[mohaa] "Spawn Hack" and server crashes

[Bradley Caricofe]

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


  Interesting, I've got one gameserver that is continually crashing, it mus
tbe restarted almost everyday.  None of my other linux moh boxes do this,
thanks for the info I'll check my logs and see if it's something similar...
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://icculus.org/pipermail/mohaa/attachments/20021101/aba78050/attachment.htm>