Radicade

Radicade is an unofficial, community-built private-server toolchain for archived Rec Room 2023 clients. It is two halves that meet in the middle:

• A server (Server/) — an ASP.NET Core reimplementation of the RecNet API that the 2023 client expects: nameserver discovery, auth/account creation, players, rooms, matchmaking, clubs, gifts, storefront/commerce, moderation, a CDN + object storage, an admin panel API and a SignalR notification hub.
• Client patches (2023Patch/) — BepInEx 6 (IL2CPP) plugins that point a locally installed 2023 build at your own server: they rewrite the addresses the client hardcodes into its IL2CPP string table, redirect the service hosts the nameserver advertises, and replace the embedded TLS trust decision for one configured host only.

Not affiliated with Rec Room Inc. or Against Gravity. This project is for preservation and private testing with game clients you already own. Do not point it at, or use it against, official Rec Room services.

There is no LICENSE file in this repository yet — add one before publishing.

Repository layout

Path	What it is
Server/	ASP.NET Core 9 (.NET 9) server, ~545 C# files. Entity Framework Core + SQL Server, JWT bearer auth, ImageSharp for image transforms, SignalR notify hub. See Server/README.md.
ServerTests/	xUnit test suite (~1,600 tests) run against EF Core InMemory/SQLite providers. See ServerTests/README.md.
2023Patch/	BepInEx client plugins and the shared patch sources they compile. See 2023Patch/README.md.
Tools/	Python, PowerShell and C#/Node developer tooling: metadata patching, install triage, interop repair, packaging. See Tools/README.md.
RoomImports/	Captured room saves and asset bundles used by the room-import tests. Third-party game content.
VPS/	Deployment and maintenance scripts for the hosted server. See VPS/README.md.
docs/	Dated engineering notes (working logs, not polished docs).
Caddyfile	Reverse-proxy config used in front of the server in production.
RadNet.sln	Solution: Server, Server.Tests, RadicadePatch.
dotnet-tools.json	Pins the obfuscar.globaltool used to obfuscate the client plugin.

How a patched client reaches the server

1. The 2023 client hardcodes its bootstrap and service URLs. Tools/patch-0831-client-metadata.py (and the Quest equivalent) rewrites the matching records in the game's global-metadata.dat, so the client resolves your host instead of rec.net.
2. At runtime the plugin serves GET /ns on your server — a nameserver document that advertises where every service lives. NameserverRedirect maps any service host the client learned elsewhere onto the equivalent path on your server.
3. The plugin's embedded TLS stack accepts a certificate for the configured host only (TLS:AllowedHosts), so no system-wide trust change is needed.
4. The server answers those calls out of SQL Server plus its local CDN/data folders, and pushes realtime traffic over the notify hub (/notify/hub/v1).

Requirements

• .NET SDK 9 for the server, tests and client plugin. (Built here with SDK 10.0.401.)
• SQL Server for actually running the server (the dev connection string targets .\SQLEXPRESS). The test suite does not need it.
• Node.js for Tools/AugustInterop/normalize.cjs.
• BepInEx 6.x (IL2CPP) installed in a 2023 game folder, to build the client plugins.
• Python 3 and PowerShell for the scripts in Tools/.

Build

dotnet build Server/Server.csproj
dotnet build ServerTests/Server.Tests.csproj

The solution RadNet.sln includes the client plugin too, which needs the BepInEx assemblies and one source file that is not in this repository — see Current status.

Run the server

dotnet run --project Server

In Development it listens on https://localhost:3030 and http://127.0.0.1:3031 and generates a self-signed dev certificate under RadicadeServer-Data/Persistent/. In Production it listens on http://0.0.0.0:3030 and expects TLS to be terminated in front of it — that is what the bundled Caddyfile (ns.radicade.app → 127.0.0.1:3030) does.

Database migrations are applied automatically at startup (Database.Migrate() plus a set of idempotent Ensure…Column/Ensure…Table helpers for tables added after the last migration).

Local data lives under RadicadeServer-Data/ by default: CDN/{Images,Videos,Storage,Custom} and Persistent/Logs, Persistent/DataProtection-Keys. Both the public and private data roots are overridable with Radicade:PublicDataPath / Radicade:PrivateDataPath.

Configuration

Settings are read from appsettings.json, appsettings.{Environment}.json, environment variables and user secrets, in ASP.NET Core's usual order. The checked-in files carry placeholders (USEYOURS); supply real values locally.

Key	Purpose
ConnectionStrings:DefaultConnection	SQL Server connection string. Required.
Radicade:ServerUrl	Public base URL the server advertises.
Radicade:ListenUrls	Semicolon-separated Kestrel URLs; falls back to the environment defaults above.
Radicade:JwtKey	Signing key for session/access tokens. Required in Production.
Radicade:AdminApiKey	Shared secret for the /admin API and maintenance scripts. Required in Production.
Radicade:SupportApiKey	Second shared secret accepted by admin endpoints.
Radicade:SteamApiKey	Steam Web API key for identity proof. Required in Production unless TrustUnverifiedSteamIdentity.
Radicade:TrustUnverifiedSteamIdentity	Dev switch: accept unproved platform identity (defaulted on in Development when no key is set).
Radicade:Photon:{RealtimeAppId,VoiceAppId,ChatAppId,Region}	Photon app IDs handed to clients for realtime, voice and chat.
Radicade:MailApiKey, MailApiUrl, MailFrom, MailFromName	Outbound mail (Resend-compatible HTTP API).
Radicade:AdminPanelUrl	Admin panel origin the API points at.
Radicade:Admins[]	{ "Username", "Password" } panel login accounts.
Radicade:TestInfluencerAccountIds, TestCoOwnerAccountIds	Seeded test accounts.
Radicade:PublicDataPath, Radicade:PrivateDataPath	Override the data roots.
AllowedHosts	Host filtering.
Discord:Webhooks:*	Discord webhook URLs. Copy Server/Discord/Webhooks/webhooks.example.json to webhooks.json (git-ignored).

Server/Program.cs refuses to start in Production while AdminApiKey, JwtKey or SteamApiKey are blank, so set them as environment variables rather than committing them:

export ConnectionStrings__DefaultConnection='Server=...;Database=RadicadeServer;...'
export Radicade__JwtKey='<random 32+ byte base64>'
export Radicade__AdminApiKey='<random>'
export Radicade__SteamApiKey='<steam web api key>'

Tests

dotnet test ServerTests/Server.Tests.csproj

The suite runs on Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.InMemory and SQLite, seeds its own fixtures, and also compiles two shared client sources (NameserverRedirect.cs, ImageSignatureRequest.cs) so the client/server routing contract is tested in one place.

Configuration data

Server/RadicadeServer-Config/ holds the catalogs the server serves: storefront captures (storefronts/sf*.json, embedded as resources so a wiped database or a build without the folder still works), avatar/equipment/consumables catalogs, levelup-rewards.json, keepsake-rooms.json and steamwhitelist.json. Dropping a new sf{id}.json in overrides the embedded copy without a rebuild.

Current status

This is a working-in-progress preservation project, not a finished product:

• Server and ServerTests compile cleanly; the full test suite currently reports ~1,605 passing, 1 skipped and a handful failing on this checkout (storefront capture count, a few catalog/locker and weekly-challenge rollover tests). Re-run locally to see the current list.
• 2023Patch/RadicadePatch (the current September client plugin) references RadicadeEacBypass/VoiceChatRestrictionPatches.cs, which is not part of this repository, so dotnet build RadNet.sln fails on that project until the file is supplied. Server, ServerTests and RadicadeAugustClient are unaffected.
• Client-side progress is tracked in docs/: login, Photon multiplayer, watch UI and full room loading are the areas still being ported.

Documentation

Doc	Contents
docs/2023-AUGUST-BUILD.md	August 2023 (build 20230825) client migration log.
docs/2023-0831-CLIENT-SWITCH.md	Switching the client to September 2023 (build 20230831) and the per-service host split.
docs/QUEST-20230831-TEST.md, docs/QUEST-20230907-TEST.md	Quest client TLS/instrumentation experiments.
docs/2023-ONBOARDING-FORCE-NOTES.md, docs/GIFT-CONTEXT-DUMP.md, docs/KEEPSAKES-STATUS.md, docs/WEEKLY-CHALLENGES.md	Feature-specific notes and enum dumps.