Server Down?

[Andre]

I have a theory about this. It may be that the Shrapnel server hosting our Lobby server is requiring all connections to have a hostname associated with the IP address that is trying to connect. I noticed that the IP address that NightStalker is using does not have a hostname. Again, I'm not sure this is actually the problem, but it I've seen this type of behavior from servers before now that I think about it.

I've contacted a couple other users that have IP addresses w/ no associated hostname, and have not played an online game of LOL v1.0, and I hope to hear back that they can confirm the issue for themselves or disprove the theory by connecting (assuming they connect from the same IP as when they signed up). It's kind of a longshot.

NightStalker, is it possible for you to try connecting from a computer that actually has a hostname for itself? You can test this by running "ipconfig" and grabbing your IP address for the ethernet adapter in the report, then run "nslookup [YOUR_IPADDRESS]" to see if there's an associated hostname for your IP. If it does have a name for that IP, then I'm guessing you could connect from that computer.

The reason it may have worked before is that you were connecting to the server that was running on our DEV box back in the day, and not the new Shrapnel server that v1.0 is running on. This new server may be enforcing this hostname rule on a level above our application. I'm assuming you have the same internet connection/provider now that you did a few months back during the BETA when you could connect.

[Richard]

Andre,

How does your app talk to clients? Is it going through IIS? Is it a straight TCP/IP connection? We can easily change whatever configuration may be preventing this. Windows 2003 is also pretty anal on certain security things.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

We're using DirectPlay, which I believe in turn uses straight TCP/IP.

If you're right, Andre, that's the find of a century, and I owe you a big beer. =)

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Andre]

The servers use TCP/IP for connecting sending all messages. They use DirectX's DirectPlay API, and I don't remember seeing anything in DirectPlay that would cause this rule to be enforced.

I don't know which configuration setting in Windows 2003 Server this would be in, but it may also be some type of firewall setting. I'm not able to connect to the Shrapnel server right now, but I can get the port numbers for the Lobby and Game server if you need. Right now I get the user limit exceeded error when I try to login via Remote Desktop.

[Richard]

Yep I was in checking something out, I am out now. Check it out and let me know. Drop me an email before you change anything though.

Good find Andre!

[Andre]

No luck. What's strange is I can ping his IP address, and it does actually have a hostname, but I can't complete a traceroute on it, which may be more of the actual problem.

It stops after hitting the cv.net network:
dstswr1-ge3-1.rh.bbylny.cv.net [167.206.33.130]

And it should at some point get to optonline.net to get to here:
ool-18bbe065.dyn.optonline.net [24.187.224.101]

So maybe there's some sort of firewall outside of his LAN that he has no control over. Whatever the reason, it seems to be outside the scope of Shrapnel's box.

I imagine that there's port filtering or a proxy there where the problem is. It needs to allow the ports that LOL uses: 1337 (Lobby Server), 21337 (Game Server)

NightStalker, can you check this out with your ISP or whoever runs your gateway network?

[Sammas]

Could it be related to the 3rd-Level / Cogent de-peering thingy?

[NightStalker]

i tried to manually open up those ports on my router but that still didnt seem to make anything work