GameShell Incus Deployment

This repository showcases how to:

1. Store a Cloud-Init configuration (cloud-init.yaml) in version control.
2. Create an Incus (LXD) profile for devices (network, storage, etc.) without hardcoding Cloud-Init directly in the profile.
3. Inject the Cloud-Init file into the profile at runtime.
4. Lock down user access so that only a gameshell user can log in.
5. Run GameShell with optional language flags.

Prerequisites

• Incus (or LXD) installed and initialized on your host.
  • Refer to the Incus documentation or your distribution’s package manager for installation instructions.
• A storage pool named default (adjust names if you use something else).
• A bridged network interface such as incusbr0 (or lxdbr0 if you use the default LXD bridge).

Repository Contents

• cloud-init.yaml
  This file contains our Cloud-Init configuration:

  • Sets up the gameshell user, locks out root, disables SSH password auth.
  • Creates a wrapper script that launches the GameShell script with a specific language flag.
  • Installs minimal packages required (e.g., wget, curl, tar).
  • Downloads the GameShell script from GitHub.

• gameshell-profile.yml
  An example Incus profile definition (devices only). You may or may not store this in Git—some prefer to create/edit profiles on-the-fly.

• README.md
  This documentation.

Setup Steps

Follow these steps to replicate the environment on your machine.

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/tsaquet/gameshell-incus.git
cd gameshell-incus

2. Create a Named Storage Volume

Create a persistent storage volume for game data. This volume will be mounted to /home/gameshell/game_data inside the container. This way, data persists even if the container is destroyed or recreated.

incus storage volume create default gameshell-data

3. Create an Incus Profile (Devices Only)

You can create a new profile named gameshell-profile that only includes device definitions (network, storage) — no embedded Cloud-Init. Various options to do this:

Option A (recommended): Use the provided Yaml file

# Create (or overwrite) the profile using `gameshell-profile.yml`:
incus profile create gameshell-profile
incus profile edit gameshell-profile < gameshell-profile.yml

Option B: Command-line device additions

# Create an empty profile
incus profile create gameshell-profile --empty

# Add a root disk device (pointing to your default pool)
incus profile device add gameshell-profile root disk path=/ pool=default

# Attach the named storage volume to /home/gameshell/game_data
incus profile device add gameshell-profile gameshell-data disk \
  path=/home/gameshell/game_data \
  pool=default \
  source=gameshell-data

# Add a bridged network interface
incus profile device add gameshell-profile eth0 nic \
  nictype=bridged \
  parent=incusbr0

Option C: YAML editing

If you prefer manual editing:

incus profile create gameshell-profile
incus profile edit gameshell-profile

Paste in something like:

config: {}
description: "Profile devices only; cloud-init is applied separately."
devices:
  root:
    type: disk
    path: /
    pool: default
  gameshell-data:
    type: disk
    path: /home/gameshell/game_data
    pool: default
    source: gameshell-data
  eth0:
    type: nic
    nictype: bridged
    parent: incusbr0
name: gameshell-profile

Then save and exit the editor.

4. Inject the Cloud-Init File into the Profile

Inside this repository, you will find cloud-init.yaml. This includes:

• User creation (gameshell).
• Locking the root account, disabling SSH password logins.
• Locale/region setup for French (fr_FR) and English (en_US).
• Download of the GameShell script.
• A wrapper script that calls gameshell.sh with a language flag (e.g., -L fr).

To load that configuration into your profile:

incus profile set gameshell-profile user.user-data - < cloud-init.yaml

Note:

• The - indicates to read from standard input.
• < cloud-init.yaml feeds the file into incus profile set.

This command overwrites (or sets) only the user.user-data key in the profile.

5. Launch the Container

Pick a cloud-init-capable image such as ubuntu:22.04:

incus launch images:ubuntu/24.04/cloud gameshell-container -p gameshell-profile

Incus creates the container and boots it. Cloud-Init runs at first boot:

• The gameshell user is created,
• The gameshell.sh script is downloaded to /home/gameshell/game_data/,
• A wrapper script sets the default language option,
• root is locked.

You can see Cloud-init progress with this command to be sure it has finished :

incus exec gameshell-container -- cloud-init status --wait

6. Verify and Log In

After the container is up, verify:

incus list
incus exec gameshell-container -- su - gameshell

You will be logged in as the gameshell user, and it should launch the wrapper script. If the script calls GameShell with -L fr, you’ll see the French version.

Changing the Language

If you want to switch to English, you can either:

• Modify cloud-init.yaml and re-inject it (only applies for new containers or if you reset the existing one).
• Set an environment variable in the container or profile. For example:

  incus profile set gameshell-profile environment.GAMESHELL_LANG en
  incus restart gameshell-container

  This is used by the wrapper script:

  exec /home/gameshell/game_data/gameshell.sh -L "${GAMESHELL_LANG:-fr}"

  (See repository code comments for more info.)

7. Confirm Root is Locked

By default, the root account has no password, and ssh_pwauth is false. This means only the gameshell user can log in with an interactive shell. The host’s Incus admin can still run commands like incus exec gameshell-container -- bash, but that’s normal for container management.

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Maintenance and Updates

• If you want to edit your Cloud-Init config, simply update cloud-init.yaml and run:

  incus profile set gameshell-profile user.user-data - < cloud-init.yaml

  Note: Cloud-Init usually runs once on first boot. To re-run it on an existing container, you might need to reset Cloud-Init’s state manually or recreate the container.

• If you want to modify devices (e.g., attach different volumes or networks), edit the profile devices using either the CLI or incus profile edit gameshell-profile.

• Game data is stored on the named volume gameshell-data. If you destroy the container, the data remains in that volume until you remove the volume itself.

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Contributing

Feel free to open issues or PRs if you notice any improvements or bugs. The GameShell project is maintained separately; this repo just provides an Incus-based deployment example.

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License

MIT License.

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Acknowledgments

• Phyver’s GameShell for the actual GameShell script.
• Incus (LXD) Documentation for container virtualization tooling.

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Enjoy your GameShell containerized environment!