I want to know that, if I do a unity3d online game. what 's the server OS require? Still Mac ? linux? windows?
many thanks
Preferably Mac, as that is said to have a “headless mode”. But Windows will also do fine as long as you don’t mind keeping the remote desktop session open and having a Window floating around 
Linux won’t work…
Sunny regards,
Jashan
so you can’t host web player games via unix or linux servers? That seems kinda odd.
Oh, you’re talking about the Web server? Ok, that’s a different story. You can put your Web players to be hosted on any Webserver you like, which of course includes Linux… From that perspective, a Unity Web player is just a file like a flash movie.
I thought you were talking about game servers (i.e. the server that manages networked multiplayer games).
Sunny regards,
Jashan
yes, I mean network server, not web server.
many thanks. I know that now. if we want to do network game we should also need another Mac to do network server.
Hi holtsch:
Do you mean that we should only use Mac to do network server OS? Or we can use both windows and Mac.
thanks
Well, personally, I’m using a Windows server, which works fine so far (but the system is not in production, yet - I’m just doing occasional beta-testing).
I’d also avoid public Mac Webservers, as it seems that concerning security issues, Mac OS X is not really the most secure choice. Also, I guess hosted Mac servers are much harder to find and when you find them, they’re much more expansive than Windows servers (maybe not more expansive than Windows servers in the same class, but I’d rather have two “ok-performing” Windows servers for EUR 70,00 each per month than a “high end super-duper Mac server” for EUR 200,00 per month).
I’m hoping that UT will have a headless server that can run as a service on a Windows server implemented in one of the next releases (hopefully in “the next” release). Once this runs “from the terminal”, it shouldn’t be too hard to implement something that monitors the server and restarts it if it crashes for whatever reason (you never know, but on a productive game server system, you want to be as sure as it gets). In theory, this would also be possible right now, but I think it’ll be easier when I have my Unity game server running as proper Windows service (after all, it IS a service )…
But they haven’t announced anything like that, so it’s pure hope UT!? Headless server? Any chances on that for 2.1? Any chances for that before fall 2008?
Sunny regards,
Jashan
Uh… I’m a little confused.
I found this thread by search (despite the fact that it was also the top forum thread at the time, lol,) while trying to answer the following question: What kinda server should I use to run an online game developed using Unity?
It sounds like you’re saying “You can’t use Linux, because there is no Linux game server. And you can’t use Windows because it’s still in beta. And you shouldn’t use Mac because it’s not secure and it’s too expensive.”
So… is Unity only really useful for making single-player games, or did I miss something?
Sorry about the confusion.
You can’t use Linux to host a game server created with Unity: True, because Unity doesn’t build for Linux. However, it seems some people are using their own networking code, and if that’s your architecture - of course you can use Linux (if your proprietary game server runs on Linux). So that depends on the design of your application. Unity clients can still connect to such a server…
Unity is not in beta on Windows in any way. My game is in beta (well, not even really in permanent beta, but I did have a few “beta-testing sessions”). So, I was referring to my game server not being in productive use, yet. But I was also saying that so far, it’s working fine (with the given restrictions resulting from not having a headless mode for Windows, yet). I just don’t know if there might be any problems in productive use since I don’t have any firsthand experience.
Concerning the security of Mac OS X server… I’m not so sure anymore. I tried googling for issues and it wasn’t that easy, so I guess Mac OS X server is not any more or less secure than the other systems (that’s the problem when you just pick up things from conversations )…
And whether or not you want to spend your money for a hosted Mac or a hosted Windows machine is really up to you. My personal opinion is that Mac servers are harder to find and more expensive…
I guess you missed something
I’m not at all interested in single-player games, and I’m using Unity for developing multiplayer games, as many others are. The built-in networking currently implemented into Unity makes it very easy to create games with “spontanuous sessions”, without a dedicated server. That’s probably what most people will need - but networked multiplayer is non-trivial by nature, so that doesn’t mean everyone can automatically just do it. When you use UTs MasterServer, however, it gets comparatively easy to implement something where clients get a list of available servers (hosted by players) and connect, and there you go. It’s almost trivial. I would say: As easy as possible without restricting developer’s creativity
You can also do dedicated, authoritative servers based on Unity. It’s just not as conveniently supported (but it’s also quite a different kind of architecture where I don’t see any one-size-fits-it-all solutions… but I think it’s a lot more fun, too, so that’s what I’m doing ).
Finally, you can connect Unity games to your own proprietary server, if that’s what you want or need to do (and that’s what some people do). Obviously, that gets really involved. In that approach, you’ll have to deal with all the really ugly low-level networking stuff that Unity does for you in the other approaches. But there might be good reasons to do that…
What Unity gives you is a lot of possibilities
Hope that clears it up a little…
Sunny regards,
Jashan
Check this: http://unity3d.com/support/resources/unite-presentations/developing-multiplayer-games for a discussion of the various flavors of MP games.
If you want to run a peer to peer MP game, then you don’t need a central server at all. You can even use the Unity Master Server for pairing players. I believe the source code for the Master Server, if you want to run one yourself, can be compiled for all three platforms.
If you need an authoritative server model for your MP game, my understanding is you can build the near equivalent of a headless Windows (or OSX) build if you turn off or remove the cameras so it doesn’t render anything. And then bypass the resolution dialog so the game will launch directly when the exe is opened.
So the server platform that is, indeed out in the cold, is Linux. AFAIK, there are no immediate plans to have Unity standalones of any sort run on Linux.
Ah. Thanks for clearing that up, holtsch. 
Had you heard that OSX in general was a bad web server platform, or that there were issues with the Unity mac server specifically? In general macs are precieved as really stable and secure, especially compared to Windows.
I kinda suspect that the reason no one runs mac servers is because no one is FORCED to. If you’re just hosting general web content that would run on anything and you need a bulletproof server, you go with Linux. If your application only exists on Windows, you go with Windows. But Mac doesn’t have any such draw.
Mac is pretty much marketed as toy for rich people who don’t have any particular need for a computer, but since they’re getting one, they want one that’s fun to use. It has nothing to do with applications or productivity. You buy a Mac cuz it has a nice interface. Period. That’s the only reason I’ve ever heard cited by mac zealots.
Of course, I bought my Mac because I read about Unity and a Mac was the only way to run it. I hate the Powerbook’s flimsy, slippery, droppable case,I hate that the lid doesn’t open all the way, I hate that my mouse keeps smacking into my LAN cable, and simple transactions like downloading something from the internet and installing it on the hard drive seems obfuscated for no apparent reason. But I’m putting up with it all for Unity.
I seem to have derailed a little bit… sorry… this happens when I’m tired. 
The point I was trying to get at is, reputation is king when it comes to servers, and the only thing that can trump it is apparently exclusive applications. Mac doesn’t have many exlcusive server-side applications, or if it does no one’s using them. But I think Unity is probably a step in the right direction. It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen on the Mac that I just had to have, @3000 extra worth of had to have. If there were ten other authoring applications this good for the Mac and not availible anywhere else, I’ll bet they could actually grow the market share, instead of just selling Brent Sienna a new one every year.
The problem is that OSX 10.5 can be hacked as fast as Windows XP and Vista → less than a minute by a capable hacker.
Windows Server are a whole lot more secure, they might not be as secure as Linux (mainly because nobody masters in hacking something everyone can modify for himself I would guess) but they aren’t that far behind them and are running more and more problemfree than todays Linux servers and in case of webserver at the same price and lower if you add upkeep etc to the equation.
Don’t know how well OSX Server compares security wise to OSX as nearly nobody runs it as the hardware is more expensive and when you build clusters etc due to the price.
So with a good windows server you are most likely on the best possible OS to use for a dedicated Unity server (using unity not c++ + raknet or the like).
very clear now, we can use both OS(windows and Mac) for network game.
many thanks everyone.
I think that’s a false perception. As dreamora put it: Windows Server is a pretty stable and secure server system. Personally, I even came to prefer Windows 2003 Server over Linux as server system (which in the end has to do with me not wanting to keep my Linux know how up to date, and it fades quite quickly).
People keep on saying that “there are no viruses for the Mac” - but the only reason why there currently are no viruses for the Mac (that I would know of) is that up until now, Mac was pretty much a tiny little niche product that no one cared to write a virus for. At the moment, the Mac is becoming really popular - and so we might soon see some changes in that area. My feeling is that once people start to find it funny to create viruses for the Mac, we’ll be having quite a hard time simply because at the moment, Mac people think they’re safe (which is the greatest security risk you could ever have).
What I’ve heard is that currently, hackers are starting to consider Mac OS X server an interesting platform to hack into, and I was told that it’s extremely easy to break into. If that’s true, I would really avoid Mac OS X servers for now. If it’s not true, personally I would still avoid Mac OS X servers because I think they’re too expensive and I don’t see a real need to use a Mac OS X server. Furthermore, I don’t really have that much know how concerning Mac OS X server administration and I don’t have time to learn about that.
Ah, ok, tried other Google keywords, and there you go:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/28/52FE-underreported-mac_1.html
I don’t think there are any security issues with Unity game servers - but that should be easy to find out: Even though I think there’s currently not many Unity game servers out there, I think RakNet (which Unity networking is built upon) is very popular. So, if there are known vulnerabilities with RakNet, that would mean there are known vulnerabilities with Unity game servers. If not, I would guess it’s rather safe to assume that you don’t need to worry too much about that, at the moment.
I just did a little search on RakNet:
http://www.frsirt.com/english/product/3246
… so I guess you can say using RakNet is about as safe as it gets. I.e. you don’t create security holes by using RakNet, i.e. you don’t create security holes by using Unity - of course, what you might create on top of that yourself is a different issue…
… because … all that said, you have to keep in mind, of course, that in the end every system can only be as safe as its system administrator (or developer) makes it. However, if you’re running an OS that has serious security holes, the best (and probably only) thing you can do is pick another OS
Sunny regards,
Jashan
I can’t claim to be a security expert, but for an alternative to the “security through obscurity” argument that has been made about OSX, you might check this out:
The so-called “hacked in 10 minutes” claim is based on a social engineering scenario (a person had to visit a malicious Web site) rather than the hacker finding an exploit that go them in without the action of a user.
No platform will ever be 100% secure. But it’s probably not at all fair or accurate to say that OSX or OSX Server is more vulnerable than Windows to the sorts of attacks Web servers face, which is the issue under discussion.
And in terms of Unity’s Raknet security, I can testify that we have no evidence of anyone so far hacking the network stream itself between two peer to peer game instances.
Hey, thanks! That was a really interesting read and puts quite a different perspective on things.
That’s interesting… Is that using encrypted connections, or in general? I’ve been wondering about how much effort I should put into making my server “secure” from the coding perspective and up to now, I thought I should do all I can to make it secure … but … I guess this is getting really OT now Sorry… maybe we should create another thread on this
Sunny regards,
Jashan
I don’t think we’ve done anything special in terms of encryption. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t hackable. It just means that so far, nobody seems to have tried or succeeded.