New & raw web based Dominion II game server

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Originally posted by PhilD:
OK, I'm feeling stupid this morning.

I started a game, and the site tells me it's fine, running on port 2350 and all...

But I cannot find an IP address to connect to. Did I miss something, or is there, somewhere, a Dominions 2 server that's accepting connections, only nobody knows where?

You may be feeling stupid, but not as much as I do The IP is now on the page (it's 80.161.86.108). Somehow I figured that people would know it's mosehansen.dk since that is where the webpage is served from. And that is wrong in so many ways...

Sorry for the inconvience... I have already joined your game, BTW. It's me playing Man. And I'm no good at this game, BTW, but I will learn :-D

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:

Sorry for the inconvience... I have already joined your game, BTW. It's me playing Man. And I'm no good at this game, BTW, but I will learn :-D

I joined as well, as Abysia. We can do a few turns if you like (I wasn't really looking for a new MP game, but since we're both in Europe and it's sunday anyway...

[PhilD]

Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:

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Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:

Sorry for the inconvience... I have already joined your game, BTW. It's me playing Man. And I'm no good at this game, BTW, but I will learn :-D

I joined as well, as Abysia. We can do a few turns if you like (I wasn't really looking for a new MP game, but since we're both in Europe and it's sunday anyway...

---

Wow, THAT was a fast game. I thought the victory conditions were "standard", and didn't check the VPs... (Is there a way on your server to use non-VP victory conditions?)

For those at home: Esben and I played a 7-turn or so game, which he won waaaay before we made contact because he had 3 VPs out of a total 6 on the map... thing is, he started with 2, and I with only 1...

[Gandalf Parker]

I was thinking that creating an actual account for each game might be simplest. Creating a game123 would allow for a game123@ email address, and a game123 upload directory, and a www.gameserver/~game123 web directory for game info. So far there isnt alot og game info you can put there but I was thinking "if you build it then some will come"

[Esben Mose Hansen]

The idea with one account pr. game is wonderful for play-by-email games. But I wouldn't want to do that from a CGI-interface: Creating accounts must for obvious reasons involve at least a sudo root operation. I would never let a CGI-script anywhere near that kind of power. Perhaps a chroot'ed approach could be found allowing for the one-accout-for-each-game approach.

As for storing game info, I use a mysql database. In there, I can do pretty much anything I want, without comprimising security. I could, e.g. store a backup for .2h files if I wished...

Another thing: Maybe it's just Sunday, but interest in this server has been quite low: Exactly one game has been created. For the current load, TCP/IP is DEFINITELY the way to go. Much easier to build/adminster than mail, and any server could run less than 5 games without sweating.

In the same vein: Feel free to pass the address of the server on to anywhere you think appropriate. The server has a limit (of currently 3), so there's no risk of overloading the server.

Also, if somebody have a pet option they just MUST have, please, don't hesitate to tell me. I havn't played all that much

Finally, response will be slow from me for an hour or so. I have a different kind of experiment underway: The making of filled chokolades.

Thanks for your interest in my little project

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
Another thing: Maybe it's just Sunday, but interest in this server has been quite low

It is ...

1. early Sunday (in the US) with many religious types in church,

2. Post-Valentine's day,

3. a 3-day weekend in the US that some adults use for mini-vacations.

Give it some time. Your server hasn't even been running publically for 24 hours yet.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
The idea with one account pr. game is wonderful for play-by-email games. But I wouldn't want to do that from a CGI-interface: Creating accounts must for obvious reasons involve at least a sudo root operation. I would never let a CGI-script anywhere near that kind of power. Perhaps a chroot'ed approach could be found allowing for the one-accout-for-each-game approach.

True enough. Actually Ive done it in the past without sudo using a passed file as a work around. CGI creates a file with the account info. CRON reads it, checks it for possible abuse info, then creates the account with the info. But in general it is considered a thing to avoid.

Of course it wouldnt be much to a system to go ahead and make 100 or so such accounts then just roll the games thru them as needed.

As for storing game info, I use a mysql database. In there, I can do pretty much anything I want, without comprimising security. I could, e.g. store a backup for .2h files if I wished...

Well pros and cons. SQL has its own drawbacks. Even in security. But then everyone should tends to know and handle the problems for their favorite softwares which is really the right way to go.

Another thing: Maybe it's just Sunday, but interest in this server has been quite low: Exactly one game has been created. For the current load, TCP/IP is DEFINITELY the way to go. Much easier to build/adminster than mail, and any server could run less than 5 games without sweating.

When I saw the memory load it required I was scared away from that direction. But later I got up the nerve to start 2 games at the same time and saw that it handled librarys well. Most of what it loads does not get loaded for each server.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Regarding the low load & Valentine: Good point. I hadn't thought about either Valentine holidays or religious types Well, we'll just have to see what happens. However, before designing and implementing a server that could handle 100's of games, I would still like to see whether there is demand for 10's of games :-)

Cute idea with "order" file and a "fulfillment" cron job. That seems better secured than using sudo

Mysql has some nice & easy security feautures that I like But as you say, each to their own. You can certainly do anything ýou can do with databases with files, and it' seasier to do mail<->file than mail<->db.

An objective description of the SQL language would be an epithet At least the interface between Perl and Mysql is better than say C/C++ and DB/2.

Thanks for your interest... the chocolates are going through a 2nd cooling now.. next comes the bottom, and then it's back to coding

[Esben Mose Hansen]

I've uploaded a new Version of the hosting site. Most game options are now availble, though there's probably bugs. Report any you find here, please

I'll be gone working and visiting most of tommorow (2004-02-16). And now I'm going to get some sleep.

'night!

[Pillin]

Can't create a game, no error message or anything.