How HivePanel Works

HivePanel has one central Panel and one or more Nodes that provide the compute capacity for your game servers.

Panel

Panel is the central HivePanel application and control plane. It is where users manage infrastructure, Combs and Cells.

Nodes

A Node is a physical machine or virtual machine that provides compute capacity. Add Nodes as your infrastructure grows or when you need capacity in another location.

Worker

Each Node runs Worker. Worker connects that Node to Panel, receives instructions from Panel and performs the machine-level operations required for the Cells hosted there.

Worker should be thought of as part of the Node rather than as a separate layer between Panel and the Node.

Cells

A Cell is a running game server instance created and managed by HivePanel. A Node can host multiple Cells according to its available resources.

Combs

A Comb is a reusable game server definition. It describes the runtime, installation process, variables and startup configuration needed to create a Cell.

From Comb to Cell

Comb definition
     │
     ▼
Panel creates the Cell definition
and selects a Node
     │
     ▼
Panel sends the required work to
Worker on that Node
     │
     ▼
Worker prepares and starts the Cell
     │
     ▼
Cell is managed through Panel

The public architecture intentionally stops at Worker and Cells. Container-runtime details beneath Worker are covered separately in Internals.