Managed Game Server Hosting (Clanforge) - Update your game through the Clanforge web interface

Follow the instructions in this guide to learn how to update your game image binary (build) through the Clanforge web interface.

Deploy the update to your build machine

Once you have your updated game build ready, the next step is to deploy the updated game image to your build machine.

1. In a browser window, navigate to https://clanforge.multiplay.co.uk/<ASID>

2. Select the Game Updates option from the Dev Tools panel.

   

3. On the Game Image Update page, click the Update Game Image button.

   

4. Fill out the form in the Update Game Image modal. 

   

   1. Game - Select the game you want to update. 

   2. Image - Select the image version you want to update. 

   3. Machine - Select your jump machine. This list is highly configurable and can contain multiple jump machines or regular machines from which you can generate an update. 

   4. URL - Input the URL address of your game image repository (e.g., Steam, S3, Google Cloud) that you generated for use with Clanforge. 

   5. Description - Provide a brief description of the update. 

5. Click the Update Game Image button. This will install the image from your game repository URL to your jump machine.

Test the update on your build machine

Once you’ve installed the latest version of your game build to your jump machine, you’ll want to create a test game server to make sure everything works as expected. You must create the game server with a profile that is linked to the game image version that you updated.

1. From your Clanforge panel, navigate to your build machine.

2. Click Add Server to create a game server instance. This will start a game server separate from the rest of your fleet specifically for testing.

3. Make sure that the server starts up correctly and doesn’t generate any errors.

4. Once you’ve tested the server to make sure the update works correctly, continue on to create a diff analysis.

Create a difference analysis

If all goes well with the test, the next step is to create a difference analysis (diff analysis) from the changes you just made to your game image on your jump machine. The difference analysis allows you to create a patch with only the required (changed) files so that the image size is smaller and will install to the rest of your fleet faster than a full image. Once you’ve generated a diff analysis, you can opt to create a full or partial (patch) update to push out to the rest of your machines.

1. In a browser window, navigate to https://clanforge.multiplay.co.uk/<ASID>

2. Click on the Diff Analysis option from the Dev Tools panel. 

   

3. Fill out the Game Image Difference Analysis form. 

   1. Game - Select the same game that you created the update for in the previous section. 

   2. Image - Select the same image version you created the update for in the previous section. 

   3. Machine - Select your jump machine (the machine you installed the latest version of your game build to in the previous section).

4. Click on the View Differences button. 

   

5. Review the differences and make sure that there aren’t any unexpected changes. Once you’re satisfied that everything looks correct, accept the differences by clicking the Accept Diff button.

Deploy the update to your fleet machines

Once you’ve accepted the differences from the diff analysis via the Clanforge GUI, you’ll see the Create New Image Version modal. This is where you’ll have the option to roll out a full image (by selecting the Make this image a full image checkbox) or to only roll out the differences between this update and the previous one.

1. Toggle the checkbox to the right of Make this image a full image if you want to create a full image. Otherwise, leave this checkbox un-toggled. It’s good practice to make a full image for your update every third update because it decreases the size of the game image that’s installed on your machines. 

2. Select what you want the servers to do after installing the update by selecting one option from the After creating the image: select form. 

   1. Install it and restart affected servers - Select this option to push the game update to the mirroring network globally, install the files onto each machine, then restart each game server instance to apply the changes. This option disrupts players unless you’re using the zero downtime implementation. 

   2. Install it without restarting - Select this option to push the game update to the mirroring network globally, then install the files onto each machine without restarting any of the game server instances. This option works well if the update only contains changes to asset files, but if the update contains any changes to files that the current game server is actively using, then the update will fail due to these files being locked by an active process. 

   3. Do nothing - Select this option to push the update out to the mirroring network globally without installing it to any of your machines. This option is useful when you want to push an update to machines manually later.

3. Click the Create Image Version button. 

4. Once Clanforge has finished creating the image update, you’ll see the Installations view, which shows the current install status of the image on each machine. Note that the Installations view does not list successfully completed installs.