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Any self-hostable alternative to playit.gg for easily exposing local game servers to the public internet? (fedia.io)
submitted 4 days ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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For those who don't know, playit.gg is a free/cheap service for exposing self-hosted local game servers to the wider internet.

But as someone who already has access to a cheapish VPS, I'm curious if anyone knows of any self-hostable alternatives that I could just run as a container on my VPS.

I've been toying with using Wireguard UDP tunneling, but it's proving to be a little bit more difficult and complicated than I was bargaining for. So if anyone knows of anything out there that does something like this, I'd be grateful!

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[–] 3 points 4 days ago (12 children)

Why do you need a VPN if you're just trying to expose game servers to the public?

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  • [–] 7 points 4 days ago (11 children)

    The game server is probably behind a NAT. I'm standing in the same situation.

    Got a small VPS with a TCP VPN to access all my devices despite location, and a comparably powerfull server behind a NAT which I would like to host UDP services on.

    It needs to be said that we are talking actual VPNs here, and not "VPN-as-proxy" to spoof your location etc.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 4 days ago (4 children)

    Yeah, that sort of thing.

    I should say that I'm finally having some luck with using wireguard, so I'm making progress. Got a few rounds of Counter-Strike in with a friend about an hour ago!

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago (3 children)

    Would that be CS 1.6? Can you get your game server to appear in the public list when you do it this way?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 days ago (2 children)

    Yeah, CS 1.6!

    I'm not sure about the master server list just yet, sorry.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (5 children)

    Are you unable to port forward?

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  • [–] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

    Can't port forward through the CGNAT of my ISP, only my own router's NAT.

    That is, unless I buy a unique IPv4 from my ISP.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Have the ISP place their gateway/router into bridge mode. This will pass the public WAN IP directly to your router, allowing it to handle NAT, firewall policies, and port forwarding without double NAT.

    I’ve been hosting public-facing servers for several years and regularly run dedicated servers for my son. I keep the ISP gateway in the setup because they provide a substantial discount for using their modem/router rather than connecting the UDM Pro directly to the fiber ONT.

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  • [–] 1 point 22 hours ago

    I actually had that up and running before they changed our modem and threw us behind their regular CGNAT. I've tried bridging the modem, but it's no use if the bridge leads to their intermidiary network and not the public internet. :(

    They problably hadn't realized (or didn't care) that we had a unique IPv4 before, so I was lucky enough that simply opening up the provided modem and my router was enough. Now they want 15€ a month for the same service, but at least it'll be static...

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  • [–] 0 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    Gotcha by the balls, VPN would have the same problem unless you can host the VPN server on IPv6?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

    As I said, I've got a VPS. The VPS is not on my local net, but in a datacenter. As part of being a VPS it has a unique IPv4.

    My VPN (which I currently use for TCP traffic) is hosted on the VPS, giving me access to (and from) all devices connected to my VPN regardless of whether they are behind a NAT or not.

    I've also got a beefy server which hosts more power hungry services, though this one is behind multiple layers of NAT. I can forward and reverse-proxy TCP services from the beefy server through the VPN and out to the public net using another server with a unique IPv4 just fine.

    What I (and OP) need, is to also be able to forward\reverse-proxy UDP services from a beefy NATed/firewalled server through a VPN and out to the public internet using another server which has a unique IPv4.

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