LinuxGSM Stats

LinuxGSM Stats is an opt in voluntary feature that allows you to provide selected information about your game server to be displayed on linuxgsm.com by enabling the stats setting.

How is the information used?

All data collected is used to provide insight into which game servers, distros, and servers are popular with game server admins. This will assist in prioritising LinuxGSM development and give me (Daniel Gibbs) a never before insight into the number of people using LinuxGSM. This is a massive personal motivator as it has previously been difficult to know how many people actually use LinuxGSM.

The collected data is publicly available to view in a dashboard on LinuxGSM.com

What information is collected?

Below is a list of types of data collected

Basic Info

• Game Server - Knowing the game server you are running gives insights into which servers are popular and can help shape development priorities.

• Distro - It is useful to know which distros LinuxGSM is being used on to help focus development.

• LinuxGSM Version - The currently installed version of LinuxGSM.

• Alert Types - The alert types that have been turned on.

Game Server Usage

Gathering game server usage helps set the minimum required hardware for each game server. This is particularly useful for resource-intensive servers.

• CPU Used - The CPU usage in MHz (rounded to the nearest 100MHz) of the game server.

• RAM Used - The memory usage in MB (rounded to the nearest 100MB) of the game server.

• Disk Used - The storage taken by the game server (serverfiles directory) of the game server.

Server Hardware

Gathering information on the server hardware being used to host a Game Server. This provides useful stats on the sorts of hardware game server admins are deciding to use.

• CPU - Gathers the CPU Manufacturer and Model.

• RAM - Total server RAM.

• Disk Space - Total server disk space.

Country of origin

The country of origin is shown identifying where in the world LinuxGSM is being used.

The country of origin is no longer working with GA-4 but might be available again in the future

How is Information collected?

LinuxGSM Stats uses Google Analytics (GA-4) event-driven API to collect information to allow Daniel Gibbs to get an idea of which game servers and distros are popular identify system requirements for game servers and know the sort of servers game server admins are using.

Is my data anonymous?

Short answer - Yes

Long answer - All information gathered is anonymous, the server IP address, hostname, etc., or other identifying information is not collected. When LinuxGSM Stats is first run it creates a UUID (Unique identifier) which is a randomly generated ID to allow Google Analytics to identify your unique information anonymously. Since this ID is random there is no way to know where the info is from, only that it is from the same sender.

The UUID is located inlgsm/data/uuid.txt,if this file is deleted a new UUID will be generated.

Since LinuxGSM is open-source you can also see how the data is gathered by looking at the info_stats.sh file.

How frequently is the data sent?

Data is sent every time the monitor runs as this is the only way to regularly send data.

How can I enable this feature?

To enable LinuxGSM Stats simply add the stats="on" setting to the common.cfg file. This can also be enabled on install.