0028. The game server runs as the user fxserver

• Status: accepted
• Date: 2026-10-22

Context

The game server role of luminare.gameserver runs the server as a system user, and two roles of this repository depend on that name: deploy_target runs its deploy service as that user and gives its group the spool directory, and docker refuses hosts of the game server group. The first draft of plan 09 named the user after the game platform. Identifiers in these repositories carry no platform or vendor brand, and the three repositories must agree on one name, because a mismatch only shows up on a real host (a missing user, files the service cannot read).

Considered options

1. A user named after the game platform, as in the first draft.
2. One neutral name for the user, the group, the inventory group and the paths, the same in both collections and here: fxserver.
3. No default: every inventory names the user.

Decision

Chosen option: 2.

• User and group fxserver, home and base directory /opt/fxserver, unit fxserver.service (created by luminare.gameserver.fxserver), and the inventory group fxserver of the hosts output (ADR 0021).
• deploy_target defaults to deploy_target_run_user: fxserver, deploy_target_run_group: fxserver and deploy_target_release_root: /opt/fxserver/releases; the spool directory is deploy:fxserver with mode 2770 (ADR 0020).
• docker refuses hosts in docker_forbidden_groups, by default ["fxserver"], so Docker never runs on a game server host (ADR 0019).
• A unit test keeps the defaults of deploy_target and docker on this name.

Consequences

• Good: the roles of the collections and of this repository fit together without extra inventory values, and task e2e:local runs them together on one host.
• Bad: a host that already runs a game server under another user needs deploy_target_run_user and deploy_target_run_group set in its inventory.