linux server that supports love 2D lua

[Rigachupe]

I wonder if anybody here as at least an idea where to start? I seek something like a free linux server where i can deploy a .love file. That means i can install love2D there. Or at least something like a love console or lua console to help me test and develop an small online story telling app.

People would make a connection from a mobile device through love2D app. The app sends only json params and the server app sends back data to be viewed. Easy to do it on local pc. Problem is the server side. There i have no experiences on how the linux server operates (at least as a small test).

EDIT:
The server needs to exist out of my net provider because of IP adress not accessible to outside world. I looked at the google for something like a virtual linux server. Ideally where i see the desktop on which i would put some files directly to not mess around the terminal console.

[Lattay]

I think you need to define more precisely what you want to do on the server.
Does the server receive JSON over HTTP POST, process it and send back response as the body ? (that seem to be the simplest thing to do with luasocket)

The good thing is any language and any runtime could work if you communicate with HTTP+JSON. If Lua is your prefered language no problem, but I don't think you should have the entire Love runtime on the server side.

Does the server store states between requests for a given player, or does the requests contains everything the server needs ?
If you don't need storage, there are various free plans at the big cloud providers, for example AWS Lambda and Google Cloud Functions (these are generally called Function as a Service).

If you need a more conventional server, you should probably be looking for a small VPS (Virtual Private Server). It is basically a dedicated virtual machine that you can configure as you wish. There may be some free plan, I don't know. But I do know it is fairly easy to find 5$/month plans. You could then install something like https://openresty.org/en/ to run your Lua code.

[BrotSagtMist]

Disabling the window module seems to allow it Löve to work on a headless server as a process.
I think this is pretty straight forward, rent a debian server, apt love, run it.

Last time i run an irc bot the process was as followed:
You ssh login to the address and get a terminal.
You run the process using a terminal mutliplexer like tmux, this throws the process in the background and keeps it running while you can log out again.
And for setting things up you can use sshfs, that will allow your normal file managers to access the server so you can copy stuff around.

I also have the _not having an IP_ Problem here. I have been told that i can rent the IP alone, i log in there and it tunnels the traffic that the NAT would else dismiss.

[togFox]

> online story telling app.

Just checking if you really need a Linux server for something like this? Why a server? Why online?

Can it be a self contained mobile app?

[ivan]

Most Apache servers have mod_lua, a module that supports the Lua language.
If your game does not rely on love.physics or love.math than you can probably re-implement your game logic in pure Lua.

[Rigachupe]

> online story telling app.

Just checking if you really need a Linux server for something like this? Why a server? Why online?

Can it be a self contained mobile app?

Mobile app contains all the data to view graphics and text information. The server app (remote server that can communicate through network) then only sends what is requested as data about the game. Look at this as an mmorpg without the mm.

Maybe just something like a remote desktop can be of use? I did not find anything that looks simple as running a small service app that communicates with mobile devices through internet. And the service should allow lua console at least. Let's say max 100 connections allowed. Like a small game made for only one city. And when other cities would like to connect to that game they create own server. Together this looks like an instance (maybe one bigger machine) that is split to cities around the state.

[Andlac028]

If your only problem is that you can not expose port to public (you can not forward ports), but you can run your .love server at home (for example on an old computer), you can use something like ngrok. It has free version (with some limitations), but for small usage or testing, it may bet enough