[bf1942] Linux server status update 2003-04-28

Casey Zacek bfb-bf at bogleg.org
Tue Apr 29 10:23:54 EDT 2003


[grouping two of Sam's emails into one response..]

Sam Evans wrote (at Tue, Apr 29, 2003 at 09:54:59AM -0400):
> That's nice for those who use Windows to handle their logging.
> Personally, I'm going to use Perl that takes the information and dumps it into a mySQL Database
> for use with Battlestats.
> 
> Perl works on both windows and *nix, so it's cross platform capable..
> Using the API libraries is Windows only.

Ever heard of a shared library?  MySQL has a C++ API, not just Perl
(and there are even others!).

> On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Casey Zacek wrote:
> 
> > Scratch Monkey wrote (at Tue, Apr 29, 2003 at 04:01:22AM -0700):
> > > One could take the shared library approach: The server invokes StartLog,
> > > EndLog, and WriteLogEntry API's in a shared library. A stock library is
> > > provided that just writes to a file. The admin can plug in his own library
> > > that does more exotic things.

----------

Sam Evans also wrote:
> You know.. Just writing the logs out in real time to disk is so much
> easier that having to do compression, sockets, etc. etc.
> 
> I realize there could be a lot of logs here, but why not let the user
> specify what they want logged, or better yet, just log the kills, flag /
> point captures and deaths..   That in it's self wouldn't be anymore
> information that what other game servers already log today.

We who have run other game servers in the past have learned all too
well this simple fact:  The more "ancillary" development (like logging
stuff, stats, and whatnot) that is left up to the game developer, the
less cool stuff will come from it, and, as a corollary, the less real
game development will occur, as time is spent dealing with picky
admins on these non-core issues.  We've also learned that there is no
such thing as "too many details" in a log.

The best way for Dice to do this is to just log *everything* and let
us sort it out.  The only thing we really need is information in an
easily parseable (standardized) format, and the "detailed, verbose
XML" that Andreas promises sounds fantastic to me.  The only issue I
really have is with the compression.  I surely think that can be left
up to us, the admins, especially given that it's a lot easier to write
the data to disk real-time if it's not compressed.  And we love our
real-time stats, and our ability to directly send the logs off via
network, whether it's built into the engine or not.  And on-the-fly
compression would eat just that much more CPU in the game server
engine process.

I do think the .so/.dll method of logging would be fantastic, but we
can all manage text/XML files with ease, or we're at least able to
download and install something that can do it for us.

-- 
-- Casey Zacek (Zippo)                  Beer for Breakfast servers
   66.111.111.66:27015 (CS multi-map)     <http://bfb.bogleg.org/>
   66.111.111.66:27016 (CS inferno/dust2/aztec/militia) Dallas, TX
   66.111.111.66:14567 (BF1942)



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