Game server protection overview

OpenShield-XDP Game runs the flagship agent's kernel XDP pipeline with a profile tuned for UDP game and voice traffic — same install, same console.

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OpenShield-XDP Game is the same OpenShield-XDP agent as the flagship product, loaded with a mitigation profile tuned for game servers and voice infrastructure. You install and connect it exactly the same way — only the profile differs.

What the game profile does differently

The flagship profiles assume a mixed-traffic server. The game profile assumes UDP, bursts, and players, and it tightens four behaviors:

Per-player rate limiting. UDP flood mitigation runs through per-player token buckets at line rate, inside the kernel XDP path. A flooding client exhausts its own bucket instead of everyone's bandwidth.

Lobby-safe burst handling. A match starting or a lobby filling produces legitimate join bursts. Lobby-safe filtering absorbs those bursts without false positives, so real players are never rate-limited for joining at the same moment.

Query and RCON shielding. Server browsers and admin tools are classic abuse vectors. The profile shields query/status (A2S) and RCON traffic from floods without breaking your listing or remote administration.

Bloom whitelist. Trusted IPs — your admins and your own infrastructure — are accelerated in-kernel, so known-good traffic skips the heaviest checks.

Who the game edition is for

  • Game server hosts running one or more UDP-based servers on their own Linux machine.
  • Voice infrastructure operators who need the same line-rate UDP protection.

If you run a fleet of servers or a public target that draws organized campaigns, read Game vs Game Pro before you buy.

Set up the game profile like the flagship agent

There is no separate installer. Follow the Quickstart: install the agent, set metrics.enabled: true, run openshield key, then Add server in the console. Select the game preset with the profile key in /etc/openshield/openshield.yaml; openshield profile list shows the installed presets.

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