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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Post it so we can test it</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=shockwave@clanshortfuse.com
href="mailto:shockwave@clanshortfuse.com">[-SF-]Shockwave</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=mohaa@icculus.org
href="mailto:mohaa@icculus.org">mohaa@icculus.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, September 05, 2002 10:32
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [mohaa] Server control programs
for Linux</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hello all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have been working for the last week or so on
creating a server control program for Linux. This program is written in
Perl and has been tested on a stock RedHat 7.2
Linux server. So far I have been able to do the
following:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(1) The server program launches the game
and can be used in conjunction with "screen" to allow flexibility for people
using SSH to connect to the game server remotely.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(2) A multiple line server message printed
to the game console can be automated to broadcast at regular intervals for
every player to see. This is good for advertising the server name &
IP, policies, and email of the server admin.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(3) Using the client program I wrote,
multiple users can connect to the server program via sockets and issue
commands to the server.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> (a) each user connected gets
to see the server output</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> (b) each user can see what the
other users have sent to the server</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I originally got the idea when Ryan mentioned
using named pipes and was prompted to start work on the project after I
realized that the backspace key won't work when trying to edit console
messages. I hate fat-fingering messages and not being able to correct
them. The project is still under development and all of the
settings are built into the program itself at this stage. I intend to
allow settings to be specified via configuration files so the program
code won't need to be adjusted, however I have been more focused on getting
the whole thing to actually work first. Currently I am working on the
following functionality:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>- individual dynamic filtering of server output
to clients to keep feedback uncluttered and customizable</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>- ability to easily kick players by their player
number rather than typing their names in quotes</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> (I hate trying to type in
those long names with weird characters while the server output spams my
console)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>- monitoring of team killers for warnings and
autokick</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>- ability to ban players by IP
address</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I haven't noticed any server messages that
indicate what team a player is on, but the score column seems to offer a
possible clue. I haven't thoroughly experimented with it, but it appears
that members of the same team share the same score value. If I can
separate the player list by those values while monitoring kill messages, it
might be possible to use that information together to determine if a
player has killed someone on his own team. If anyone knows of a better
way to determine this information, please contact me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If anyone has any other ideas regarding
functionality or any other suggestions I'm interested. With any luck and
barring any snags, I'll have most of it done soon.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Shockwave</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>