🎮 EC2 CloudFormation Gaming Template ☁️

This is a simple CloudFormation template that provision a g4ad.xlarge instance using the g4ad graphics-intensive instances AMI.

🔧 How to set it up

Be sure that your AWS account got enough quotas to use G4 appliances. Follow the AWS documentation to check that up. The g4ad.xlarge instance require a minimum of 4 quotas to function.

Prerequisite

• awscli installed and configured
• enough quotas to spin up the G4 instance

# Create the KeyPair used to log in into the instance
mkdir ~/.ssh/aws-private-keys && cd ~/.ssh/aws-private-keys
aws ec2 create-key-pair \ 
  --key-name CloudGamingKeyPair \ 
  --query 'KeyMaterial' \ 
  --output text > CloudGamingKeyPair.pem

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/fabienchevalier/ec2-cloudgaming && cd cloudformation

Deploy

Edit deploy-cloud-gaming-ec2.cfn.yaml :

- IpProtocol: tcp
          FromPort: 8443 #NICE DVC Server
          ToPort: 8443
          CidrIp: 0.0.0.0/0 #<= Add your own IP address

Easy tip to find out your own IP address : curl ifconfig.me

Deploy :

aws cloudformation deploy \
  --template deploy-cloud-gaming-ec2.cfn.yaml \
  --stack-name CloudGamingStack

Configure

Retrieve the instance ID of the instance :

aws ec2 describe-instances \
  --filters "Name=tag:Name,Values=CloudGamingInstance" \
  --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].[InstanceId]' \
  --output text

Then :

aws ec2 get-password-data --instance-id  i-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --priv-launch-key ~/.ssh/aws-private-keys/CloudGamingKeyPair.pem

That should give you the Administrator password on a JSON format :

{
    "InstanceId": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
    "Timestamp": "2013-08-30T23:18:05.000Z",
    "PasswordData": "&ViJ652e*u"
}

Connect to the instance via RDP and run the PowerShell script from the PowerShell folder to install the Nice DCV Server (you can also use Parsec if you wish).

Play 🎮

Download the latest Nice DCV Client for your OS.

Connect via the public ip-address of your instance using Administrator as a login. Password would be the one that you retrieved in the JSON from awscli.

Enjoy 😎

⚠️ Don't forget to shut down your instance after your session to avoid any useless costs.