This repo is no longer maintained. Check out openttd-terraform-upcloud for an up-to-date dedicated server example (including annotated openttd.cfg + NewGRF extensions!) using a more reliable cloud provider.

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WARNING:

Please be extra careful when using Terraform with Hetzner. While developing this module I learned that recreating a server too many times a day can trigger a silent abuse ban which means they will lock your Hetzner Cloud account without notifying you and delete all your cloud resources within 24 hours. You will not receive any heads-up about this and there is no appeal process. If you want to use Hetzner regardless, your best bet is to iterate configuration on a running server instead of using configuration management tools to create it from scratch. You should still be aware that their abuse prevention algorithm can destroy your servers at any time.

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openttd-terraform-hetzner

Motivation: why configure local firewalls and NAT tables to host a quick game if you can just spin up a dedicated server at the push of a button?

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Terraform configuration to deploy an OpenTTD game server on European cloud provider Hetzner Cloud. The server will be running Debian 10, with openttd 1.9.3 compiled from source.

With Hetzner's current rates (March 2020), you're getting a CX11 virtual server located in Finland or Germany for 0,005 € / h = 2,96 € per month.

Deployment

Prerequisites:

• Hetzner Cloud account & project API key
  • Register at https://accounts.hetzner.com/signUp
  • In Hetzner Cloud Console, create a new project and generate an API token for it
    • Project → Access → API Tokens → Generate API token
• Terraform
  • Can be installed eg. using Homebrew on Mac OS: brew install terraform
• SSH key without a passphrase
  • If you don't have one at hand, try something like ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/id_hetzner on a *NIX system. Leave passphrase empty so Terraform knows how to use it.

To play on a dedicated openttd server, clone the repo and:

1. Modify openttd.cfg with your preferred game settings
2. Run terraform init in the repo root directory to prepare Terraform
3. Run terraform apply. You're first prompted for missing config variables and then you'll get a preview of the cloud resources about to be created. Accept the execution plan by typing yes.
4. Wait a few minutes while Terraform creates and configures the server. Compilation is quite slow as the cheapest virtual machine only has one CPU core available.
5. Copy the server IP that Terraform prints on exit (openttd_server_ip in module outputs)
6. Connect OpenTTD clients by entering this IP in Main menu → Multiplayer → Add server

Hetzner will bill your credit card monthly (per hour) until you delete the server with terraform destroy.

Manual server administration tasks

You can ssh to the server as root with the SSH key you set during provisioning. Common tasks:

• Browse openttd logs with journalctl, eg. journalctl -o short-iso -n 500 --no-hostname --utc -u openttd
• Configure openttd by editing /home/openttd/.openttd/openttd.cfg
• Restart openttd with systemctl restart openttd

Configuration variables

Variable	Description
hetzner_token	Hetzner Cloud API access token (Cloud console: Project → API tokens)
ssh_public_key_path	Path to a SSH public key that you want to use for managing the server
ssh_private_key_path	Path to a SSH private key that you want to use for managing the server
hetzner_location	Hetzner region to use – default is Helsinki, Finland