tactileentertainment/unity-cache-server

Unity CacheServer optimized for multi-client local networks

Cache Server v6.0

The Unity Cache Server, optimized for locally networked team environments.

Overview

This repository contains an open-source implementation of the Cache Server. This stand-alone version of Cache Server is specifically optimized for LAN connected teams. The Cache Server speeds up initial import of project data, as well as platform switching within a project.

This open-source repository is maintained separately from the Cache Server available on the Unity website and the implementation of the Cache Server that is packaged with the Unity installer.

Table of Contents

• Server Setup
  • Install from npm registry
  • Install from GitHub source
• Usage
• Options
• Configuration files
• Client Configuration
• Cache Modules
  • cache_fs (default)
  • cache_ram
• Cache Cleanup
• Mirroring
• Unity project Library Importer
• Contributors
• License

Server Setup

Download and install LTS version 8.10.0 of Node.js from the Node.JS website.

Install from npm registry

npm install unity-cache-server -g

Install from GitHub source

npm install github:Unity-Technologies/unity-cache-server -g

Usage

Default options are suitable for quickly starting a cache server, with a default cache location of .cache_fs

unity-cache-server [arguments]

Command	Description
-V, --version	Show the version number of the Cache Server.
-p, --port <n>	The port on which the Cache Server listens. The default value is 8126.
-c, --cache-module [path]	The path to cache module. The Default path is 'cache_fs'.
-P, --cache-path [path]	The path of the cache directory.
-l, --log-level <n>	The level of log verbosity. Valid values are 0 (silent) through 5 (debug). The default is 3.
-w, --workers <n>	The number of worker threads to spawn. The default is 0.
-m, --mirror [host:port]	Mirror transactions to another cache server. Repeat this option ofr multiple mirrors.
-m, --monitor-parent-process <n>	Monitor a parent process and exit if it dies.
--dump-config	Write the active configuration to the console.
--save-config [path]	Write the active configuration to the specified file and exit. Defaults to ./default.yml.
--NODE_CONFIG_DIR=<path>	The directory to search for config files. This is equivalent to setting the NODE_CONFIG_DIR environment variable. If not specified, the built-in configuration is used.
-h, --help	Show usage information.

Configuration files

The config/default.yml file contains configuration values for the cache modules (see below) and other features. The config system is based on the node-config module. For additional information on how to manage environment specific config files, see the Configuration Files documentation on the node-config GitHub repository.

By default, running unity-cache-server uses the built-in configuration file. To start Cache Server using a custom config file, save the current config to a new file and then use the --NODE_CONFIG_DIR option to override the location where the cache server will look for your config file(s).

Examples (Mac/Linux)

1. mkdir config
2. unity-cache-server --save-config config/default.yml
3. unity-cache-server --NODE_CONFIG_DIR=config

You can have multiple configuration files based on environment:

1. export NODE_ENV=development
2. unity-cache-server --save-config config/local-development.yml

To dump the current config to the console, run the following command:

unity-cache-server --dump-config

Client Configuration

The Cache Server section of the Unity Manual contains detailed information on connecting clients to remote Cache Servers.

Cache Modules

Cache Server supports two caching mechanisms:

• A file system based cache.
• A fully memory (RAM) backed cache.

The file system module is the default and suitable for most applications. The RAM cache module provides optimal performance but requires a sufficient amount of physical RAM in the server system. Typically, this is two to three times size of your Project's Library folder on disk.

Configuration options for all modules are set in the config/default.yml file.

cache_fs (default)

A simple, efficient file system backed cache.

Usage

--cache-module cache_fs

Options

Option	Default	Description
cachePath	.cache_fs	The path to the cache directory.
cleanupOptions.expireTimeSpan	P30D	ASP.NET or ISO 8601 style timespan. Cache files that have not been accessed within this timespan are eligible for cleanup. For more information on duration syntax, see the moment library documentation.
cleanupOptions.maxCacheSize	0	The maximum size, in bytes, of the cache on disk. To bring the total disk utilization under this threshold, the cleanup script considers files for removal in least recently used order. Set the value to zero (0) to disable the cleanup feature.

Notes

• cache_fs is backwards compatible with v5.x Cache Server directories.
• Supports worker threads using the --workers option.
• When you run the cleanup script, the value of the expireTimeSpan option is used to determine which files to delete. If maxCacheSize is specified the script checks whether the cache exceeds the value of maxCacheSize. If it does, the script deletes files in least-recently-used order until the cache no longer exceed maxCacheSize.

cache_ram

A high performance, fully in-memory LRU cache.

Usage

--cache-module cache_ram

Options

Option	Default	Description
pageSize	100000000	The page size, in bytes, used to grow the cache.
maxPageCount	10	The maximum number of pages to allocate in the cache. The combination of pageSize and maxPageCount limits the overall memory footprint of the cache. When this threshold is reached, memory is recovered using a Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm.
minFreeBlockSize	1024	The size of the minimum allocation unit, in bytes, within a page. You can specify a lower value for smaller projects.
cachePath	.cache_ram	The path to the cache directory. Dirty memory pages are saved to disk periodically in this directory, and loaded at startup.
persistence	true	Enable saving and loading of page files to disk. If false, the cache is emptied during restart.
persistenceOptions.autosave	true	When set to true, automatically save changed memory pages; set to false to disable. If false, pages are only saved when the cache server is stopped with the q console command or with upon a SIGTERM.
persistenceOptions.autosaveInterval	10000	The frequency, in milliseconds, to save pages that have changed.

Notes

• Does not support worker threads.

Cache Cleanup

Due to performance considerations, the cache_fs module shipped with Cache Server v6.0 does NOT operate as an LRU cache and does not enforce overall cache size restrictions. This is a change from previous versions of Cache Server. To manage disk usage, a separate cleanup script is provided that can either be run periodically or in "daemon" mode to automatically run at a given time interval.

Usage

unity-cache-server-cleanup [option] or node cleanup.js [options]

Command	Description
-V, --version	Show the version number of cleanup script.
-c --cache-module [path]	The path to the cache module.
-P, --cache-path [path]	The path of the cache directory.
-l, --log-level	The level of log verbosity. Valid values are 0 (silent) through 5 (debug)
-e, --expire-time-span	Override the configured file expiration timespan. Both ASP.NET style time spans (days.minutes:hours:seconds, for example '15.23:59:59') and ISO 8601 time spans (For example, 'P15DT23H59M59S') are supported.
-s, --max-cache-size	Override the configured maximum cache size. Files will be removed from the cache until the max cache size is satisfied, using a Least Recently Used search. A value of 0 disables this check.
-d, --delete	Delete cached files that match the configured criteria. Without this, the default behavior is to dry-run which will print diagnostic information only.
-D, --daemon	Daemon mode. Execute the cleanup script at the given interval in seconds as a foreground process.
-h, --help	Show usage information.

Notes

• Only the cache_fs module supports cache cleanup (cache_ram does not).

Mirroring

Usage

Use the --mirror [host:port] option to relay all upload transactions to one or more Cache Server hosts (repeat the option for each host).

Important: Use the --mirror option cautiously. There are checks in place to prevent self-mirroring, but it is still possible to create infinite transaction loops.

Options

Option	Default	Description
queueProcessDelay	2000	The period, in milliseconds, to delay the start of processing the queue, from when the first transaction is added to an empty queue. Each transaction from a client is queued after completion. It's a good idea to keep this value at or above the default value to avoid possible I/O race conditions with recently completed transactions.
connectionIdleTimeout	10000	The period, in milliseconds, to keep connections to remote mirror hosts alive, after processing a queue of transactions. Queue processing is bursty. To minimize the overhead of connection setup and teardown, calibrate this value for your environment.

Unity project Library Importer

Tools are provided to quickly seed a Cache Server from a fully imported Unity project (a project with a Library folder).

Steps to Import a Project

1. Add the CacheServerTransactionImporter.cs script to the Unity project to export.
2. To save an export data file in .json format, in the Unity Editor, select Cache Server Utilities > Export Transactions . Alternatively, with the script added to your project, you can run Unity in batch mode using the -executeMethod option. For the <ClassName.MethodName>, use CacheServerTransactionExporter.ExportTransactions([path]) where path is the full path and filename to export. For more information on running the Editor in silent mode and the -executeMethod option, see Command line arguments.
3. Run the import utility to begin the import process: unity-cache-server-import <path to json file> [server:port]

Notes

• On very large projects, Unity might appear to freeze while generating the exported JSON data.
• The default server:port is localhost:8126
• The import process connects and uploads to the target host like any other Unity client, so it should be safe in a production environment.
• Files are skipped if any changes were detected between when the JSON data was exported and when the importer tool is executed.

Contributors

Contributions are welcome! Before submitting pull requests please note the Submission of Contributions section of the Apache 2.0 license.

The server protocol is described in protocol.md

License

Apache-2.0 © Unity Technologies