Storage

A game node reads CS2's server files every time a server starts, and the game streamer reads its files every time a stream or clip starts. On a spinning hard drive that is slow, and a match can time out while something else, like a CS2 update or a demo upload, is using the same disk. Keep these on an SSD or NVMe disk:

Path	What it holds
/opt/5stack/serverfiles	CS2's server files, about 60 GB
/opt/5stack/serverfiles-csgo	CS:GO's server files, when the node runs CS:GO
/opt/5stack/steamcmd	SteamCMD, which downloads the server files
/opt/5stack/game-streamer	The game streamer's files and caches, on GPU nodes
/var/lib/rancher	k3s and its container images

Demo recordings in /opt/5stack/demos are written once and read rarely, so a hard drive is fine for them.

The hard drive warning

A node warns "Game files are on a hard drive" when every disk under one of the paths above is a spinning hard drive. The warning names the paths and the disk.

It stays quiet when it can't be sure: SSDs, a mix of disks, USB disks, RAID controllers, network storage and disks inside a virtual machine never warn. To check a node yourself, run:

findmnt -T /opt/5stack/serverfiles
lsblk -o NAME,ROTA,TRAN,MODEL,SIZE,MOUNTPOINTS

ROTA is 1 for a spinning disk. Virtual machines and many RAID controllers report 1 for every disk, so it only counts on bare metal.

Move the game files to a fast disk

The game files stay at /opt/5stack. A bind mount puts each folder on the fast disk, so nothing else on the node changes. These steps assume the fast disk is already formatted and mounted from /etc/fstab, here at /mnt/fast.

1. In the panel, turn off Accepting matches on the node, wait for its matches to end, then turn off Enabled.

2. On the node, as root, stop k3s and copy each folder to the fast disk. The old copies are kept as /opt/5stack/.<folder>.before-move:

   FAST=/mnt/fast
   systemctl stop k3s-agent
   /usr/local/bin/k3s-killall.sh
   for dir in serverfiles serverfiles-csgo steamcmd game-streamer; do
     [ -d "/opt/5stack/$dir" ] || continue
     mkdir -p "$FAST/5stack/$dir"
     rsync -aHAX "/opt/5stack/$dir/" "$FAST/5stack/$dir/" || break
     mv "/opt/5stack/$dir" "/opt/5stack/.$dir.before-move"
     mkdir "/opt/5stack/$dir"
     unit=$(systemd-escape -p --suffix=mount "/opt/5stack/$dir")
     printf '[Unit]\nDescription=5Stack %s on %s\nRequiresMountsFor=%s\n\n[Mount]\nWhat=%s\nWhere=%s\nType=none\nOptions=bind\n\n[Install]\nWantedBy=local-fs.target\n' \
       "$dir" "$FAST" "$FAST/5stack/$dir" "$FAST/5stack/$dir" "/opt/5stack/$dir" > "/etc/systemd/system/$unit"
     systemctl daemon-reload
     systemctl enable --now "$unit"
   done

3. Keep k3s from starting without the fast disk, so a missing disk shows the node offline instead of CS2 downloading again onto the hard drive, then start k3s:

   mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/k3s-agent.service.d
   printf '[Unit]\nRequiresMountsFor=%s\n' \
     "$(ls -d /opt/5stack/serverfiles /opt/5stack/serverfiles-csgo /opt/5stack/steamcmd /opt/5stack/game-streamer 2>/dev/null | tr '\n' ' ')" \
     > /etc/systemd/system/k3s-agent.service.d/5stack-game-files.conf
   systemctl daemon-reload
   systemctl start k3s-agent

4. Turn Enabled and Accepting matches back on. Once a match has run, delete the old copies:

   rm -rf /opt/5stack/.*.before-move

On a panel that also runs game servers, use k3s instead of k3s-agent in steps 2 and 3.

k3s on a hard drive

k3s keeps its container images in /var/lib/rancher. Moving it on a running node means reinstalling k3s, so the node only warns about it. When you set a node up, mount the fast disk, or a folder on it, at /var/lib/rancher before you run the join command.

The panel server

The panel's own server shows an amber warning on its Overview page when the database (/opt/5stack/timescaledb), search (/opt/5stack/typesense), file storage (/opt/5stack/minio), Redis (/opt/5stack/redis) or k3s (/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server) is on a spinning hard drive. Pages load slower, and matches can be slow to start. It uses the same checks as a game node, so it stays quiet when it can't be sure, such as inside a virtual machine.

These folders hold the panel's data, so the panel only warns about them. Set /opt/5stack and /var/lib/rancher up on an SSD or NVMe disk before you install the panel.