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Kubernetes Prerequisites

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Please follow all of the steps (you can skip Running without the backend, but it's recommended) in the Getting Started section before deploying to Kubernetes. This section makes assumptions you've done those steps, which include extra setup.

The prerequisites you installed when you got started were to be able to run Redwood without Kubernetes, but to be able to deploy to a Kubernetes cluster you need to install a few more things. Deploying to Kubernetes is required for deploying to the cloud, but it's also useful for testing locally before deploying to the cloud.

NodeJS​

NodeJS is used for the entire backend infrastructure as well as the deployment scripts. It's required when deploying to a Kubernetes cluster, locally or remotely.

Installing Node​

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We require NodeJS v20; note that other versions are not currently compatible with Redwood.

While you can install NodeJS v20 using the official installer from https://nodejs.org, we prefer to use NVM (Node Version Manager). Both will work just fine; NVM just makes it easy to switch and upgrade your version of NodeJS. If you want to install using NVM but already have NodeJS installed using the official installer from https://nodejs.org, you will need to uninstall it before using NVM.

Once you have NVM installed, you can run the following command to install NodeJS v12:

nvm install 20
nvm use 20

Then make sure you can use the node executable:

node --version

Installing Yarn​

Once you have installed NodeJS, you need to install yarn, which is used to install dependencies and run scripts for the backend. We use version 1.22.19, which you can download by running the following command:

npm install --global [email protected]

If you're an advanced NodeJS user and use corepack, you can run corepack prepare in the root of the Redwood Backend directory to switch to the correct version of yarn.

Compile Unreal from Source​

The version of Unreal Engine that you download from the Epic Games Launcher doesn't include the Server target used to packaged dedicated servers, which is necessary for deploying to Kubernetes or using Hathora in development.

Unreal has a great guide on building Unreal from source for each OS.

Pulumi​

There are multiple frameworks to define IaC; we use Pulumi which is built on top of the popular framework Terraform. Pulumi allows us to write the IaC as NodeJS/TypeScript instead of having to learn the declarative scripting language Terraform uses.

Pulumi also has a backend service (Pulumi Cloud) that keeps track of the versions that are deployed to determine the iterative changes that are necessary when trying to deploy. Having this as a service is very helpful if you need multiple people to be able to deploy. pulumi.com provides managed hosting for Pulumi Cloud with a fairly comprehensive free tier, but you can also self-host.

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You can opt out of Pulumi Cloud completely by using pulumi login --local. You'll still need to install the Pulumi CLI, but the Pulumi state is stored locally on your machine and is not synced anywhere. The "Pulumi Organization Name" that's mentioned in these docs will need to be organization when using the local state provider.

You can also use object storage backends for your state.

These are viable options for getting started quickly, but there are many reasons to use Pulumi Cloud. Our docs assume you're using self-hosted or Pulumi-hosted Pulumi Cloud.

  1. Install the Pulumi CLI
  2. Create a Pulumi Cloud account
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    We recommend using Pulumi's free SaaS offering to start with; you can choose to self-host after you've familiarized yourself more with Redwood and Pulumi.

  3. Create or join an Organization on Pulumi

WSL​

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This is only required for deploying to a local Kubernetes cluster on a Windows machine. We recommend testing locally before deploying to the cloud, but this step could be skipped if you're only deploying to the cloud.

WSL, or Windows Subsystem for Linux, is an extra runtime that will run Linux simultaneously in the background as you run Windows. We use this to be able to replicate the production environment for the backend closely, and it makes development much simpler.

Please follow the official Microsoft guide on how to install WSL. The Linux distribution you install doesn't matter; we use the default (Ubuntu).

Rancher Desktop​

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This is only required for deploying to a local Kubernetes cluster on a Windows machine. We recommend testing locally before deploying to the cloud, but this step could be skipped if you're only deploying to the cloud.

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If you already have the official Rancher Desktop installed, you will need to properly uninstall it and install the Redwood version following the steps in this section. Redwood versions have (Redwood) in the title and the version numbers.

How to check if you have the Redwood version

Redwood label in Rancher Desktop versions

Rancher Desktop (not to be confused by Rancher), is an easy to use tool that provides Docker and Kubernetes to the WSL environment. We use Docker to create containers of each backend service, which we then run in a Kubernetes cluster. It's okay if these terms are confusing; by design, Redwood handles getting things running in these more complicated environments so you can learn the subjects later if/when it's needed. Simply put, Rancher Desktop helps us replicate a scalable server environment for the backend.

  1. If you need to uninstall a prior version of Rancher Desktop, follow these steps
  2. Find the latest Redwood edition installer for Rancher Desktop at https://github.com/redwoodmmo/rancher-desktop/releases/latest.
  3. Running Rancher Desktop for the first time will ask what version of Kubernetes and the Container Engine you want. We usually use the latest (stable) version and dockerd (moby) respectively.
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Rancher Desktop doesn't start automatically with Windows unless you enable Automatically start at login in the Preferences, so you may have to run it manually after a reboot.