Questions about running a public server

[merlijn]

Hi all,

I fell in love with nexuiz a couple months back and have my own public dedicated server running for about a month now. It can be found on 81.173.19.154:26000 and it is located at a 1Gbps connection in Amsterdam, Holland.

With the administration of my server I am having a couple of issues. It would be really nice if someone could point me in the right direction.

[b]Kicking/banning[/b]
For some strange reason this just doesn't work. I identify with rcon_password, and after that "rcon kick/kickban <username>" simply does nothing. I have no clue where to find logs, but this is annoying.

[b]Bots[/b]
Obviously my server is not occupied 24/7, and when the server is empty, there is little fun in playing, so the server remains empty. I'd like a little script or some setting where I can define that bots should join when there is very little people playing. A reasonable setting would seem to add bots until there is 4 people playing.

[b]Exceptions for joining[/b]
On other occasions the server is full, and I would like to be able to always join my own server. As I am currently the only admin, I cannot be bothered that this would cause going over the maxplayers limit or that this would cause another user to be kicked.

I'd love to hear any suggestions on how to tackle these problems.

Merlijn

[-z-]

[b]kick/kickbans[/b]
For kicks/kickbans, you must pass the status # of the user. Do this by typing 'status' in the console (shift+esc). The syntax is like: kick # 4


[b]Bots[/b]
'[b]minplayers[/b]' is just like bots but they leave when people join :). Thy syntax is like: minplayers 4


[b]Exceptions for joining[/b]
I'm not sure what to do about this, perhaps mkzelda, Dokujisan, johngalt or another can assist you.


This tool might help you with future questions: [url]http://www.nexuizninjaz.com/toolz/cvar[/url]

[mkzelda]

While a terrific request, as far as I know you cannot force a username/ip passthrough to the server. Your options are as follows:

A) Add Green Marine's touney code, so that you may have a higher number of connections than playable slots. This way you could allow 32 people to join your server, but only 16 may play at a time. This only fixes the problem until your server is so popular that 32 people continuously stay on your server. I'd say continue to raise the limit until you cannot anymore, then fall back to...

B) Administer your server from server process in console. Add a higher (tourney) maxplayer value temporarily or kick some idlers. (Stock maxplayers cannot be changed without restarting the server, but tourney max players can change on the fly.)

Thats not the answer you were looking for, but perhaps it will become a feature in the future.


Also, just to clarify, Z gave you solid advice about minplayers. Make sure you use that instead of botnumber.

[merlijn]

Such good answers in such a short time, wonderful!

That kicking has weird syntax, but now it works at least. Though I am quite sure I read that it also supports using names.

That minplayers sounds like what I was looking for, will check it out, thanks!

mkzelda: You are quite right that that is not the response I was hoping for. While option B should work, it is very user-unfriendly. Option A is a no-go as far as I can tell. The reason I am currently limiting the maxplayers is because of traffic limits (I have about 200gb/month reserved for nexuiz). As spectating users also cause a significant amount of traffic, this is not a good idea.

When I have some spare time one of these weeks, I will try to have a look at the code and see if I can hack in something that would support connecting with `connect ip:port <rcon_password>` and if the rcon password checks out, maxplayers is ignored. If you happen to be able to give me some pointers on where to look in the code, that would be very helpful.

Would it be possible to automatically kick idlers that don't play for let's say 5 minutes?

Also another issue I came across is people flooding or spamming with text. And as a minor issue the use of faul language. Are there any scripts available or would it be possible to create a script that checks this, and warns/kicks when needed?

Merlijn

[-z-]

Concerning the code you're looking for, from svn, the folder '[b]Nexuiz/data/qcsrc/server[/b]' should have what you need. I can't really tell you much more past that.

As for the flooding. I know johngalt has a script but I'm not sure where you can obtain a copy. Perhaps you can ask him personally. If you (or anyone for that matter) has a copy, please let me know, I'd like to add it to the NN servers as well.

This answer is true for the auto kick idlers script as well.


Side Note: I'm not sure why these features aren't checked into svn...

[pavlvs]

For flood/spam control, use the (not very well documented) g_chat_flood_* variables. Some playing around with them shoiuld reveal what they do.

As for specific language control, you'd need to go into the server code.

[-z-]

Thanks pavlvs. For convenience: [url]http://www.nexuizninjaz.com/toolz/cvar/index.php?search=g_chat_flood[/url]

[pavlvs]

Ah what nice documentation!

[JohnGalt]

The idle-kick was a terrible, terrible hack on my part that was mostly alleviated by adding the tourney code. Idlers now no longer take up a playable slot, and masters may kick long-time idlers if even those spec slots start to fill up.

Hope that clears some of that up :)

[esteel]

iirc kick can use both, names or # ID.. but for the name it needs to be exact and has problems if players were to use the same name. I think now that Nexuiz/Docs/server seems to be quite ok, i think i should rewrite my server guide to be more hintful in such admin related questions..