[Gandalf Parker]

magnate said:
and hosted MP games on my windows box - all easy. I now want to run a server on my linux machine - one game at a time, to start with.

Hmmm one of the best reasons for running Dom2 host under linux is the easy interfacing with web, email, ftp, /etc /etc. If all you are going to do it host then windows is easier. Just a comment.

I've searched this forum and dom2minions.com but I can't find a howto for setting up a standalone server. My linux box does not run X-windows, so I'll be running the server from the command line. Some questions are:

Good move. I try to avoid loading gui on any server.

1. Do I need to do a full install of Dom2 to run a standalone server from the command line?

If you mean full vs demo, no. The demo will host at demo level. If you mean full copy of your full version of Dom2 then I think its yes. I never experimented with that. But it doesnt take up much room.

1b. If I do need to do a full install, will it work given the absence of any X libraries? How do I do it?

Yes. Its more of a headache definetly but it will work.

1c. If I don't need to do a full install, which files do I need?

Hmmm I cant think of any that could be left out except maybe the documentation. Amd even then, when you go to update it its been known to get made if the docs arent there.

2. Does the server need a separate serial number from any of the client programs? (I know that each client needs a separate serial.)

Excellent question. And thank the developers that the answer is NO. The host does not check its own serial so anyone with a copy of Dom2 can host Dom2 games on another machine

3. Once I've installed it, where do I find the command line options for choosing the map file, the AI races, the game settings etc. etc.? Or can this be done with a shell script instead of a long command line?

There is a doc file that comes with it called something like command_line_switches.txt but its been known to be out of date on some things. You can use the old linux trick of doing
dom2 -help >commandswitch.txt
but thats been known to be abit out of date. Between the two you usually get everything. There is a further trick to see every switch in the game but there are some they purposely didnt tell us so I dont think I should go into that here.

And yes I HIGHLY recommend scripting that monster

Gandalf Parker