Private server: can't connect

[lbalbalba]

Ive build and started my own server on Fedora 14 Linux by following the build giude, but am having troubles connecting it, even when running the server and the client on the same host. Ive edited 'servers.xml' like it states in the guide, ive opened port 13331 on my firewall, netstat says 'listen on UDP *:13331', and nmap says '13331/udp open|filtered', so I should be able to connect, right ? But instead, my psclient says 'Wait' in the GUI (and *eventually* it says 'Failed') instead of showing the number (representing the roundtriptime ?). I have no idea what i am doing wrong here. All tips and hints are welcome.

[Aiwendil]

Did you issue some "loadmap" and more important the "spawn" and "ready" commands on the server?

[lbalbalba]

Thanks, thats it. I cant find much information about that on the website or when I Google for it, though. Guess the psserver 'help' function will have to do.

Is there a way to automate those commands ? When I put them in a ascii file and run './psserver --run=./textfile' it doesnt run the commands in the file.

Also, the accounts that got created by running the 'create_all.sql' dont seem to work: For example, I cant login with the example user 'player1' pass 'andrew'. Do I need to issue additional commands to connect psserver to the mysql database ? Loggin into mysql on the command prompt using user planeshift pass planeshift works as expected.

[Aiwendil]

Yeah, the PS documentation is rather...thin ;). There are some docs in the wiki...but not really many and I don't think there is anything on how to get the server to work. Best available PS docu is still the sourcecode. ;)

Not sure if it matters but -run only has one "-" for me.

But more important...-run doesn't take a OS path. The parameter is a CS virtual filesystem path. Easiest way to get a text file with commands loaded is creating one in the same directory as the psserver executable and start the server with "-run=/this/<yourtextfile>"

Now to the accounts...sorry, I haven't tried this for some time so I can only guess. For me the example accounts worked in the past...but PS changed the password encryption system lately and no idea if the accounts.sql was updated accordingly. Probably best to get in IRC and ask a dev there... (also check the output of the server if there were some mysql connection problems or something like this). As far as I know there isn't any other server command needed to make the server connect to the mysql database.

[lbalbalba]

Thanks, the script works now. Although it still seems a little bit silly that you explicitly have to name each map on it's own; it would be easier if you could just say 'loadmap world.zip' or something.

Also, the guide fails to mention that you need to install the WordNet dictionaries as well. Source and binaries are available at http://wordnet.princeton.edu/wordnet/ (or, on Fedora 'yum install wordnet'). And that you need to copy the dicts: 'cp /usr/share/wordnet-3.0/dict/* ./data/dict/'. Who should I contact to get the build page updated for this ?

And it looks like you were right about the passwords as well. Fortunately, there was one userid/pass combo that worked, so I just copied the crypted strings over to the other users. Who should I contact to get that fixed ?

Thanks again.

[Aiwendil]

Let's start with the default accounts...those are defined in "src/server/database/mysql/accounts.sql". If you are able to fix this yourself just change that file accordingly and then post a "svn diff" patch on the PS bugtracker. If you, like me, aren't that fluent in sql (and especially the mysql variant) just posting a bug on the bugtracker stating the issue would be a start I guess. The files in "src/server/database/mysql/" should be GPL licensed so no big deal there.

The compile-guide is also part of the PS source code. It can be found in "docs/compiling.html". Basically it would be the same procedure if you are able to adjust that file yourself...but I see one little problem there (at least from my point of view). I have no clue what licenses applies to that file (the whole licensing model of PS is a complete mess. Apparently the source svn repository contains files from both licenses but lacks a file that states which licenses applies to what files) but given the general attitude of the PS team and seeing that this is a documentation file I can very well imagine that this file is seen as AB-License. So either you are fine with that license or you better ask someone in charge what license really applies to that file. In any case a bug with the general issue on the bugtracker should be the first step anyway. (Btw, that wordnet issue if kind of funny...because I remember the compile-guide having a paragraph on that subject. No idea why it was removed)

And there are of course always the #planeshift and #planeshift-build IRC channels on freenode if you want to get in contact with the PS team (Though those channels are pretty dead most of the time but it might be worth a try). Just poke random people with OP or Voice status in those channels...one of them should be able to direct you to the correct person (and no ranting about star wars or lilura will kick you for "bad taste" ).