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<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></BODY></HTML>