[Enhancement] MODS environment variable #272
Comments
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Thunderstone has a good documented API we could probably take advantage of to pull mods in https://valheim.thunderstore.io/api/docs/ |
A good amount of these mods are windows client only tho. Thoughts on how we could get peeps to not install those than get confuzzled? |
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Also, I already have the nexus, unfortunately nexus is paywalled. If you want to install any nexus mods you will have to use their premium rolls eyes |
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It's a good question, there doesn't seem to be any kind of tags to indicate server vs client even on nexus mods which is a bit of a bugger as that would be a natural way to filter. The bigger elephant in the room is that ValheimPlus is one of the few not on Thunderstone (though I believe most of the mods are compatible with it). I guess it's a case of how helpful we want to be. We could theoretically do all the heavy lifting of installing bepinex/ValheimPlus (Maybe this is a top-level decision as to which "version" of bepinex you want, vanilla or ValheimPlus), then pull, unzip and install any additional mods from some kind of config file to keep it nice and easy. Or we could just install ValheimPlus and let users copy the right DLLs to the right folders. |
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a lot of other docker repos do that heavy lifting but honestly they are hard coding that. I am taking the approach of doing an analysis on any zip downloaded and extracting where needed. Similar to how minecraft does it :) that way it can be agnostic of what url you add and all you have to do is keep track of which link is in which order. (mod loader list) Than if you want a new version or an older version just change the link to match. Thats how https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server handles it and I must say its a very clean approach |
Requests for them to join Thunderstore seem to be pretty much ignored. Frankly I'm not sure why. Regardless, it's an excellent mod repository with a lovely client to boot (r2modman). I've used it extensively for Risk of Rain and it's been quite nice. Unfortunately as you've discovered, @mbround18, there isn't metadata describing platform support. In my humble opinion that responsibility should just fall on the users to validate whether their desired mod is supported within this container. I love the idea of an environmental variable for this, and will watch this eagerly for progress. :) |
Its getting there <3 the hurtle i am at now is how do you differentiate between a mod that needs to be extracted to the root of the server dir or extracted into the bepinex/plugins directory?
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Can you go off of the presence of a |
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@neoKushan sadly not all mod developers do that :P some create it in a sub folder of various names and others include various additional files to be extracted in other locations. It might be, I just need to throw up a guide on whats an acceptable zip file to install. |
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@mbround18 I realize a single ENV variable doesn't give you a lot of room to play with, but I wonder how feasible it'd be to define the structure of each mod? So for each mod to install, you'd list:
This would work for Valheim Plus, for example, as long as BepInEx can be installed automatically if mods are enabled. With that said, that's a little bit janky. It'd be nicer if you could just specify a Thunderstore package and have it use the latest version instead. I don't know enough about the Thunderstore manifest to know if that's possible though. It doesn't seem to have information defined about the top-level vs nested structure, so maybe you'd be in the same situation you are in now? |
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Thunderstone does have the mod pack details on its github: https://github.com/thunderstore-io/Thunderstore though it doesn't list specifics for valheim. It does list dependencies though, which is helpful. Looking at a selection of mods, there's no consistency to how they're packaged and nothing in the metadata to help. It seems bepinex will recursively search the plugins folder for additional plugins to load though, so if I had to guess you can just dump everything into the plugins folder and it'll work. Seems messy though. It'd probably make sense to make that entirely ephemeral , that is to start from a clean plugins folder and dump the mods in when the container starts. |
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Currently, i am taking a non atomic approach. If you want to remove mods its up to the user to clean up files remaining on the system. As for mods I am currently testing with the following zip files: ValheimPlus: https://github.com/valheimPlus/ValheimPlus/releases/download/0.9.4/UnixServer.zip |
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I'm sure you've checked this already, but it's worth knowing that the contents of both of those are almost identical, just ValheimPlus has the The Going by the minecraft example earlier that you've been going off of, perhaps this is really just a different "type" of game server? Nice simple ENV variable to decide which base to start from:
Then all the user needs to do is add their additional mods however they want. |
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Thats not a bad idea :) |
I like this idea, but the downside is that it wouldn’t be able to support automatic updates for non-V+ mods. |
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The other issue is, there is no reliable way to get valheim plus updates without hitting the github api and that has a pull rate that with the amount of people who use this container would surpass. |
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As long as V+ isn't bundled with the container, each instance should be fine with hitting the releases endpoint without hitting any sort of limit, right? I assume the API limits are per-IP rather than per-repo.
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Good idea, i have it pulling the latest zip file with curl https://api.github.com/repos/valheimPlus/ValheimPlus/releases/latest | jq -r '.assets[] | select(.name=="UnixServer.zip") | .browser_download_url' |
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Hey @ouvoun I am going to be tossing up a dev image in a little. Are you interested in giving it a whirl? |
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@mbround18 Sure, happy to give it a spin! |
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Alrighty :) Its ready <3 Dev Image: mbround18/valheim:development-mods
New Environment Variables:
TYPE=Vanilla | ValheimPlus | BepInEx
MODS= List of mods separated by command new lineExample docker-compose: version: "3"
services:
valheim:
image: mbround18/valheim:development-mods
environment:
- PORT=2456
- NAME="Creative Update"
- PASSWORD="12345"
- TZ=America/Los_Angeles
- DEBUG_MODE=1
- AUTO_UPDATE=1
- AUTO_UPDATE_SCHEDULE="*/5 * * * *"
- UPDATE_ON_STARTUP=0
- TYPE=ValheimPlus
- "MODS=
https://cdn.thunderstore.io/live/repository/packages/abearcodes-SimpleRecycling-0.0.10.zip,
https://cdn.thunderstore.io/live/repository/packages/abearcodes-CraftingWithContainers-1.0.9.zip
"
ports:
- "2456:2456/udp"
- "2457:2457/udp"
- "2458:2458/udp"
volumes:
- ./tmp/saves:/home/steam/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim
- ./tmp/server:/home/steam/valheim
- ./tmp/backups:/home/steam/backups |
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@mbround18 This is awesome to see, love it! First tried a combination of Next tried the Few things that came to mind while running this. It seems like the config directory isn't overwritten when installing new mods (which is great!) but I wonder if it could be symlinked into the saves directory for easier management? I've seen another container do this and it seems pretty convenient. Just a thought. Secondly, unzipping the mod into the plugins directory ends up leaving it a bit of a mess. I just tested this, and it seems like you can actually nest the unzipped plugin into a folder, and BepInEx is still able to load it successfully. Maybe namespacing the mods at the plugins folder level could make them easier to uninstall? This is legit though, super happy to use this. |
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Hey @ouvoun if you nest the plugin does it load just fine? 0.o |
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@mbround18 Seems to, yeah! Maybe check yourself too just in case. :) |
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It looks like it chain loaded the 6 mods I am using for test. Ill toss it up as a rebuild for ya to take a gander at :) |
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@mbround18 Nice, works great. Also tried it with a mod that has a nested "plugins" folder structure, and it seemed to load fine. Next up is to get Valheim Plus onto Thunderstore, then no ValheimPlus type would be necessary and it could be installed like any other Thunderstore plugin. :) |
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Lol true, for now tho it should be all good. I pushed a new update to the image which should fix the cron jobs :P (which i broke in the last push) |
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@mbround18 One quick suggestion for a future improvement. Thunderstore has a nice API to get the latest version for a mod. For example, hitting this API: Gives you this response: It would be neat if mods could be supplied as versioned full names instead of the direct URL, so auto updates could work. For example: |
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Thats an easy enough change :P for just one mod its no biggie :p check out my latest push |
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Legend :D |
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You're a machine @mbround18 ! |
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This looks very interesting. One thing that I don't know if its been mentioned yet or not - because of how easy it is to cheat as Valheim is not an authoritative server model the only Anti Cheat I've came across is this one. Down side is that it needs this package of BepInEx Full to be on the server. Doesn't need to be on client side for either. I did try to see about giving that Full BepInEx package a spin but I need more sleep as I must be missing something simple as Odin doesn't seem to pick it up even after setting the correct locations for the env vars. |
Odin looks for doorstop to be in the root of the server as thats most common but you can override with an env variable. Additionally it wont recognize this full package and you would have to mess with some env vars to get it to extract properly. Good call out tho! whats the tru difference between This: And this: ??? |
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Well I managed to come across https://valheim.thunderstore.io/package/1F31A/BepInEx_Valheim_Full_Updater/#reasoning:~:text=Reasoning,GitHub%20if%20you%20encounter%20any%20problems @mbround18 Interesting read as to why. And if its the actual cause then I would tend towards former over the latter. And as a native linux user I tend to avoid mod managers. Usually on linux (ie Vortex) they are borked or broken and usually need work arounds in order to make them work. |
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done, I have a commit which supports this package now. Will toss it up in a bit. |
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The change should be live on the |
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I did some testing and here is some feedback for you. First of all - great work! Now the nitty gritty My compose is the following; version: "3"
services:
valheim:
image: mbround18/valheim:development-mods
environment:
- PORT=2456
- NAME="Creative Update"
- PASSWORD="12345"
- TZ=Australia/Sydney
- DEBUG_MODE=1
- AUTO_UPDATE=1
- AUTO_UPDATE_SCHEDULE="*/5 * * * *"
- UPDATE_ON_STARTUP=0
- TYPE=BepInEx
- "MODS=
https://cdn.thunderstore.io/live/repository/packages/1F31A-BepInEx_Valheim_Full_Updater-1.0.2.zip
"
ports:
- "2456:2456/udp"
- "2457:2457/udp"
- "2458:2458/udp"
volumes:
- /share/Valheim_Docker/testing/saves:/home/steam/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim
- /share/Valheim_Docker/testing/server:/home/steam/valheim
- /share/Valheim_Docker/testing/backups:/home/steam/backupsThe After the first initial setup/install of the container with that compose, starting up the server again and checking logs I see; So BepInEx Valheim Full is in there now 😄 Also while Odin will state that BepInEx doesn't listen to SIGINT if you run the container with Console Interactive & TTY (-i -t) (using portainer - i know lazy but meh) attaching and doing a To automate adding V+ to a setup like this(old fashoned/non automated way); That would only be good on a fresh, new creation as |
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You can just use type set to Than add valheim plus to your mods variable, errm that wont work doe. I would say ValheimPlus is incompatible with running BepInEx Full unless you want to manually copy the files. This gets kind of into the trenches with mods how there is no standard way of doing things. Also thats an old message I originally included :P BepInEx originally did not listen to a SigINT but now it does 🤷 |
Oh well, I did the long way around of debugging/testing 😛
Your telling me. They use to have just the plugin only over on the nexus. Looks like its been hidden. Maybe too many people had NFI what they were doing 🤷 Edit: Well I made a request for just the plugin & config alone to be added into their Assets. |
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From 0.9.5 onwards V+ will have a compatible package @mbround18 |
Dannng!! Nice!!! I saw your issue you posted, thank you for being such a go getter for this ❤️ |
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Looks like 0.9.5 was released. Maybe if we remind them gently enough times that Thunderstore would be a huge boon for everyone they'll do it and make it easier for everyone. At this point I can't help but think their lack of doing so is related to monetization. |
Nahhh it should generate the config on launch :P so extracting the config to the config folder is extra work ;) |
FWIW I tried that in one of the past releases and it failed to launch due to a missing config, so if they've fixed it then that would be great. :) |
It does, but it would be "easier" for first time setups. After that yes, manual updating V+ will be needed as the config would need to be modified. if only V+ had a smart config uptate/checker built in. I do miss how when botania (minecraft mod) updated it only removed config coptions when they didn't apply and it appended the config file with any new config options Edit: seems like someone already suggested and they are working on it ( source valheimPlus/ValheimPlus#239 (comment) ) Once the above issues mentioned has been done next thing to look at is a way to auto update |
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@ouvoun and @spannerman79 I just pushed a fix for this :) |
* Added nexus mods and downloader * Mod downloader ready * Modified to follow redirect information * Slimmed down env * Running with type message fix * dynamic fetch of latest bepinex version * Refactored file * Changes * Dont use barrow * Added support for downloading dll and cfg * Added exit for non zip file
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Edited: I did check dockerhub to see when the image was there but yeah.. their CDN.... |
Lol, got it working now? :P |
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@mbround18 Awesome, great to see this merged. At some point I think there was a regression, though. Tested using |
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@ouvoun Thanks for the heads up! The server will overwrite all files from mods when it updates which can happen on startup depending on your configuration. This is undesirable behavior for config files though. Thinking on it more do you think doing something like writing potential config files with a So essentially instead of overwriting In an ideal world it could automagically merge the old config file with any changes in the new one, but that's unlikely to happen since it would require specific knowledge of the config files and what changes are valid. |
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Hey @LovecraftianHorror! Thanks for the reply. I like the idea of appending a suffix to the new versions of the config files without actually overwriting them. I think doing a merge would be nearly impossible to generalize to mods outside of V+, so the strategy of keeping both configs seems the most reasonable. One other functionality that I’ve seen another similar container do is to effectively rsync a config directory within the saves directory to the BepInEx/config directory, such that the server directory could be easily wiped and nothing of value would be lost, since all stateful data is contained within the saves directory. I’d imagine if the config directory is already getting unique treatment, this could be something to consider. Would you imagine this would be an explicit behavior specifically for the |
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I was planning on just applying this behavior to all files that fit a set of file extensions likely to be configs since I assumed many mods could have config files in different locations, but maybe that's not the case. I'll have to sample a large set of mods to see if I can glean any extra information. I like the ability to backup mod configs, but want to see if there are any potentially better or more flexible techniques that we could try All in all thanks for the input, it helped give me quite a few new ideas! |
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Sounds legit! Thanks for your work on this. |
Acceptance Criteria:
installmododin command.dllor valheim plus.The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: