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Operator reference. Commands and topology describe reviewed procedures; verify the selected source revision and live deployment before operating a world.

Public early-access relays

Arkline's desktop and browser clients use the same JSON protocol over WebSocket text messages. Public connections must use WSS. The standalone server's raw TCP listener remains available for local tooling and private operator tunnels; it must not be exposed as a public plaintext endpoint.

The official host layout is:

Host	Purpose
arkline.network, www.arkline.network	Standalone Arkline project website
play.arkline.network	Rust/WebAssembly client
relay.arkline.network/ws	Production WebSocket world
test-relay.arkline.network/ws	Separate Test WebSocket world
downloads.arkline.network	Versioned client/server/source archives and checksums

A production channel names the persistent official world; it does not imply a completed game, unlimited capacity, or an availability guarantee. This is early access. Test uses its own database and credentials. Never point both processes at one SQLite file or share production pilot credentials with another operator.

Why run your own server?

We recommend self-hosting for local development, testing, and experiments that can feed improvements back into the official repository. Our focus is one community building the shared engine and official universe together. Report findings and propose changes through issues and pull requests.

Hosting your own community or fork is welcome as well; contributing upstream is an invitation, not a condition of running a server. Independent servers have separate worlds and operators and do not automatically join the official network. See the community direction for how these paths fit together.

Origin deployment

1. Build the server from the approved clean source revision using Dockerfile.
2. Retain the existing one-replica world StatefulSet and persistent volume. Add --ws-bind 0.0.0.0:7778, explicitly allow the browser's HTTPS origins using --ws-origin, and expose only port 7778 to the dedicated tunnel connector.
3. Set the pod label arkline-public-origin: "true" and add a private Service port for 7778. Keep raw TCP7777 under the default-deny network policy.
4. Use a separate one-replica StatefulSet and PVC for the Test world. Never clone live resume credentials into it. Back up Production before upgrades.
5. Build the browser with apps/client/web/build.sh. Prepare reviewed web/ and downloads/VERSION/ directories plus web-nginx.conf renamed to nginx.conf; build that staging directory with web.Dockerfile. Include matching source, license, dependency notices and checksums in public downloads.
6. Configure a dedicated authenticated Cloudflare Tunnel. Store its token in the arkline-tunnel Kubernetes Secret, never in source or browser assets. public-edge.yaml supplies the isolated connector, web deployment and narrow origin network allowances. Replace image placeholders with immutable digests and use the operator's existing image pull secret when necessary.
7. Route only the documented hostnames to their intended private Services. The last tunnel rule must be an HTTP404 catch-all. Publish proxied DNS records only after origin checks pass; do not overwrite unrelated DNS records.

TLS terminates at Cloudflare, and the connector uses an encrypted outbound Cloudflare Tunnel. The initial deployment uses origin HTTP/WS, limited by Kubernetes NetworkPolicy to the connector inside the cluster. This is not end-to-end application encryption against the edge provider or a compromised cluster. Native origin TLS is supported with --tls-cert and --tls-key; see verified transport and rotation. Do not treat source support as proof of a deployed TLS migration.

Validation and rollback

Before updating the website's availability flags, verify HTTPS and WSS from outside the cluster, a real pilot's flight/mining/deposit/reconnect journey, Production/Test isolation, invalid-origin and malformed-message rejection, checksums, source availability, and browser rendering/input. A successful build or DNS response alone does not prove gameplay works.

/health on the WebSocket origin reports success only after a successful simulation tick within three seconds. See transport limits for admission, payload and request limits. Keep backups and previous immutable images available. Roll back server code only when its schema can read the retained world; restore to an isolated volume first when that is uncertain. Never overwrite live player progress with a test fixture or force a second SQLite writer during recovery.

The official edge limits relay /ws connection attempts to 20 per 10 seconds per source IP and Cloudflare data center, with a 10-second block after exceeding the limit. This counts HTTP upgrade attempts, not messages inside an established WebSocket. The server separately bounds messages and active sessions. Shared networks may share an IP budget; these controls do not prevent identity farming.

Observe connection capacity, registration limits, simulation health, storage and reconnect behavior before increasing traffic. Add durable monitoring, scheduled off-cluster backups and measured load budgets as the audience grows. Native platform signing/notarization and device-specific graphics/audio testing are separate release checks.

Browser release paths

Stage each complete browser build under web/VERSION/, retaining previous version directories. Create release.conf in the reviewed image build context with location = / { return 302 https://play.arkline.network/VERSION/$is_args$args; }, replacing VERSION with the verified build number. Relative module and WASM imports then stay within that release even during rolling deployments. Do not change files within a published version. The same origin preserves existing browser pilot credentials.

For play.arkline.network, configure Cloudflare to bypass edge caching and respect origin browser cache headers. The origin sends Cache-Control: no-cache; do not override it with a browser TTL. Purge legacy unversioned browser assets when introducing this layout. Download archives remain versioned independently.