Ark Survival Server Docker

Description

Ark Survival Evolved is a fun game to play, but even moreso with friends. One issue I hit recently is that my servers weren’t working from Windows and I kept getting errors. At this point the only sane thing to do was remove Windows from the equation and host on linux. This post will go through how to use my docker setup and it’s limitations.

Setup

Clone the Repository

First we need the code to start prepping the image. Clone it from github.

git clone https://github.com/xadlien/ark-server-docker
cd ark-server-docker

Build Docker Image

Next we need to build the server docker container. This may take a while because it is downloading the whole server from steam. This is about 7GB.

sudo docker build -t ark:latest .

Customize Deployment

You can update the config files in the save-data folder to have the options for the servers you prefer. I make the game a little easier because I have no time to play. You will also want to comment out the maps you aren’t deploying in the docker-compose.yml file. Finally, I would recommend changing port numbers for the maps you are deploying. Make sure to give your primary map server the following ports:

• 27015
• 7777
• 32330 This is how Steam recognizes servers.

Deploy Server

The final step is to run docker-compose up -d to deploy the servers you chose. They may take about 10-15 minutes to fully start and be available.

Crossplay Rant

So far I haven’t gotten crossplay to work with players from Epic. There is an issue between versions that doesn’t make sense.

Summary

This docker image will allow you to deploy an Ark Survival Evolved server/cluster. Please feel free to comment on the Repository in Github if you have any questions.