EC2 Gaming on Linux

Cloud Gaming powered by Sunshine on EC2 Spot Instances, tested with:

• EC2 g4dn instances using NVIDIA gaming driver
• EC2 g5 instances using NVIDIA gaming driver

Features

Current features:

• Launch templates for both Spot and On-Demand EC2 instances
• Minimalistic Ubuntu Linux 22.04 with Sunshine, Steam and Lutris preinstalled
• VPC with public subnet and security groups to restrict access by IP
• S3 bucket for fast backup/restore of the Steam Library to/from instance storage using restic

How-to

Show template:

./deploy.py --print-only

Deploying the CloudFormation stack the first time requires a keypair (in this case ec2-gaming) to exist:

./deploy.py --keypair ec2-gaming

When updating CloudFormation stack, passing parameters is not required and existing settings remain untouched:

./deploy.py

Launch spot instance:

aws ec2 run-instances --launch-template LaunchTemplateName=ec2-gaming-sunshine-jammy-spot,Version=\$Latest

Launch on-demand instance:

# ubuntu jammy (22.04)
aws ec2 run-instances --launch-template LaunchTemplateName=ec2-gaming-sunshine-jammy-on-demand,Version=\$Latest
# or: debian bookworm (12)
aws ec2 run-instances --launch-template LaunchTemplateName=ec2-gaming-sunshine-bookworm-on-demand,Version=\$Latest

Launch on-demand instance with custom instance type:

aws ec2 run-instances --launch-template LaunchTemplateName=ec2-gaming-sunshine-jammy-on-demand,Version=\$Latest \
    --instance-type g5.4xlarge

By default, access to the EC2 instance is restriced. To update the whitelisted IP address to the IP address of the caller:

./update-ip.py

Manual steps on first boot

Install NVIDIA driver

Login to the EC2 instance:

# for ubuntu (jammy) instances
ssh ubuntu@<IP>
# for debian (bookworm) instances
ssh admin@<IP>

Wait for cloud-init to finish:

tail -f /var/log/cloud-init.log

Install NVIDIA gaming driver and reboot:

sudo /opt/install_nvidia_driver.sh

sudo reboot

Setup Sunshine

Configure username and password for sunshine API user:

https --verify=no :47990/api/password newUsername="sunshine" newPassword="sunshine" confirmNewPassword="sunshine"

Add apps for different screen resolutions:

# 1280x720
https --verify=no -a sunshine:sunshine :47990/api/apps \
    name="1280x720" prep-cmd:='[{"do":"xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1280x720","undo":""}]' \
    output="" cmd:=[] index=-1 detached:=[] image-path="desktop-alt.png"

# 1280x800
https --verify=no -a sunshine:sunshine :47990/api/apps \
    name="1280x800" prep-cmd:='[{"do":"xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1280x800","undo":""}]' \
    output="" cmd:=[] index=-1 detached:=[] image-path="desktop-alt.png"

# 1920x1080
https --verify=no -a sunshine:sunshine :47990/api/apps \
    name="1920x1080" prep-cmd:='[{"do":"xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1080","undo":""}]' \
    output="" cmd:=[] index=-1 detached:=[] image-path="desktop-alt.png"

Set a password for sunshine Linux user:

sudo passwd sunshine

Determine the public IPv4 address and connect via the Moonlight client:

cloud-init query ds.meta_data.public_ipv4

Allow connection by entering the PIN:

https --verify=no -a sunshine:sunshine :47990/api/pin pin="0000"

Launch Steam, Login for the first time and:

• Move the Steam Library to /mnt/sunshine/SteamLibrary (Setting/Downloads/Steam Library Folder)
• Enable Steam Play (Proton) for supported and all other titles (Setting/Steam Play)
• Run Backup (via application icon or /usr/local/bin/backup before next shutdown/reboot)