"Spawn Hack" and server crashes

[-SF-]Shockwave shockwave at clanshortfuse.com
Fri Nov 1 11:45:55 EST 2002


Hello everyone!

Last night while I was testing some changes to my server administration tool, the game server crashed.  After I had restarted it, I took a look at the log file and this is what I found:

clientCommand: WAFFEN-SS-16Th-THUG : 47 : lod_spawn models/vehicles/uboat.tik 
Cvar_Set2: lod_tikiname models/vehicles/uboat.tik 
Cvar_Set2: lod_tool 1 
^~^~^ Add the following line to the *_precache.scr map script: 
cache models/vehicles/uboat.tik 
TIKI_InitTiki: could not find surface 'material4' in 'models/vehicles/uboat.tik' 
(check referenced skb/skd files). 
Cvar_Set2: cg_drawviewmodel 0 
Cvar_Set2: cg_shadows 0 
clientCommand: WAFFEN-SS-16Th-THUG : 48 : vÅ 
client text ignored for WAFFEN-SS-16Th-THUG 
WARNING: bad command byte for client 4 
WARNING: bad command byte for client 4 
WARNING: bad command byte for client 4 
clientCommand: _-=WB=-_T-Dog : 1 : disconnect 
broadcast: print "_-=WB=-_T-Dog disconnected\n" 
Going to CS_ZOMBIE for _-=WB=-_T-Dog 

I have been reading the forums at a new MOH:AA admin web site and it dawned on me that there may be a connection between what some are calling a "spawn hack".  Here are some links:

http://mohadmin.com/nuke/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=84
http://mohadmin.com/nuke/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=94

The guy working on the fix has created a DLL file that can be used to help protect Windows servers, but as far as I know DLL's don't work under Linux.  Here's a link to the announcement and a direct link to the fix:

http://mohadmin.com/nuke/index.php
http://www.mohadmin.com/nuke/download/game86.zip

I've asked him to elaborate on how players are able to crash the server but I haven't heard any details yet.  If anyone else knows what is going on, I'd be interested in hearing more.  The tool I developed can intercept player commands and take action based upon them, but I don't know enough about how this works to even think about what actions I might be able to take to prevent a crash.  Until this is patched, theoretically any player with the motivation and knowledge can crash a Linux game server and there's nothing anyone has mentioned so far that can stop it.


Shockwave
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