Topic: How Difficult is it to run a server?

[Strayy]

For my server, im runnin all the new Evil Dave missions, his old op missions(renamed to work with new missions), and the stock missions. Marstone's right.. the EEK missions take over the mission selection and nothing else will come out. Seem to remember that the patrol 6 for E.D.'s new missions is bugged, and pat's 10 & 17 dominate mission selection.... I think that the BPV check is off for my server in mission matching, .. could explain the nasty A.I's    thx pesty   

[Corbomite]

Marstone's??  right the EEK missions take over the mission selection and nothing else will come out.

I was just thinking that we could probably up the mission selection to three or four at this point without crashing the server with the lower player base. That might solve some problems in that area. I have my single player set to six missions so I never get that problem.

[Strayy]

Depends on the map, mission list, and the mission prioriety...  got the Tavern set to allow 4 missions, but most of the time, theres only 2 missions that show... the list of 4 usually only show in planet/base hexes...

[Corbomite]

Well yes that does make a big difference. I have over 100 missions in my list. Most servers pare it down to about 6 or 7 I think.

[marstone]

Marstone's??  right the EEK missions take over the mission selection and nothing else will come out.

I was just thinking that we could probably up the mission selection to three or four at this point without crashing the server with the lower player base. That might solve some problems in that area. I have my single player set to six missions so I never get that problem.

Twasn't me who said that, twas Corb.  I am still trying to learn what missions are good to use also.  My first two test servers only used the base missions, plan to ass to that when the third comes up.  So will be watching what is said here.  Heck, I have my hands full seeing how the SQL part works.  The info put out is good, but the versions of MySQL available now is set up alittle different then they show, not a great big thing but anough to confound my old brain ('specially after 12-14 hour work days, not much thinking is going on).

[marstone]

Well yes that does make a big difference. I have over 100 missions in my list. Most servers pare it down to about 6 or 7 I think.

Having fewing missions but ones that can simulate more for each one might be the way to go, a single patrol mission script, but have it be able to do multiple styles of patrol, etc...

I have seen a post about one that does that, haven't tried it to see what it does (not yet at least).

[Strayy]

Oops.. ur right Marstone.... sorry Corbomite    with all these missions available, any ideas on how to make em all come out instead of only a select few? ... unless its in the mission script itself...

[Age]

I need a list of broken mission scripts.. preferrably scripts in the OP Enhancement Pack v5.1

I am including ED mission, the regular NW missions, Tracey G. missions, and El Karnak missions

Stock missions will not be included.

the kit will be using the updated DLL files

I am also going to run the OP + 4.0 Hardcore shiplist

I would also like to know which races you would like to see allied to each other.. I'm setting it up as a 2 sided war, 4 races per side.

Server will start in early era and will run until late era... server should be set to run each era per week, with late era ending after 2 weeks after it starts (in other words 1 week early, 1 week mid, 2 weeks late)

I would also like to stress the server out and try to keep sides balanced if possible.

Map is going to be Mid to large size with small opening territory for each race.. economy should be about balanced for each race to start.

The side holding the most territory at the end of the server wins..

Fleeting rules apply as per all previous servers.

Flying as a team is highly recommended.. single pilots will find the odds against them.. if you like going alone, then please make sure you know how to handle the ship you are flying.

anyhow.. any suggestions at this point are welcome.
 

P.S. the server will be running under kit 2552 build 36 flat file.

This sounds harder than Dizzy's SGO servers.What ever you do don't use EL Karnack's planetary assault missions.Tracey had them replaced in SGO3.I may come on for a few days.

[Tulwar]

My old computer is a lost cause, but I just bought a refurbished Dell for less than $200.00!  I was going to fix my old one, but I'm not sure what type of sticky problems I'd run into swapping out the motherboard.  Considdering the age of my opperating system and Microsoft's license protection, it might not even boot.  The USB ports were fried when the power supply failed.  A mother board wouldn't be cheap, and besides, I made the mistake of putting some Symantec software on that system.  Beware Norton's 360!

In any case, is 512 Kbps upload fast enough to run a server, and how difficult will it be to configure the posrts to get through a router?  Note:  I wouldn't touch a refurbished Gateway product with a 10.5' pole.  Dell, well, I still considder it a junk machine, otherwise I wouldn't contemplate using it as a server.  2.66 GHz should be plenty fast, though I don't know how fast the motherboard is.  I'm sure it will suffice.

Now I'm worried about how to go about wiping off all the crapware!  Oh, I hate getting a new computer!  At least, I won't have to load this one with software.

[Bonk]

512 up is fine. The latency is more of an issue though, what are your ping times to google, hp, and tsn? Are they consistent?

Ports: 15101-15300, 27100 (or 28100 depending on what you set in the gf) and 6999 (using our IRC server) Of course for port forwarding to work the box must be configured with a static lan IP. Your router must accept pings from the WAN.

If your router is wireless don't use wireless, the networking overhead is too much and connection too unreliable, plug it in if the router has a switch.

[Tulwar]

I have an AT&T router.  It's not always easy to get to the configuration page.  My IP address is static.  It's the best DSL AT&T offers for residential.  When I ordered DSL w/o phone service, they didn't offer me anything less.  My employer pays for my cell phone, so I don't need to pay for a land line.  I'm paying less for premium DSL than I payed for phone service and a dial-up ISP!

Enough bragging!  I've got a decent connection, and I intend to use it.

[Bonk]

Static WAN IP or LAN IP? If your LAN IP is dynamic then port forwarding at the router will not work, because when the dhcp lease expires and is renewed, you may get a different LAN IP address then the NAT entries you made for port forwarding will no longer be valid. Grok?

AT&T does not make routers that I am aware of.

It sounds as though you have a DSL modem with a router in it? Does your ISP allow you full control of the router? If not, ask them for an ethernet modem without a router and get your own quality router (I reccomend linksys/cisco), well if you want more than the one machine connected.

[Tulwar]

AT&T Yahoo! Get them at Best Buy.  Static IP.  tested upload speeds on a couple sites, 420+ kbps.  The configuration page is hard to get to, but do-able.  I can actually get on the Dynaverse with my anti-virus engaged on this computer.  Might run the router wide open, without mail configured, very insecure.  I need another ethernet cable, though.

[Bonk]

Static IP. 

LAN or WAN?

AT&T Yahoo! Get them at Best Buy.

But who made it? Surely not AT&T?

I can actually get on the Dynaverse with my anti-virus engaged on this computer.

But exactly when is Norton going to decide that connecting players are hackers and drop you from the mission? What is it going to think of the server? How much processor load will it add as it scans every disk and network action of the serverkit or client? Because it works once does not mean it will work all the time. Will Norton tell you exactly what they do to running executables, the tcp/ip stack and disk access? No, they will not, thus you can never know what is happening on your machine with Norton installed. If you have norton installed you are no longer running windows, but some other mystery operating system designed by Symantec.

I'll stop haranguing you now, but think about these questions carefully and look up the answers if you are unsure.

[marstone]

Static WAN IP or LAN IP? If your LAN IP is dynamic then port forwarding at the router will not work, because when the dhcp lease expires and is renewed, you may get a different LAN IP address then the NAT entries you made for port forwarding will no longer be valid. Grok?

you can go into your network config on your computer and set the address it will link with.  Mine downstairs links into the LAN with 128.67.1.101 on the LAN side it is effectivily static.

[FPF-DieHard]

I ran over 10 D2 servers on an old AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz CPU with 512 MB RAM.  Cable modem with  about 1.5 mb upload.

CPU power DEFINITELY played a role.  i don't think it's important anymore.  Back when we did SGO4 (I think, it was the three-way where we totally screwed over the ISC players) THOR was still running on dual 500 MHz Xeons and was hosted on a OC3 connection in an ISP's data center (Frey can correct me it I'm wrong).  The Athlon was able to stably host more players, we used to move the server back and forth depending on how many people were online and the difference was plain as day yo see.   I wonder what we could have done with a dual-core CPU back then with the proccessor affinity set to the Server kit had a whole core to itself . . .


That said, it's pretty much a moot point.   We don't have the play numbers anymore for this really to matter.   On ATOK3, the server kit was running on a VMware session on my desktop PC (at the time was a AMD X2 4800) while I was playing on the same computer! 

When you've got 25 people playing peak you can run this on pretty much anything. 

[marstone]

  So how do you run more then one server at the same time, do you just need to have them in different directories so they don't cross files?

[FPF-DieHard]

  So how do you run more then one server at the same time, do you just need to have them in different directories so they don't cross files?

Ive always kept every server self contained in it's own folder.

you really can't run more than one server at a time on a box.   There are provisions to do this over different ports but it doesn't actually work.

[Bonk]

you really can't run more than one server at a time on a box.   There are provisions to do this over different ports but it doesn't actually work.

I used to be able to... one on 27100 and the other on 28100. It looks funny locally though as the client doubles entries for local servers. (one for each of the LAN and WAN IPs) Also, special considerations must be made if you use the processsentinel.

What difficulties or issues did you encounter?

[FPF-DieHard]

What difficulties or issues did you encounter?

Nobody could see the server.