INFO How to make an HLDS Dedicated Server for MS:C

[Jon]

Wooo~ Hamachi

 

[PainKiller]

I am using Netgear.

 

[Slaytanic_pb]

What are these ports for?

What are these ports for and why would it help to open then in your firewall/router in order to run a dedicated server.

2300-2400
6500
1300-1400
2790

Do you need a specific port for FN in order to run a server? I haven't needed to yet, but I'm wondering if it will help clients to get connected faster to FN if it was.

 

[Thothie]

Those are all Steam related ports... No idea what they do specifically, just copied from various Steam FAQ's.

It wouldn't *hurt* to have your FN port open, but I don't think it'd help either. I'm not even sure what the FN port is anymore, but it'll be in your FN vars. (5709-5713, or whatever we're using now)

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

Also, for those stubborn router users, if it's not your computer's firewall blocking (you can easily check this with a friend and toggling your computer as DMZ[Make sure it's for short periods of time, as DMZ opens your computer to all ports and is a serious security hazard], hosting a server with it on and off. If you can host with DMZ on, then it's your router, if not, it's your computer's firewall), you can set specifically what port you want your server to connect to by going into your listenserver.cfg and typing "ms_ip [external ip]; [port]" without the quotation marks or brackets. You can get your external IP by going to http://www.ipchicken.com , and the usual port is 27015, though you can set it to anything, as long as you forward that port for TCP/UDP.
I thank my friend Jack Flack (IGN: Jack) for this information, as this is what fixed my problem with my Linksys WRT54G router.

For a computer firewall, I'm sure it'd be as easy as forwarding the same ports on it.

 

[Blasto121]

DMZ is my friend

FN is in my DMZ, though I do keep a beefy firewall on it.

 

[Picadilly]

Thothie, how do you do it?

Thothie, how do yo do it?

Today your server was full and everyone was spamming spells on Lodagond-1 without regard for safety or bodily harm. In the midst of the chaos I noticed something odd. When your server gets really overloaded, it lags waaaay out, but it doesn't crash! Our server doesn't really lag much, but it crashes hundreds of times per day. Sometimes again and again and again for no apparent reason. For example, we might have just 4 players on the_keep, and the console window will just close and reopen without any delay or error message. It might do it again and again until everyone just gives up.

We're using your AMXX hack and Server Checker. Everything else is just plain, stock.
Sever Checker's launch params are <hlds.exe -game msc -console -autoupdate -insecure -noipx -port 27017 +exec crashed.cfg>
The only thing I can guess is that Server Checker or AMXX are screwing the server up.

Obviously, we can't do anything about the crashes that are related to buffer overruns or edict allocation. But, the ninja crashes aren't happening on your server, and we want to fix them also. Do you have any suggestions?

 

[Sabre]

I was wondering the same thing, actually...From what I've been told he is running a hybrid and/or combination of AMX and AMXX; I find this true since he has an MotD and the AMXX votemap...

Surrender your AMX build to us, almighty Thothie!
\O/

 

[Thothie]

I would highly recommend NOT using the AMXX hack, and I'm getting rid of it myself, eventually. It's not vista compatible and its a lot more edict intensive than the old amx. Hummingbird never finished the bloody thing, and vanished on us.

I’m hoping we can get file read-write functions in MSC, and a delay-reconnect function, and thus remove the need for AMX altogether (just port all its functions to MSC). This is the primary reason I've not gone back to fix everything that's broke in the AMX plugins.

Only other thing I can think of is I've got an overpowered system and it's fairly stripped of services and thoroughly optimized... Granted it's also doing a lot of other stuff (isn't entirely dedicated to MSC) so I can't be sure that's it. However, I've run the HLDS on my newer laptop, and it doesn't crash anymore often there, and handles the same number of players, and it's running fricken Vista (and the older AMX), so IDK.

 

[The Man In Black]

I'm working on that Death of AMX thing, but I haven't had C++ FileIO experience, much less MSC++ :|

 

[Thothie]

Feel free to steal *cough*, I mean, learn from open source code from AMXmodX - granted, I think it's their file I/O bit that maybe making them non-Vista compatible, but I r not sure.

 

[Blasto121]

it is, the way vista reads and writes to memory locations is quite different from windows XP.

 

[Thothie]

It's a mod though... I think AMX is based entirely on engine calls, and thus, does no memory management of its own, to speak of. But I notice one of the two major phayle's the MSCAMXX system runs into under vista is writing to the crashed.cfg (can't seem to update it), and changing maps (keeps sending you to the map yer already on). One or two of the vote functions is busted too. :\

Btw, you can actually just grab the whole AMXX source over yonder (loads fine in VS2003, although I dunno about building). I'm not sure if you can grab the original AMX source anywhere, but one of the things I'd hope to rip from it is the gamma change (in vexdum) that works so much better than MSC's night effect.

 

[The Man In Black]

I don't think I'll need it - I'm over the biggest hump (reading)...Well, mostly, anyway. The game-engine read function defaults to the half-life folder, but it isn't liking me adding "msc/" (or \msc\, /msc/, msc\) to the file name. I'm just experimenting to get through it right now.

 

[Shurik3n]

try \\msc\\ or maybe just msc\\

 

[The Man In Black]

That's what I meant when I said '\msc\' and 'msc\'. Wouldn't work if they weren't \\s, as there would be many illegal escape characters ;-)

 

[The Man In Black]

Double post - Fixed it. I blame windows for naming my file test.txt.txt :|

Works for the most part, except each word is considered a separate "line".. I'll have to fix that >_>

 

[Thothie]

We'll need write functions to make ban lists that work.

 

[The Man In Black]

What does that involve other than kicking a player? I don't think we can stop a player from joining the server, as that's part of the engine function (I would think). We already have the kick function going, though ;-)

Btw, I can't test for '\n', so semicolons most now end lines for the read files :roll:

 

[Picadilly]

Thothie what are your setting in server.cfg for these variables?

sv_timeout 100

sv_minrate 5000
sv_maxrate 8000
sys_ticrate 66
sv_minupdaterate 13
sv_maxupdaterate 33
sv_proxies 0

developer 0

// sv_unlag 1
// sv_maxunlag 0.5
// sv_unlagsamples 2
// sv_unlagpush 1

 

[Thothie]

Thothie what are your setting in server.cfg for these variables?

sv_timeout 100

sv_minrate 5000
sv_maxrate 8000
sys_ticrate 66
sv_minupdaterate 13
sv_maxupdaterate 33
sv_proxies 0

developer 0

// sv_unlag 1
// sv_maxunlag 0.5
// sv_unlagsamples 2
// sv_unlagpush 1

All of those are default on mine.


My server config: (lotta stuff commented out)

rcon_password XXXXXXXX

//======== CONFIGS
//These just load the central server settings, passwords, and host name

// Standard FN Mode (FN)
exec chars_fn_standard.cfg

//Test (server side) settings
//exec chars_serverside.cfg

//FN Temporarily Down (server side) settings
//exec chars_fndown.cfg

//LAN mode
//exec chars_LAN.cfg
//======== END CONFIGS

developer 0 //<-- This is VERY important to cut down on edicts
ms_timelimit 60
sv_timeout 120
ms_allowkickvote 0
ms_votemap_type 0

// disable clients' ability to pause the server
pausable 0

//voice comm settings (hiqh quality)
sv_voiceenable 1
sv_voicequality 5
sv_voicecodec voice_speex

//allow all players to hear one another, regardless of team
sv_alltalk 1
sv_spectalk 1

//alias
alias s status

sv_downloadurl "http://www.thothie.com/hlserv"

//This does nothing on my server, cuz I'm still on the fugging modx:
custommaps "the_keep ms_wicardoven bloodrose nightmare_thornlands ms_snow ww1 lowlands unrest unrest2_beta1 pvp_archery pvp_arena ms_quest island1 ms_underworldv2 foutpost"
 
//ping booster
exec pingbooster.cfg //configures ping booster
 
//banlist
amx_addban "STEAM_0:1:7709352" 0 "kokris" //korkis/chase/vlad
amx_addban "STEAM_0:1:9922595" 0 "kokris" //korkis/chase/vlad  
amx_addban "STEAM_0:0:147446963" 0 "kokris" //korkis/chase/vlad
amx_addban "STEAM_0:1:8924387" 0 "iziakar the steeler"
banid 0 "STEAM_0:1:7709352"
banid 0 "STEAM_0:1:9922595"
banid 0 "STEAM_0:0:147446963"
banid 0 "STEAM_0:1:8924387"

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

amx_addban "STEAM_0:1:8924387" 0 "iziakar the steeler"

I lol'd

 

[Sabre]

Same xD

Also...Thothie, what did you do to get your MotD to display on your server whilst running AMXX? I'd like to know so that I can tell n00bs not to beg or ninja...Y'know...Fair warning before the banhammer strikes

 

[Picadilly]

Sabre, you can just take the mscmotd.sma from AMX (Thothie included it in the AMX section of the addons package) and compile it under AMXX. AMX is forward compatible with AMXX. But, AMXX isn't backward compatible with AMX.

 

[Thothie]

Before he abandoned us, Hummingbird integrated MOTD into his AIO AMXmodX plugin, however, he's also changed the includes, and thus the new AIO plugin is not compatible with earlier variants.

If yer still unfortunate enough to be using the AMXmodX variant, you are going to have to figure out how to code AMXmodX real quick, as you are going to need to disable the votemap say_text/console capture to work with the next release MSC.