How-To: Foundry VTT - Set Up and Run from Amazon AWS

[@johnasbacher9725]

I would also suggest that you select a reasonable REGION in your EC2 console, found in the very top right hand corner BEFORE you start the whole process.

[@whitetiger88251]

Any chance we get an updated tutorial on this topic?

[@ErasmoOJr]

I've followed the guides on foundry wiki but only you made all easly clearer, awesome!

[@knoxminis1211]

Just wanted to also post this here, as I know some had run into a problem with the zip file. To get the link to the download file, go to your Foundry VTT account and there's a button down at the bottom for a temporary download link. This will work if you follow the instructions here. BUT, just be sure to change the OS to Linux before you push the button to get the temporary link.

[@shushpanchicusrex6410]

Awesome guide! Short and usefull! I wasted for like 4 hours to config myself only to get tons of errors! Thx again

[@ViceandVillainy]

Glad it helped!

[@TheRollyD]

Thanks so much, this was very helpful even 3 years later.

[@SFDonnie]

You are my hero! For others' heads up, I had to use the zypper command, instead of yum, to get this to work in the console, but otherwise it went extremely smoothly. :) And that's probably down to the instructions not being up to date wit

[@thenoblegoblin]

V&V ... awesome guide. literally followed along step by step, just pausing for downloads and account creation. easy peasy. Third past into the linux command shell had a hiccup, "sudo apt install -y nodejs" was no longer the syntax, but after a few seconds, I looked on the screen, and it told me what to type instead.

[@bekradan458]

Oh my word!! I've been waiting for someone to show me how to do this for months. Never realised it was that easy. I can't thank you enough.

[@hawkonroyale431]

Well. I managed to install foundry thanks to this guide, however I still haven't figured to connect the server with s3 storage.

[@Jaundyce]

Awesome video, didn't even realize Amazon had a free tier

[@campitupitu]

Cool tutorial, easy to follow up.

[@gabrieljardimpereirapinto6675]

Thank you for your explanation! Very thorough and clear!

[@dnddmscreenstickers8150]

what is the foundry PEM file?

[@Knokz]

Followed all the steps, but whenever I try the instructions at 19:40 (enter the IP address in Chrome and such), the connection times out. I am even including ;30000 at the end to no avail. What gives?

[@CoryLong]

It's not a semi-colon, ";" It's a colon, ":"

[@Knokz]

@@CoryLong tried with the colon as well and didn't work either.

[@Knokz]

@@CoryLong a few minutes later it started working. Apparently there was some downtime that forced the server to reboot and get stuck on initializing. Thanks for the video!

[@DougCoughler]

I got lost in the AWS setup - There seems to be some pieces that are "Always Free" and some that are only free for a year. Does the EC2 tier expire, or what setup should you select to always be free?

[@CoryLong]

If you look at the options, the EC2 option (what you need to host Foundry) is 12 months free. They don't have an EC2 option for "Always Free."

[@knoxminis1211]

How much is the cost of EC2 for something like Foundry VTT after the 12 mo period?

[@slydog75]

@@knoxminis1211 really hard to get any answer to this question for some reaosn.

[@alexanderletourneau6379]

Very helpful! I had already started world-building on Windows desktop version and trying to convert over. Working through it now but how do we stop and start the game? Through AWS instance screen? Since loading up in AWS my desktop application will not open. Multiple-use of Foundry License maybe?

[@CoryLong]

It is all done via Putty. I'll make a video to help explain that.

[@cheesyascot]

Worked perfectly and as stated. Thanks much!

[@morgothcdv]

Thanks for the video. I have already worked on the Foundry Desktop. I want to upload my world into the server. Is there a way to easily upload it, or am I missing something?

[@CoryLong]

You may be able to use WinSCP to copy it over

[@justjohns]

I am working from a Mac and research on how to get PuTTy working on a Mac is very confusing. Can you point in the best direction for the Mac version of PuTTy?

[@CoryLong]

I don't know it's functionality, but it seems there's an app in the Mac store called vSSH that has similar functionality. As to how to use the app, I cannot help you there.

[@justjohns]

@@CoryLong Thanks.

[@conotechful]

On a Mac, use the built-in "ssh" command from a Terminal window.

[@slydog75]

anybody else getting a 'forbidden 403" error when trying to wget the foundry installer?

[@scottjablow7160]

To solve this, click on your profile name in Foundry. Click on Purchased Licenses on the left. Then Click the chain link symbol to the right of the appropriate download file. This will generate and copy to your clipboard a link to download (it expires after 5 minutes). You can then paste that as your download link in the shell.

[@DavidMeddowsTaylor]

Also make sure the download link is within quotes. I was getting a 403 until I put it in quotes.

[@woodorwoods1650]

@@scottjablow7160 Thank you for this. It saved me some time in getting mine working.

[@kibaruzo]

So overall, I have things working, Thanks for the guide!!! I have my elastic IP address tied to my subdomain, but I want to switch the server over to use port 80 (so the subdomain resolves naturally without the 30000 on the end). I've tried setting up different inbound security rules to allow 80 for my EC2 instance, but just does not seem to be listening. I've done some searches of people adding rules using HTTP and port 80, but for some reason I can't get that port open. Thoughts?

[@ViceandVillainy]

I wish I could offer something, but that's outside of my scope.

[@kibaruzo]

@@ViceandVillainy No worries. I ended up redoing my install using foundry wiki based off Ubuntu. But your tutorial on standing up an AWS instance was so helpful. Thanks much!

[@odairjunior8826]

I am trying tô do it like the vídeo, but what appear to me in foundry its different, the codes and all, when o get tô the install foundry.zip part, there was mothing a could do. Please, i already tried everything to get this damn foundry running, just wanna play DnD with my group

[@Lionel10102006]

For some reason when I get to the "ec2-user" bit with PuTTY, the login doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure why...

[@alberthayat26]

So each time i try to create the zip file, it gives me a 403: Forbidden error. thoughts?

[@CoryLong]

I'll try to recreate it next week.

[@MoLt3h]

Have you put speech marks around the url that is generated for you from the Foundry site? That caught me out for a while.

[@vini1520]

I sent the file to server using winscp

[@alberthayat26]

@@vini1520 Thanks guys! Vice and Villainy actually answered my question in the follow-up video that he posted like a day later. :D

[@Athanor73]

Thanks for your video. Very helpful ! But a problem remains : when everything is ready, I run the ip address in Chrome, put my FVTT key and have access to the main admin screen. I've installed DND5e, created a world, but impossible to access it. I close Chrome and try to access the ip again. No way. The browser try to load foundry for a while and nothing happens. Any idea ?

[@CoryLong]

That's really strange. Not sure why that is happening. I suggest checking out the Foundry Discord server.

[@HalethDagore]

Thank you for sharing! Any particular reason you chose AWS? Also, any particular reason you went with linux instead of windows?

[@CoryLong]

It was easy and the lowest tier is free for a year. There is also a ton of info out there for AWS. I went with Linux because it's lightweight and I am familiar with it.

[@HalethDagore]

@@CoryLong Thanks for the response!

[@Tyemagic]

do you have to always have to have Putty open. Every time I close it server cannot run and then I have to restart instance and reload putty I just want it to run 24/7... advise please

[@CoryLong]

Yes, you do, unless you can configure pm2 to keep it running in the background. I haven't had the time to figure it out yet, but check our Foundry's Discord server for help.

[@CoryLong]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4OTiItnjb-qebs

[@odairjunior8826]

I need help

[@johnasbacher9725]

I would really like to have the server running on its own so that I don't need to have a putty terminal open all the time. For example, there are 2 of us DM's building one campaign. I would like the service to be running 24/7. possible? tutorial?

[@CoryLong]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4OTiItnjb-qebs

[@rasmusdavidsson]

How does the players connect to your game? I followed your steps but when i launch it they cannot connect through internet.

[@CoryLong]

You have to create a world and launch it before they can connect. Sounds like I need a follow up video.

[@OliverBerger]

Für alle deutschsprachigen Nutzer:innen ... das funktioniert auch problemlos mit der deutschsprachigen Version von AWS. ;) [ENG] also working very well with the German version of AWS. Thanks for the explanation and video but I'd suggest you really clean it up a bit and skip everything that went wrong ;)

[@CrashGem]

I have 4 campaigns I want to have running 24/7 s players can log in and access it whenever they like. I want each campaign to have it's own server so the players don't pop in and out during sessions or spoil campaigns for each other, etc. Using AWS services and linking to Foundry do I need a unique license for each server? if these servers are always online are they all handshaking the same license key at the same time? Would each AWS server need its own license?

[@CoryLong]

Each server instance would need its own license if you wanted to do it that way, as games need to be live for players to log in.

[@Paul-jw9vi]

how do I upload my world to the instance online?

[@CoryLong]

I believe there are some modules you can find for exporting and importing. I believe Forien has something.

[@paull7968]

hey, thanks for the video. I got all the way through, but when I try to go to the elastic ip address I get the error 'ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR'. I've tried all the advice I found online -- clearing cache and the ssl state, but with no luck. Do you have any suggestions?

[@ViceandVillainy]

Did you open all the ports and then try to connect to the URL using the xxx.xxx.xx.x:30000 format?

[@paull7968]

@@ViceandVillainy I thought so. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I started over and the 2nd time it worked. Thanks again, I'm hoping this will decrease the sluggishness that occurs fairly often when I host it from my own computer.

[@nanika3446]

You are my new hero

[@slydog75]

how much does that t3a large cost you a month?

[@CoryLong]

It depends on how often you run the EC2 instance. I shut mine down when I'm not using it, so my cost is different. Here's a link to the AWS pricing guide so you can calculate what it would cost you a month. aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/

[@elmortero1]

@@CoryLong So when you shut down your instance, does this mean you stop the foundry server within putty between games? Or do you stop it from the AWS EC2 Mgmt Console?

[@CoryLong]

@@elmortero1 in order to to incur a cost from AWS, you have to stop the instance from the EC2 console. Think of it as shutting down your computer.

[@elmortero1]

@@CoryLong Thank you for sharing your knowledge, your videos were my bible for getting my aws server up and running. I had no experience or knowledge of how to do it, your video series walked me through it with ease.

[@PauloSNeto]

Thank you for your help !

[@solcipher309]

module not found?

[@CoryLong]

Which module are you looking for? Where are you in the process? If you can give me some more information, I can try to help.

[@johnasbacher9725]

I have it up and running. as shown in the video. How do you kill it if it didn't shut down properly? [ec2-user@ip-1234 foundryvtt]$ node resources/app/main.js --dataPath=$HOME/foundrydata FoundryVTT | time | [error] A fatal error occured while trying to start the Foundry Virtual Tabletop server: FoundryVTT |time | [error] Foundry VTT cannot start in this directory which is already locked by another process. Error: Foundry VTT cannot start in this directory which is already locked by another process. at _acquireLockFile (/home/ec2-user/foundryvtt/resources/app/dist/init.js:1:7836) at async _initializeCriticalFunctions (/home/ec2-user/foundryvtt/resources/app/dist/init.js:1:4790) at async initialize (/home/ec2-user/foundryvtt/resources/app/dist/init.js:1:3228) [ec2-user@ip-1234 foundryvtt]$

[@johnasbacher9725]

Run this in another terminal > killall node

[@Grinstopher]

I usually use CTRL+C in the console to be able to type in commands (AWS has it's own btw, don't need Putty, just open the instance in the AWS EC2 Management and click connect), then you can use kill -9 $(lsof -t -i:30000) to kill the processes listening on port 30000, after that you can just run the node.... command again (just press the UP-key, no need to type it in again)

[@vampiregoat69]

they want all your billing info as well starting to hate how hard it is to host a foundry game

[@JVQ8Y]

damn you COVID! I just wanna play dnd...

[@Ambers128]

it worked for 5 minutes, now i can't get it back :(

[@pedrooliveira936]

same thing, its giving me connection refused :(

[@Ambers128]

@@pedrooliveira936 check that youre in the correct directory. cd fountryvtt Then run the execute code from the foundry page.

[@rumblebottom]

Nice Work!