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Beacon App

This installation script provides a vanilla installation of the game server, so configuration management applications such as Beacon can be used with minimal effort.

Step 1 - Setup SSH

Beacon will upload configuration files via SFTP upon deployment, so setting up your SSH connection is a prerequisite first step.

Follow the SFTP setup guide to configure SSH access for the steam user to your server. (WinSCP is not required for Beacon, but can be useful for testing.)

Beacon supports both password and key-based authentication, (though for security reasons, key-based authentication is recommended.)

Step 2 - Install Beacon

Install Beacon from the official website.

Beacon is meant to be run on your local computer, not on the server itself, and unfortunately only supports Windows and MacOS.

Step 3 - Import Source

Click 'Import' to start the server add process. Select 'Server with FTP access' (although we will be using SFTP).

beacon-import-source.webp

On the next screen, change Mode to 'SFTP', enter your server's IP address, SSH port (default is 22), and the username steam.

When using key-based authentication, check 'Use Public Key Authentication' and browse for your private key (eg: C:\Users\YourUserName.ssh\id_ed25519).

When using password authentication, just enter the password you set for the steam user.

beacon-sftp-config.webp

On the next screen, browse to

  1. home
  2. steam
  3. ArkSurvivalAscended
  4. AppFiles
  5. ShooterGame
  6. Saved
  7. Config
  8. WindowsServer

and select the Game.ini file.

beacon-game-location.webp

On the next screen, select what to import, (probably just the Server Link so as to not overwrite any existing Beacon configuration), and finish the import.

beacon-finalize-import.webp

Step 4 - Profit!

That's it! Beacon will now be configured to push configuration changes to your server by clicking Deploy.

beacon-deploy-changes.webp

Caveats

Beacon manages the default Game.ini and GameUserSettings.ini for all maps. This means that configuration changes will be applied to all maps at once.

It's best to stop any map prior to deploying changes, just to ensure that your changes do not get overwritten by the game server when it shuts down.

Individual map settings specified from the management console will override any setting done within Beacon. This is notable for the Server Name and Admin Password as they are defined by the default install, but most configuration options can also be set from the management console to override Beacon's default deployed settings.

For example, if DifficultyOffset is set to 1.0 in Beacon but a specific map is configured with ?DifficultyOffset=5.0 from the management console, that one map will have the higher difficulty offset while all other maps will use the default.

Beacon's Config Sets work by writing different configurations to different ini files. Since this installation script runs all maps from a single game install, all maps will share the same Game.ini and GameUserSettings.ini files, and therefore Config Sets may not work as expected.