DorkNet/docs/deploy.md

DorkNet — Coolify deployment

This doc covers the production cutover from the local-machine setup (SQLite + Kestrel direct + mkcert + per-machine cloudflared) to the horizontally-scaled Coolify deployment (Postgres + Redis + Garage S3 + 2-replica Kestrel behind cloudflared, all on the same Coolify project).

The plan-of-record is BUILD_PROPER_PLAN.md at the repo root and the phased writeup at ~/.claude/plans/pahese-0-1-horizontal-cheeky-hickey.md. Anything that contradicts this doc, that doc wins.

---

Coolify project layout

One Coolify project with these services:

Service	Image / source	Notes
dorknet-server	Build from this repo's Dockerfile	Replicas: 2 to start. Internal port 8080. No public domain.
dorknet-postgres	Coolify one-click Postgres	Persistent volume on Coolify's data store.
dorknet-redis	Coolify one-click Redis	Persistent volume optional; used for ephemeral state + SignalR backplane.
dorknet-garage	Coolify one-click Garage	S3-compatible. Persistent volume (room blobs are 100s of MB).
dorknet-cloudflared	Cloudflare's cloudflared image, custom config	Reads tools/cloudflared-config.coolify.yml.template rendered with a tunnel ID.

All five sit on the same project network so the server reaches its dependencies over Coolify's internal Docker DNS.

Required environment variables on dorknet-server

Set these in Coolify's Environment Variables tab. Coolify expands ${...} references to other services in the same project, so the connection-string lookups link automatically.

ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production

# Database
ConnectionStrings__Default=Host=dorknet-postgres;Port=5432;Database=dorknet;Username=${POSTGRES_USER};Password=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}

# Redis
ConnectionStrings__Redis=dorknet-redis:6379

# JWT
DORKNET_JWT_SECRET=<openssl rand -base64 64>

# Object storage (Garage). Bucket names are hard-coded in code; only
# the endpoint + credentials need configuring. Objects are organized
# under owner-scoped keys inside each bucket, e.g.
# players/{playerId}/camera, players/{playerId}/profile,
# players/{playerId}/rooms/{roomId}, players/{playerId}/dorm.
S3__Endpoint=http://dorknet-garage:3900
S3__Region=garage
S3__AccessKey=<garage admin key>
S3__SecretKey=<garage admin secret>

# Image CDN signing. The 2020 client verifies Content-Signature on
# image downloads. Use the private half of the key whose public modulus
# the client knows for p1. Store PEM newlines as \n if your env UI is
# single-line, or use DORKNET_IMAGE_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64.
DORKNET_IMAGE_SIGNING_KEY_ID=p1
DORKNET_IMAGE_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY=<PEM RSA private key>

# Photon (copy from local appsettings.json — same AppId across envs)
Photon__AppId=<your-photon-realtime-app-id>
Photon__VoiceAppId=1917ff4a-b7ad-4ad6-9ea2-9642bc174b70
Photon__CloudRegion=us

Cloudflare R2 instead of Garage

DorkNet can use Cloudflare R2 without code changes because R2 speaks the S3-compatible API. Create these three R2 buckets first:

profile-images
camera-photos
room-blobs

Then create an R2 API token with Object Read & Write access to both buckets and set the server env vars:

S3__Endpoint=https://<cloudflare-account-id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com
S3__Region=auto
S3__AccessKey=<r2 access key id>
S3__SecretKey=<r2 secret access key>
S3__MaxErrorRetry=1
S3__TimeoutSeconds=8

Do not use an R2 public bucket URL or custom domain for S3__Endpoint. That value must be the S3 API endpoint ending in .r2.cloudflarestorage.com. DorkNet disables S3 chunked upload encoding in code because R2 rejects STREAMING-AWS4-HMAC-SHA256-PAYLOAD request bodies.

appsettings.Production.json already pins Database:Provider=postgres and binds Kestrel to http://0.0.0.0:8080, so those don't need to be set as env vars.

First-time cutover (stop-the-world)

1. Drain the local server. Tell players, take it down. The cutover is non-incremental — once the SQLite source is read, no further writes can be accepted there.

2. Snapshot SQLite. tools/snapshot-db.ps1 writes a timestamped copy. Keep it indefinitely as the pre-cutover baseline.

3. Deploy the Coolify project with the four services above (Postgres / Redis / Garage / cloudflared) but the server replicas set to 0 — we want the database empty and idle while the migrator runs.

4. Run the migrator from the operator's laptop, pointed at the newly-provisioned Postgres + Garage:

   dotnet run --project Tools/MigrateSqliteToPostgres -- `
       --sqlite ./snapshots/dorknet-pre-cutover.db `
       --postgres "Host=<coolify-postgres-public-host>;Port=5432;Database=dorknet;Username=...;Password=...;SSL Mode=Require" `
       --reset `
       --upload-blobs `
       --s3-endpoint http://<coolify-garage-public-host>:3900 `
       --s3-bucket room-blobs `
       --s3-access-key ... `
       --s3-secret-key ...
   

   The migrator runs the 9-step verification + an optional 10th step that bulk-uploads every RoomDataBlobs.Bytes row to S3, idempotent on re-run. A non-zero exit means abort: leave the destination in its dirty state, fix the diff, re-run with --reset for a clean slate.

5. Scale dorknet-server to 2 replicas. First boot: one replica wins the pg_advisory_xact_lock and runs EnsureCreated (no-op, schema already there from the migrator) + the seed steps; the other blocks on the lock until the first commits, sees the schema is complete, and proceeds.

6. Verify /healthz is 200 on both replicas (Coolify shows this in the Container tab) before pointing the tunnel at the service.

7. Bring up dorknet-cloudflared with the rendered config (see tools/cloudflared-config.coolify.yml.template). Confirm dig / curl against https://api.localhost/api/health/v1 returns 200.

8. Tell players it's back. Done.

Notes on multi-replica behaviour

• Sticky sessions are no longer required. Auth's OrphanAccountTracker writes the pending claim to Redis, so a player whose two HTTP requests hit different replicas still sees the same account-creation state.

• SignalR groups fan out across replicas. The Redis backplane is registered under the channel prefix dorknet-signalr; both replicas publish/subscribe to the same channels, so a notification raised on replica B reaches a player connected to replica A.

• Player presence is shared. PlayerPresenceService writes presence:player:{id} keys to Redis with a 45 s TTL (3× heartbeat). Either replica can answer "where is player N?".

• Game session ids are allocated by Postgres. GameSessionService uses a bigserial so two replicas can JoinOrCreate simultaneously without colliding.

• Private instances live in Postgres. Cross-replica visibility is automatic — both replicas read from the same PrivateInstances table.

Rollback

If the cutover goes sideways before step 5 (no replicas running yet), just delete the Postgres / Redis / Garage volumes in Coolify, set the server replica count back to 0, and bring the local SQLite server back up. The pre-cutover snapshot is still untouched.

After step 5, rolling back means restoring the SQLite snapshot (any data players wrote on Postgres post-cutover will be lost). Be sure the cutover validation in step 6 is convincing before you tell players it's safe.

Photon Cloud — own AppId + CustomAuth callback

The hard-coded RecRoom Photon AppId rejects external clients (NameServer error code 32736 / "No auth request during expected wait time") because their dashboard has CustomAuth set to "Reject if Auth Failed" pointing at RecRoom's own backend. Solution: register your own free AppId.

1. Go to https://dashboard.photonengine.com → sign up → Create a New App → "Photon Realtime" → save. Repeat for "Photon Voice" if you want voice.
2. Copy each AppId (UUID) and set in Coolify env vars:

   Photon__AppId=<your realtime AppId>
   Photon__VoiceAppId=<your voice AppId>
   Photon__CloudRegion=us
   

3. Restart the server.

That alone gets multiplayer working — the Photon NameServer accepts the client because no CustomAuth is required.

(Optional) wire up server-side single-session enforcement

Server already exposes https://auth.localhost/photon/customauth — see PhotonCustomAuthController.cs. It accepts userid + LoginLock and validates them against PlayerPresenceService (Redis). Enable it in the dashboard:

1. Photon dashboard → your app → Manage → Custom Authentication tab.
2. Enable Custom Authentication.
3. URL: https://auth.localhost/photon/customauth?userid={userid}&LoginLock={LoginLock}
4. Reject if Auth Failed: OFF for now (see caveat below).
5. Save.

Caveat — current 2020 watch doesn't send AuthValues. A sweep of Cpp2IL_ISIL/IsilDump/Assembly-CSharp/ turns up no caller of PhotonNetwork.set_AuthValues outside Photon's own library code, so the unmodified client connects without supplying {userid, LoginLock}. With "Reject if Auth Failed" ON, every Photon connect would fail with NameServer 32736 — same symptom we tried to solve. With it OFF, the client connects fine, the endpoint exists for future client patching.

Patching the watch to send AuthValues — DorkNet.ClientMod/

The vanilla 2020 watch never sets PhotonNetwork.AuthValues (verified by an exhaustive grep across both Assembly-CSharp.dll and the Photon Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll library). To make Photon forward userid + LoginLock to our /photon/customauth endpoint a Harmony patch on the watch's Photon auth path has to attach the values in flight. That hook lives in the MelonLoader IL2CPP mod (DorkNet.ClientMod); the AuthValues injector itself is currently parked (see DorkNet.ClientMod/attic/AuthValuesInjector.cs.attic and the notes in Mod.cs) since the /photon/customauth endpoint runs in permissive mode.

Install the mod on a tester's machine with:

.\tools\install-melon.ps1 `
    -RecRoomPath "C:\…\RecRoom\Recroom_Release_Data" `
    -PhotonAppId  cb0880d9-…

The script unpacks MelonLoader, builds DorkNet.ClientMod.dll, and drops it into the client's Mods/ folder. On the first run it prints "launch the game once" so MelonLoader can generate its IL2CPP assemblies; relaunch the script with -ResumeBuild to finish.

Once AuthValues injection is re-enabled in the mod and in production:

1. Flip PhotonCustomAuthController from permissive-mode (ResultCode 1 always) back to strict — parse userid + LoginLock, validate against PlayerPresenceService.ValidateLock, return ResultCode 3 on mismatch.
2. In the Photon dashboard, flip "Reject if Auth Failed" ON.
3. Duplicate-account login from a different LoginLock now fails Photon auth at the NameServer — never reaches the dorm.

Future schema changes

PR 4 keeps EnsureCreated for the first deploy (the migrator builds the schema directly, then EnsureCreated is a no-op the server can do under advisory-lock to be safe on multi-replica boot). Any post-cutover schema change needs a real Postgres migration:

1. dotnet ef migrations add <Name> --project DorkNet.Server
2. Replace the EnsureCreated call in Program.cs with db.Database.Migrate() inside the same advisory-lock block.
3. Deploy. Both replicas race for the lock, the winner runs the migration, the loser sees the new history row and skips.

Until that swap happens, treat the schema as frozen.