and running though and happy to chuck some money in towards doing it.

[neil]

Thank everyone for the kind words and the offers, but I don't take donations. As hobbies go, running a Crawl server isn't all *that* expensive, and anyway there's plenty of spare CPU and bandwidth to use for other things if I suddenly needed CSZO to be able to pay for itself.

That's not to say you shouldn't accept donations for your own server: that's a personal decision on your part. I would recommend, though, that you document exactly what will happen if you get more donations than you actually spend on the server.