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Linux builds workflow

This guide will provide a way to get a working Linux build on Windows.

Building from Docker

While you can build a game using Docker, that approach proved suboptimal compared to the one described in this guide.

Cross compilation

Windows only

Cross-compiling in Unreal world is limited to Windows only. On Linux you can compile only Linux target, same for Mac users.

Cross-compilation requires: 1. Go to Unreal docs page that contains toolchains, download and install the Cross-Compile Toolchain that matches version of Unreal Engine you are using. 2. Update environment variables by adding new variable LINUX_MULTIARCH_ROOT with value being the path to the newly installed toolchain. It should be something like F:\UnrealToolchains\v22_clang-16.0.6-centos7. 3. Now when the game is open in the editor it should be possible to build for the Linux Target platform:

linux-builds-editor.png

Testing the build

To test Linux game builds, use a machine with Linux installed. For the server ones it is easy to test them on Windows machine in two different ways.

WSL

WSL is a feature of Windows for running a Linux environment on Windows machine, without Docker.

WSL

This part of tutorial is written with assumption that WSL is installed and operational.

  1. Build Linux Server target build of the game.
  2. Open Windows Subsystem for Linux console in LinuxServer directory of the build.
    1. It should contain an Engine folder, a ProjectName folder and a script file with filename in format: {ProjectName}Server.sh.
  3. Run the script file: ./{ProjectName}Server.sh.
  4. Server should be up and running.

Docker

Docker is often used by Game Server Orchestrators for running built Game Servers. Beamable does provide a working example of that workflow in Beamball Demo.

Assumption

This part of tutorial is written with assumption that Docker is installed and operational.

  1. Build the game's Linux Server target.
  2. Open LinuxServer directory of the build.
    1. It should contain an Engine folder, a ProjectName folder and a script file with filename in format: {ProjectName}Server.sh.
  3. Create Dockerfile file in LinuxServer directory.
  4. Copy the file contents below to the created Dockerfile.
    1. Don't forget to update the paths to match your project!
FROM ubuntu:22.04

# Add these dependencies to enable your server to make outbound TLS requests
RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y ca-certificates && \
    update-ca-certificates

RUN groupadd --gid 1000 unreal \
  && useradd --uid 1000 --gid unreal --create-home unreal
USER unreal

# Copy the Unreal game server contents
WORKDIR /home/unreal
COPY --chown=unreal:unreal . .

RUN chmod +x {ProjectName}Server.sh
RUN chmod +x {ProjectName}/Binaries/Linux/{ProjectName}Server

# Expose the Unreal game server port
EXPOSE 7777/udp

# Start init script (passing any parameters you need)
ENTRYPOINT [ "./{ProjectName}Server.sh", "-custom_parameter=SOME_VALUE" ]
  1. Open command line in LinuxServer directory and run this command: docker build -t my_server ..
  2. Run the server build: docker run -t my_server.