Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Thanks for spenfing time to fix your server, llamabeast.

Are you sure it's completely well at the moment though?

For the 'Smack' game, it said:
Since all the turns were in, I did a force host, but the turn I got said 'Stale turn'.

In addition, the status page has not changed at all, neither has the 'staling info' page, and the timestamps are a bit off:

Apologies if it's something I've done wrong.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Hmm, looks like it isn't 100%, doesn't it? Certainly the "last updated" time isn't too promising.

Unfortunately, it has chosen two ridiculously busy weeks to die in, so I keep on trying to work out what's going on in little half-hour windows before driving off somewhere, or meeting my supervisor or so on. It's particularly annoying because I can't seem to find any really good reasons for it to behave so oddly.

Anyway, I shall have some more attacks on its recalcitrance this afternoon and tonight.

Over the weekend I should have lots of time, and I'm going to try to get it close to bugless again and add some long-standing suggestions.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Mmh. I'm sorry to bring another issue to your attention, about the llamaserver. The postpone hosting function is not working, at least for me. Several hours have passed but the page isn't updating.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Right, okay, another fix. It had got stuck, and in fact wasn't doing anything. I think now it will have done all the admin requests people made, possibly repeatedly if they made them more than once!

I'm now not aware of any remaining bugs, so let me know if you see any more fishy things happen.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

great work llama

i think the status pages aren't quite right - so, similar to VFB's issue, I notice that in the game DeadlyMedley2 the status page says that it has received Helheim's turn, when I most assuredly have not sent it in yet. So, this would seem to be another false positive 2h file received report. The games don't host, as they haven't actually received the turns, but the status pages get confused for some reason.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

I'd think it a good idea to resend any 2h file that you haven't gotten a confirmation for yet. Also, may be a good idea just to be safe, to resubmit turns for any game you are in that hasn't hosted yet.

Just a thought. :P

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

well, I think the real lesson atm is not to force host just because you think all the turns have been submitted... wait for the normal hosting time :)

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Llama...

Apparently my turn in Byleswar crashed the game, I have no idea why, what is the usual way for me to remedy my turn in situations like this?

Thanks

PS. If you can set me to admin the Buggy1 game I would appreciate it, the original host left the game, check the Buggy thread for confirmation from the other players that this is ok.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Some games crashed, in fact because the hard disk was nearly full (though obviously it didn't tell me that, so it took me a while to figure it out). I've cleared some space now, so they're fine again.

LlamaServer believed fixed
 

Hi all,

Okay, it's been ridiculously messy (there was quite a startling confluence of bad luck and several separate issues reared their heads for the first time over the last week), but I believe the LlamaServer is now happily up and running on its new home. I'm not aware of any remaining issues, but please do inform me if you come across any. Also please let me know if there's anything you've asked me to do by PM or anything and I haven't done it - I've now cleared my PM list, so if I haven't done it, I must somehow have forgotten it.

Thanks very much for your patience everyone - the downtime's been more than a week, which I know is a long time when you're waiting for your turn!

Re: LlamaServer believed fixed
 

This thread appears to have been closed by a moderator; I'd prefer if it were left open as a single location for bug reports over the next day or two, so I've opened it again.

Re: LlamaServer believed fixed
 

In that case, I'll merge it with the llamabeast bug report thread... :P

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Our game is not longer on the Server?

It is on the list but it says it isnt a real game.


Game
SKIRMISH


Bdoc

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Collider appears to be gone as well. Got a message back after my turn submission saying I had submitted a turn for an unknown game.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Never mind... I'm an idiot. I was trying to send it my mid-marignon turn from another game.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

so are games disappearing or what? is it fixed yet?

i've postponed bonsaikitten until we know for sure whats happening.

can someone confirm one way or the other?

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Gotta wait for llama to look into it.

Re: Llamaserver: I´m being mailbombed!
 

Bugger. Seems I'm cursed.

Yeah, it looks like every game hosting is getting "Något gick fel! LoadBattleMap: can't open file", and I'm not sure why yet. After failing to host twice they disappear. Hmm.

Well anyway, I can undisappear them easily enough, I just have to work out why it's crashing.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Okay, for the moment I've turned hosting off until I can fix it.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Okay, hosting is back on. Oddly, every time I hosted it by hand it was fine. So, my theory is that for reasons not worth investigating, it works fine when the user is me, and not when the user is "root", which it is when running it as scheduled. So, I've set the scheduled jobs to run as me instead. This brings back dim memories of doing something similar on the last server, though I'm not sure.

I've restored all the games that crashed while I was asleep.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

You're running things as root? :shock: That's always a bad idea!

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Well actually I'm not sure - whatever cron does by default. I guess that probably is root? Does seem a bit dodgy I agree!

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

cron runs as the user for which you edited the crontab settings.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I don't think that's quite right. I think there's an overall cron, and a cron for each user. I've been doing "crontab -e", and I'm fairly sure that one doesn't run as me.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Maybe I should have written "cron runs programs as the user for which you edited the crontab settings". The cron daemon itself runs as root, of course, but programs from the user's crontab entries are of course run as the user.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Victoria hosting has crashed and the game's page on the server has vanished :(

The game page (http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Victoria) now says: "Sorry, this isn't a real game. Have you been messing with my URL?"

I saw the same messages for artifacts game earlier today but later the issue was fixed.
Victoria needs to same magic touch.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Same thing with Stasis game. I submitted my turn and received an email saying that Dominions crashed with "Nagot gick fel" error. After that the game page just disappeared.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Interestingly enough I got this email from llamaserver as well even though I'm not in stasis anymore and haven't been for a while.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I'm not sure at all how the llamaserver functions, but it might be that if something is run with different user rights, and the access restrictions aren't allowing access to the files anymore, then it could be that the webserver just doesn't have access to the files anymore. In regards to the "root" user that has been mentioned here.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Aaaagh! This is getting ridiculous! It actually knows when I go out!

I sat in the house for about 5 hours this morning, and everything was fine. I went out for about an hour and a half, and about four games crashed.

Now I am stumped. First I thought it was lack of disk space, then I thought it was running as the wrong user. But it seems it's neither. The error is:

Något gick fel!
LoadBattleMap: can't open file
Något gick fel!
LoadBattleMap: can't open file

I'm pretty sure the battle maps are all fine, but more strangely it always works fine when I rehost the games myself. Any ideas are welcome.

Anyway, I'm going out to the fireworks, so I am going to have to turn hosting off again. Also, apologies to those whose games have crashed/disappeared. Hopefully I can sort this out finally tomorrow.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Ow one thing,

I've not been playing on your server for a while but I got some message about the Jotunland game (I guess I started that once, can't even remember though). Not that I mind (it was just one message) but players that are out shouldn't get messages. (not a thing for now I guess since it seems you have more problems on you hand, but maybe when things cool down this little bug could be attacked and killed.)

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I got an email a while ago about a game that finished where I've only subbed one turn in, I think, too.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Is there a thread for new OPEN games on llama?

I want to join one.

Bdoc

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

"Games waiting for pretenders" on the llamaserver.net index page, maybe.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I think the errors can come from one of two reasons, insufficient permissions or different environment settings. I don't know on which OS the server is running but in Unix terms I'd say you either rule out possible permissions problem or .bashrc/.profile etc that cause some shell variable to have an undesired value.
Key questions:
1. What map file can't be loaded?
2. What is path to map file?
3. Who/What is running the process of hosting?
4. What does dom -ddd have to say about all this?- i.e. in what path does it search for the file?- Why can't it open it?
5. Can you run diagnostic commands the same you way you run the hosting?- For example, observe whether commands such as
succeed.

Or give full permissions to files and check if it make a difference.

HTH,
WL

Oh and not to forget, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR EFFORT!

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I'm sorry to be the bringer of even more bad news :(

This time its qwerty. I've received two concerning emails from the server.
The first, "Qwerty: Turn 65 received for C'tis" I have received although I have most definitely not sent any turn file.
The second, "Warning: The LlamaServer can only process one 2h file per e-mail" is inexplicable to me.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Hmmm, I don't understand that at all. For the moment I'll ignore it, in the hope that it was a one-off glitch.

Thanks for your post above, WraithLord, that was handy to give my thoughts some structure. I think I may possibly have fixed it by changing the working directory of the cron job. However, that makes no sense at all, so if it fails again I will have to think further, and perhaps I'll post the environment variables and stuff here to see if anyone has any ideas. The last three hostings have been successful though, which is reassuring, but then again it was an intermittent fault so it's hard to be sure it means anything.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Well I guess if hosting manually works then the error is either in the script or in its setup.

Does the llamaserver script set or need any path variables that might affect dominions?

Have you tried to start the part of the script that does the turns manually (as opposed to hosting manually or letting the whole script autostart every x minutes)?

Have you tried to make another small script to host a game?

Did you change anything during the setup of the new llamaserver?

Have you installed a newer version of perl that maybe has some changes that ****s up llamaserver?


Well, I hope you sort this out and really thank you for that cool server and all your efforts. :happy:

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Oh, and to lch, you were right about cron, and I was running it as me all along. You're quite right, of course, that running as root would be madness.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

IlluminatedOne - the LlamaServer consists of one master script, goLlamaServer, which runs every five minutes, and itself calls a load of other scripts, one of which is responsible for hosting games. But the very curious thing is that when I've been "hosting manually", I've in fact just been running goLlamaServer, i.e. doing exactly the same thing as the cron job does.

So, my current thinking is that the only possible difference is in the environment variables. Is that true, or am I missing something? The thing is that none of the environment variables look like they should matter.

As for changing anything in setting up the new LlamaServer - not explicitly, but there are always things you might miss. The basic server stuff is all in two folders (a llamaServer folder with the scripts and a dominions3 folder with all the data), but then of course I guess there's the possibility of other aspects of the system being different.

This is all a bit annoying in that it all falls into that category of computer errors where you can't help but respond "This CAN'T not work. There can be no logical explanation for this. I must be cursed.". Which of course always turns out not to be true in the end, but can feel very convincing at the time!

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I see that Victoria game page has been restored. Is it possible to restore the Stasis game as well?

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

My experience is that cron can hiccup if you get too much text output. So if you have text output from the scripts that might be the problem.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

ano - sure, sorry, I'd missed that it had gone.

JK - thanks for that.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

If you don't need the text output just redirect it to /dev/null
you could redirect stdout by using cmd > /dev/null, stdout and stderr by cmd >& /dev/null that is if you're uusing sh or bash. Other shells have similar concept but possibly slightly different syntax.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

At the moment I've got "&> log", where log is a log file. So I guess probably that would sidestep the issue?

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Are you running on an NFS-mounted drive?

Also what do you think of making your cron create a lock file so your server is only ever running one game at a time? You could write a little C program to exec dom to do that, and wrap the exec call with an open() of the lock file with O_CREAT+O_EXCL flags.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Er, NFS? Knowledge fail by me.

It only runs one game at a time, although I didn't quite follow that about the lock flags. It just makes a file when it starts hosting, and deletes it when it's finished, and only starts if the file doesn't already exist. There's actually like a bazillion checks and stuff in there, added incrementally to make things more robust. Still, suggestions are always welcome.

No crashes over the last 7 or 8 hostings. Could it be... working? Who can say? Presumably it will go mad as soon as I go to bed.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

Llama, I'm afraid that you are going to have to stay awake and at the machine at all times. It appears it does not like it when you leave. Sounds a bit like a cat.

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

i think we're going to need electrodes that can be accessed from the server status pages :)

Re: LlamaServer: status and bug reports
 

I thought you might have network-mounted some additional drive space using NFS, since earlier you said it ran out. But if you're not sure, then it's pretty unlikely you're using it. :)

Using open() just makes the file existence check and creation atomic. You can probably do it from perl or php or some other scripting lang.

If you've just got a script that does Then there is a chance two copies can execute at the same time if both do the check first before touching the lock file.

And when the first one finishes, it will remove the lock file while the other is still running, allowing another to start, etc.

But it would be a really rare problem I think, so it's unlikely to have caused what you're dealing with now.