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Perforce Helix Core Packer Template

This Packer template creates an Amazon Machine Image for installing and configuring a Perforce [Helix Core] server on Linux. It supports both x86 and ARM architectures.

The p4_configure.sh script contains the majority of Helix Core setup. It performs the following operations:

  1. Pre-Flight Checks: Ensures the script is run with root privileges.
  2. Environment Setup: Defines paths and necessary constants for the installation.
  3. SELinux Handling: Checks if SELinux is enabled and installs required packages.
  4. User and Group Verification: Ensures the 'perforce' user and group exist.
  5. Directory Creation and Ownership: Ensures necessary directories exist and have correct ownership.
  6. Helix Binaries and SDP Installation: Downloads and extracts SDP, checks for Helix binaries, and downloads them if missing.
  7. Systemd Service Configuration: Sets up a systemd service for the p4d server.
  8. SSL Configuration: Updates SSL certificate configuration with the EC2 instance DNS name.
  9. SELinux Context Management: Updates SELinux context for p4d.
  10. Crontab Initialization: Sets up crontab for the 'perforce' user.
  11. SDP Verification: Runs a script to verify the SDP installation.
  12. Helix Authentication Extension: Installs the Helix Authentication Extension and validates successful communication with Helix Authentication Service.

How to Use

Building this AMI is as easy as running (ARM example):

packer build ./assets/packer/perforce/helix-core/perforce_arm64.pkr.hcl

Packer will attempt to leverage the default VPC available in the AWS account and Region specified by your CLI credentials. It will provision an instance in a public subnet and communicate with that instance over the public internet. If a default VPC is not provided the above command will fail. This Packer template can take a number of variables as specified in example.pkrvars.hcl. Variables can be passed individually through the -var command line flag or through a configuration file with the -var-file command line flag.

An instance that is provisioned with this AMI will not automatically deploy a Helix Core server. Instead, the required installation and configuration scripts are loaded onto this AMI by Packer, and then invoked at boot through EC2 user data. The Perforce Helix Core module does this through Terraform, but you can also manually provision an instance off of this AMI and specify the user data yourself:

#!/bin/bash
/home/ec2-user/cloud-game-development-toolkit/p4_configure.sh \
   <volume label for hxdepot> \
   <volume label for hxmetadata> \
   <volume label for hxlogs> \
   <p4d server type> \
   <super user username ARN from AWS Secrets Manager> \
   <super user password ARN from AWS Secrets Manager> \
   <fully qualified domain name of Helix Core> \
   <URL for Helix Authentication Service>

As you can see, there are quite a few configurables that need to be passed to the p4_configure.sh script. We recommend using the Perforce Helix Core module for this reason.

Important Notes

  • This script is designed for a specific use-case and might require modifications for different environments or requirements.
  • Ensure you have a backup of your system before running the script, as it makes significant changes to users, groups, and services.
  • The script assumes an internet connection for downloading packages and binaries.