netboot

Part 2: Customizing a Tinycore Linux Image

Originally published on the Hit the Sticks dev blog in September 2012, archived here.

In preparing the backend network for our new turn-based strategy game, Just Tactics, we architected it to be able to easily scale up as the game becomes more popular. Step one was designing an automated netboot operating system environment, to allow us to bring up new servers without having to sit through an install procedure, and remove our dependence on mechanical storage devices.

Part 1: Building a Diskless Tinycore Linux Cluster

Originally published on the Hit the Sticks dev blog in August 2012, archived here.

A major part of the network for our new turn-based strategy game, Just Tactics, is the pool of game servers. As the user base grows, this will have to scale up first. In designing our network, one important consideration was the ability to add new machines to the pool of game servers as easily as possible. To assist with this, they are all booting the same shared linux image over the internal network. With no configuration needed on the new server, it will look for a DHCP server, which will supply network configuration, and information on where to look for files necessary to boot. It will then download and boot a minimal operating system, and start the game server.