Host a community cTab Web server

1. Prepare

In order to install cTabWebApp on your communauty server, you will require :

• Linux server with Ubuntu 18+ (can work with other distributions, but commands to install will be different)
  • 2 GHz CPU or more
  • 1 GB RAM or more
  • 1 GB disk or more
  • Low latency network
• SSH client such as PuTTY
• SFTP client such as FileZilla
• User account on server with "sudo" rights and SSH access

If you have a large communauty, you can host up to 500 players, but server must have much more higher requirements :

• 4 GB or more RAM
• 8 CPU Cores at 2 Ghz or more (a single player requires at average 0.015 Cores at 2 GHz)
• 150 MB/s network (a single player requires at average 0.3 MB/s)
• Ability to handle simultaneous 1200 TCP open connections (a single player requires at average 2.1 TCP open connections)
• No other service hosted on server

2.A. Install cTabWebApp : Scripted installation

Install .NET 8 SDK

Launch install script

2.B. Install cTabWebApp : Full manual installation

Install .NET 8 runtime

See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux

Install files

Create a directory for cTabWebApp files with command sudo mkdir /var/www/ctab

Ensure that you will be able to upload files with sudo chown $USER:$USER /var/www/ctab

Download zip from https://github.com/jetelain/cTab/releases/download/2.7.0.0/cTabIRL_MultiPlayer_Linux_x64.zip

Upload it to the server with a SFTP client, then extract content to /var/www/ctab

Make the server executable with sudo chmod +x /var/www/ctab/cTabWebApp

Configure

Create a directory to host aspnet core keys with sudo mkdir /var/aspnet-keys

Ensure that server will be able to access that directory with sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/aspnet-keys

Edit cTabWebApp settings nano /var/www/ctab/appsettings.json

{
  /* ... */
  "UnixKeysDirectory": "/var/aspnet-keys",
  // (Optional) "SteamKey": "XXXXXXXXXXXX", // Steam API key, to get from https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey
  "Communauty": {
    "Name": "Your communauty name here",
    "Home": "http:/yourhostname.com",
    "Contact": "https://discord.gg/yourDiscordHere or contact form (a way to contact you, legal obligation)",
    "PublicationDirector": "Your name or pseudonym (legal obligation)",
    "DPO": "Your name or pseudonym (legal obligation)",
    "Host": "Address and phone number of your Linux Server host company (legal obligation)"
  }
}

Create service

Create a new systemd service, with command sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/kestrel-ctab.service

Copy-paste the following configuration:

[Unit]
Description=cTabWebApp

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/ctab
ExecStart=/var/www/ctab/cTabWebApp --urls http://localhost:5010/
Restart=always
RestartSec=10
KillSignal=SIGINT
SyslogIdentifier=ctab
User=www-data
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Configure Apache2

Ensure that Apacche2 is installed with sudo apt-get install apache2

Create a new Apache2 web site configuration, with sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/001-ctab.conf

Copy-paste the following configuration:

# This part might be already in 000-default.conf
<VirtualHost *:*>
	RequestHeader set "X-Forwarded-Proto" expr=%{REQUEST_SCHEME}
</VirtualHost>

# cTabWebApp
<VirtualHost *:80>
	ProxyPreserveHost On
	ProxyPass /ERROR/ !
	ProxyPass / http://localhost:5010/
	ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:5010/
	# Here change the server name to the appropriate value !
	ServerName ctab.yourhostname.com
	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/ctab-error.log
	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/ctab-access.log common
	Alias /ERROR/ /var/www/html/
	ErrorDocument 503 /ERROR/503.html
	RewriteEngine On
	RewriteCond %{HTTP:Upgrade} =websocket [NC]
	RewriteRule /(.*)           ws://localhost:5010/$1 [P,L]
</VirtualHost>

Enable required apach2 mods with sudo a2enmod proxy proxy_http rewrite headers deflate proxy_wstunnel

Then enable the web site with sudo a2ensite 001-ctab

Restart Apache2 to make configuration effective with sudo systemctl reload apache2

4. Start and test web site

Start the cTabWebApp with sudo systemctl start kestrel-ctab.service

Open a web browser on the address you have configured (http://ctab.yourhostname.com for the previous example), you should be able to the see the web site.

In case of trouble, you can check service status with sudo systemctl status kestrel-ctab.service, or see logs with journalctl -fu kestrel-ctab.service --since today.

5. Configure cTab IRL in-game

You may preconfigure cTab IRL server for all players on your Arma3 server, or let each user opt-in for your server.

Server address is configured with CBA Settings, in the cTab section (parameter name ctab_irl_connect_uri), address must ends with "/hub" (http://ctab.yourhostname.com/hub for the previous example)