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Godot Onboarding Guide

Pre-requirements​

Your game will need to be built to run with a dedicated Linux server. Your server will be deployed and hosted on Hathora Cloud.

1. Preparing your server build​

Your server will need to be able to be built as a dedicated Linux server build. For more info, check out Godot's guide.

2. Generating a Dockerfile​

By providing a Dockerfile with your server build, we will be able to scale your server across the globe.

Sample Godot Dockerfile:

FROM centos:centos8
    
RUN cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
RUN sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*
RUN sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.centos.org|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*

RUN yum install -y wget unzip libXcursor openssl openssl-libs libXinerama libXrandr-devel libXi alsa-lib pulseaudio-libs mesa-libGL

# TODO: replace with your Godot version
ENV GODOT_VERSION "4.0.1"

# Install Godot Server
RUN wget -q https://downloads.tuxfamily.org/godotengine/${GODOT_VERSION}/Godot_v${GODOT_VERSION}-stable_linux.x86_64.zip \
&& unzip Godot_v${GODOT_VERSION}-stable_linux.x86_64.zip \
&& mv Godot_v${GODOT_VERSION}-stable_linux.x86_64 /usr/local/bin/godot \
&& chmod +x /usr/local/bin/godot

# Add these dependencies if you're enabling TLS
RUN dnf -y update && \
    dnf -y install ca-certificates && \
    update-ca-trust

COPY your_game_server.pck .

CMD /usr/local/bin/godot --headless --main-pack ./your_game_server.pck

3. Deploy server to Hathora Cloud​

If this is your first time deploying on Hathora Cloud, we recommend starting with our Deploying on Hathora Cloud guide.

There are 2 ways to deploy your server on Hathora Cloud:

  1. With command line or CI/CD pipeline
  2. Drag and drop upload via Hathora Console
hathora-cloud builds create --appId <your_app_id>
tip

Zero-downtime deployments: New deployments will not impact any existing games, your newly deployed version will only be used for subsequent games created after.

4. Creating rooms/processes​

There are 2 ways to create rooms on Hathora Cloud:

  1. Via API call
  2. Directly with Hathora Console (great for debugging)

A simple API call: RoomApi.CreateRoom(appId).

tip

To learn more about room creation and lifecycle, check out our Room Lifecycle docs

5. Connecting to a room​

Once you have created a room, it will take Hathora Cloud a few seconds to spin up your server instance and expose a port for your client to connect to.

We recommend polling RoomApi.GetConnectionInfo(appId, roomId) until status is "active" and ExposedPort is not null.

tip

With our Hathora Console, you can get connection info (host:port) directly, which is useful for testing and debugging.

6. Lobby Service and integration with matchmakers​

Check our Lobby Service for a lightweight way to build a lobby system for your game.

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