Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Logging server messages (custom servers)

You can capture custom server messages from your Amazon GameLift Servers custom servers in log files. To learn about logging for Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime, see Logging server messages (Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime).

Configuring logging for custom servers

With Amazon GameLift Servers custom servers, you write your own code to perform logging, which you configure as part of your server process configuration. Amazon GameLift Servers uses your logging configuration to identify the files that it must upload to S3 at the end of each game session.

The following instructions show how to configure logging using simplified code examples:

C++

To configure logging (C++)

1. Create a vector of strings that are directory paths to game server log files.

   std::string serverLog("serverOut.log");        // Example server log file
   std::vector<std::string> logPaths;
   logPaths.push_back(serverLog);

2. Provide your vector as the LogParameters of your ProcessParameters object.

   Aws::GameLift::Server::ProcessParameters processReadyParameter = Aws::GameLift::Server::ProcessParameters(
       std::bind(&Server::onStartGameSession, this, std::placeholders::_1),
       std::bind(&Server::onProcessTerminate, this),
       std::bind(&Server::OnHealthCheck, this),
       std::bind(&Server::OnUpdateGameSession, this),
       listenPort,
       Aws::GameLift::Server::LogParameters(logPaths));

3. Provide the ProcessParameters object when you call ProcessReady().

   Aws::GameLift::GenericOutcome outcome = 
      Aws::GameLift::Server::ProcessReady(processReadyParameter);

For a more complete example, see ProcessReady().

C#

To configure logging (C#)

1. Create a list of strings that are directory paths to game server log files.

   List<string> logPaths = new List<string>();
   logPaths.Add("C:\\game\\serverOut.txt");     // Example of a log file that the game server writes

2. Provide your list as the LogParameters of your ProcessParameters object.

   var processReadyParameter = new ProcessParameters(
       this.OnGameSession,
       this.OnProcessTerminate,
       this.OnHealthCheck,
       this.OnGameSessionUpdate,
       port,
       new LogParameters(logPaths));

3. Provide the ProcessParameters object when you call ProcessReady().

   var processReadyOutcome =
      GameLiftServerAPI.ProcessReady(processReadyParameter);

For a more complete example, see ProcessReady().

Writing to logs

Your log files exist after your server process has started. You can write to the logs using any method to write to files. To capture all of your server's standard output and error output, remap the output streams to log files, as in the following examples:

C++

std::freopen("serverOut.log", "w+", stdout);
std::freopen("serverErr.log", "w+", stderr);

C#

Console.SetOut(new StreamWriter("serverOut.txt"));
Console.SetError(new StreamWriter("serverErr.txt"));

Accessing server logs

Log access varies by fleet type:

Managed EC2 fleets

When a game session ends, Amazon GameLift Servers automatically stores the logs in an S3 bucket and retains them for 14 days. To get the location of the logs for a game session, you can use the GetGameSessionLogUrl API operation. To download the logs, use the URL that the operation returns.

Alternatively, you can set up your own logging solution by configuring your game server to send logs directly to your preferred logging service or storage location. For more information, see Communicate with other Amazon resources from your fleets.

Container fleets

Container fleets capture standard output and error streams from all containers. You can configure logging using one of these options:

For detailed information about configuring logging options when creating container fleets, see LogConfiguration in the Amazon GameLift Servers API Reference.