Looking for someone to run XTA server

[knorke]

We used to play on "semprini" host, run by jools.
Thar was nice, but recently started to lag and disconnect and now it just disappeared completly.

Other host is "Helium" host run by Licho but it has problems too, the game ends after 3 minutes ingame. (players get "reconnecting" timeout, after 120s game closes)
If I understood Licho correctly, that can be fixed by restarting. But restarting is not always possible since it would also drop all zK players.

So if anyone has experience with running hosts for spring, would be nice to have a reliable XTA host. Please respond so we can discuss details etc.

[Licho]

It is caused by it using non standard 94.1 host, because standard one does not exit properly...

I can:

1) let it use 94.1 (can fail to exit)
2) switch you to 91.0
3) switch you to some 95.x build

[Silentwings]

might help: its true that a 94.1 host will sometimes not exit cleanly, but when it doesn't if you !stop it (idk what the springie command for this is) then as far as i can tell it has the same effect as having exited properly.

[knorke]

Old 91 or 95 test version are not so good, so "1) let it use 94.1" it is.
"Fail to to exit" means the host host does not close or just something minor like not reporting results/uploading replay?

Not automatically exiting would still be better than exiting too early i think since with early exit it is unusable.
Maybe put in welcome message: "if host does not close after game, type !exit"

[Silentwings]

on spads the host will (sometimes) stay ingame, not report results & not upload replay, but once !stopped it will do all those things. i guess springie is the same but not tested.

[Licho]

Ok i will switch it to true 94.1

[Jools]

Was too lazy to comment, but I should say that semprini is running spads (testing release), it was fine for about half a year, but lately the internet of the computer it is on has been disconnecting periodically. I have no idea why it happens, and ISP says all is fine.

Anyway, if someone wants to host this, I can help with setting it up. Just the host files (spads files) take up like 77 mb, but I have a lot of backups there. The bandwidth it uses is not large at all, but I don't have any numbers on that. Spads is written in perl and I run it in windows from Windows Powershell (actually it's automated as a service, but the basic way to run it is from command prompt).

The of course I have all the games (mods) and maps, maps take about 15 Gb, but you can also o without those, as spads supports ghost maps.

Spads suppports a lot of configurations, the commands are available here:

http://planetspads.free.fr/spads/doc/spadsDoc.html

Just as a side note: I logged in to the router that controls semprini and did a "Reset ADSL line" thing. Now it hasn't disconnected for like 30 minutes. Maybe that could have fixed it, but I think it's too early to say anything yet...

[Jools]

Just as a side note: I logged in to the router that controls semprini and did a "Reset ADSL line" thing. Now it hasn't disconnected for like 30 minutes. Maybe that could have fixed it, but I think it's too early to say anything yet...

I realise that sounds like a smoker saying he's quit smoking. And when asked how long he's not been smoking, says: 1 day.

[knorke]

Helium seems to work so far, does not even require !exit after game.
But can it be made to upload replays to replays.springrts.com?
And it is a bit annoying that after !start every player has to do !vote y, even if everybody is already ready.
When all players are readied up, it can just launch game on !start if that is possible.
Similiar !map would be fine if it requires less voting.

Usually one player sets up map,boxes etc and everybody else is watching harlem shake videos, so the required voting makes everything slooooooooow.

[dansan]

Use "!boss <user>" to give someone the power to make all settings. Remove power with "!boss".

[Jools]

The uploading replays is a spads thing. Can it be brought to springie too?

[dansan]

The upload is actually done by a python script (replay_upload.py, README.replay-upload) that is called by spads. Afaik springie doesn't do something like that atm. But Licho once told me, that it's just a matter of extending springieinterface->battleresult->handler to do the same in C# or to also call the python script.

[knorke]

I played testgames with abma on Helium host and we desynced.
Then we did
!setengine 94.1
and it worked.

Maybe after "reset" that Licho did it was set to wrong version?

Can the welcome of Helium be changed to:

Welcome to Springie 2.0.0.2401, automated host. For help say !help For more info see http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=30526
So that players know what to do if it resets again.

---

Apart from all it would still be cool to find a real dedicated XTA host.
The work from Licho etc is appreciated but for example that host can not restarted if zk servers are busy etc, that is not so good.

[dansan]

You can run it on my server. Currently it hosts a springfiles mirror (spring1.admin-box.com), a battlelobby-relay and the replays site. The relay is mostly down, because it doesn't have a init-script and isn't really needed, as there are enough relays up atm.

As it is a springfiles mirror, most maps are already there. To conserve disk space can you maybe just (sym)link them?

Backup is done via rsync by abma and me to our home servers, as the official backup server is reserved for the commercial stuff from the other VMs. You can have a SSH-login, and do the same.... and actually do all the administration yourself.

I'm busy this week. I can prepare everything this weekend. Please PM me your email address and if you have a PGP-key.

[Jools]

Are maps and mods in the same directory structure? as in dir/maps and dir/mods, where dir = directory name? If so, it's probably possible to just set that directory in spads.

[dansan]

Yes, they are, but they are called ..../games/ and ..../spring-maps/.

[knorke]

thanks for the offer, dansan.
I hope you and jools will manage to setup a host :)

---

The XTA Helium host STILL keeps reverting itself to old mod version.
Every time I log in, it is set to old version.
I do !rehost !setengine, games are played, everything is fine - then next day it is has reverted.
This was just a few hours ago:
(extract from chat)

[17:11] <[2up]knorke> every time i log in, Helium has reverted itself to 9.728 version @ Licho
[17:12] <[2up]knorke> does it need a save command or something after rehost
[17:12] <Licho> we need to add that command
[17:13] <Licho> or it needs to be written into database
[17:13] <[2up]knorke> why cant there be automagic save after rehost :/
[17:14] <KingRaptor> is this an XTA host?
[17:14] <Licho> there could be we just never needed it because we either have automated on rapid tag
[17:14] <Licho> or manual
[17:14] <KingRaptor> it doesn't show up in my DB list o_O
[17:14] <KingRaptor> oh it does
[17:14] <KingRaptor> just AutoUpdateRapidTag is null for some reason
[17:14] <[2up]knorke> the name is "Helium" and Helium1 etc
[17:15] <[2up]knorke> correct mod version is http://packages.springrts.com/builds/xta-9.729.sdz
[17:15] <[2up]knorke> licho: xta rapid thing is automated too, with {version blabla} on svn, like zk

KingRaptor then did something and host was set to correct version.
Not sure if he just did !rehost or if something was "written into database" like Licho said is required
Either way, 6 hours later the host is on wrong version again.
Like this the host is unusable.

[Licho]

Well fix your rapid stuff and stop whining.

If you used rapid correctly it could be set to use rapid tag you choose.

If you dont use rapid we have to manually change the host..

Atm its set to xta:latest so make sure that is what you want...

[knorke]

Atm its set to xta:latest

On http://springrts.com/wiki/Rapid#prepari ... repository it says mod releases made like http://code.google.com/p/xta-springrts/ ... tail?r=369 will be named xyz:stable
So maybe it must be xta:stable?

If you used rapid correctly it could be set to use rapid tag you choose.

What excactly is wrong?

[Licho]

->it was set to xta:latest
->then someone complained they want OLDER version of XTA
-> we disabled auto update of rapid tag and set it in db

Here is start of your issues..
If its xta:stable i can set it to xta:stable just make sure it is what you want..