# Quickstart: Create a Game Server > This guide covers how you can quickly get started using Agones to create GameServers. --- LLMS index: [llms.txt](/site/llms.txt) --- ## Prerequisites

The following prerequisites are required to create a GameServer:

  1. A Kubernetes cluster with the UDP port range 7000-8000 open on each node. Creating the firewall.
  2. Agones controller installed in the targeted cluster
  3. kubectl properly configured
  4. Netcat which is already installed on most Linux/macOS distributions, for windows you can use WSL.

If you don’t have a Kubernetes cluster you can follow these instructions to create a cluster on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Minikube or Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and install Agones.

For the purpose of this guide we’re going to use the simple-game-server example as the GameServer container. This example is a very simple UDP server written in Go. Don’t hesitate to look at the code of this example for more information.

## Objectives - Create a GameServer in Kubernetes using Agones custom resource. - Get information about the GameServer such as IP address, port and state. - Connect to the GameServer. ### 1. Create a GameServer Let's create a GameServer using the following command : ```bash kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/googleforgames/agones/release-1.58.0/examples/simple-game-server/gameserver.yaml ``` You should see a successful output similar to this : ``` gameserver.agones.dev/simple-game-server-4ss4j created ``` This has created a GameServer record inside Kubernetes, which has also created a backing [Pod](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod/) to run our simple udp game server code in. If you want to see all your running GameServers you can run: ```bash kubectl get gameservers ``` It should look something like this: ``` NAME STATE ADDRESS PORT NODE AGE simple-game-server-7pjrq Ready 35.233.183.43 7190 agones 3m ``` You can also see the [Pod](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod/) that got created by running `kubectl get pods`, the Pod will be prefixed by `simple-game-server`. ``` NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE simple-game-server-7pjrq 2/2 Running 0 5m ``` As you can see above it says `READY: 2/2` this means there are two containers running in this Pod, this is because Agones injected the [SDK sidecar](https://agones.dev/site/docs/guides/troubleshooting/#how-do-i-see-the-logs-for-agones) for readiness and health checking of your Game Server. For the full details of the YAML file head to the [GameServer Specification Guide](/site/docs/reference/gameserver/) ### 2. Fetch the GameServer Status Let's wait for the GameServer state to become `Ready`. You can use the `watch` tool to see the state change. If your operating system does not have `watch`, manually run `kubectl describe gameserver` until the state changes. ```bash watch kubectl describe gameserver ``` ``` Name: simple-game-server-7pjrq Namespace: default Labels: Annotations: agones.dev/sdk-version: 0.9.0-764fa53 API Version: agones.dev/v1 Kind: GameServer Metadata: Creation Timestamp: 2019-02-27T15:06:20Z Finalizers: agones.dev/controller Generate Name: simple-game-server- Generation: 1 Resource Version: 30377 Self Link: /apis/agones.dev/v1/namespaces/default/gameservers/simple-game-server-7pjrq UID: 3d7ac3e1-3aa1-11e9-a4f5-42010a8a0019 Spec: Container: simple-game-server Health: Failure Threshold: 3 Initial Delay Seconds: 5 Period Seconds: 5 Ports: Container Port: 7654 Host Port: 7190 Name: default Port Policy: Dynamic Protocol: UDP Scheduling: Packed Template: Metadata: Creation Timestamp: Spec: Containers: Image: us-docker.pkg.dev/agones-images/examples/simple-game-server:0.43 Name: simple-game-server Resources: Limits: Cpu: 20m Memory: 32Mi Requests: Cpu: 20m Memory: 32Mi Status: Address: 35.233.183.43 Node Name: agones Ports: Name: default Port: 7190 State: Ready Events: Type Reason Age From Message ---- ------ ---- ---- ------- Normal PortAllocation 34s gameserver-controller Port allocated Normal Creating 34s gameserver-controller Pod simple-game-server-7pjrq created Normal Scheduled 34s gameserver-controller Address and port populated Normal Ready 27s gameserver-controller SDK.Ready() executed ``` If you look towards the bottom, you can see there is a `Status > State` value. We are waiting for it to move to `Ready`, which means that the game server is ready to accept connections. You might also be interested to see the `Events` section, which outlines when various lifecycle events of the `GameServer` occur. We can also see when the `GameServer` is ready on the event stream as well - at which time the `Status > Address` and `Status > Ports > Port` have also been populated, letting us know what IP and port our client can now connect to! Let's retrieve the IP address and the allocated port of your Game Server : ```bash kubectl get gs ``` This should output your Game Server IP address and ports, eg: ``` NAME STATE ADDRESS PORT NODE AGE simple-game-server-7pjrq Ready 35.233.183.43 7190 agones 4m ``` ### 3. Connect to the GameServer You can now communicate with the Game Server, by running: ```shell nc -u {IP} {PORT} ``` Now write any text you would like, and hit ``. You should see your text echoed back, like so: ```shell nc -u 35.233.183.43 7190 Hello World ! ACK: Hello World ! ``` You can finally type `EXIT` and hit ``, which tells the SDK to run the [Shutdown command](/site/docs/guides/client-sdks/#shutdown), and therefore shuts down the `GameServer`. To exit `nc` you can press `+c`. If you run `kubectl describe gameserver` again - either the GameServer will be gone completely, or it will be in `Shutdown` state, on the way to being deleted. ## Next Step If you want to use your own GameServer container make sure you have properly integrated the [Agones SDK](/site/docs/guides/client-sdks/).