Linux, ArmA and Servers, Oh my

[Skyenet 1]

So, after that slightly imaginative title to catch your eye, I'll lay it out.

I am a complete utter linux noob. Hence, for the purposes of this thread, assume you are talking to your grandmother who thinks that the big box is the harddrive and that Linux is a disease you catch if you're outside in the rain... Or something.

Anyway, the tiny clan I am a part of have gotten interested in ArmA2, and find outselves in need of a server. Luckily, I happen to have a VPS that might serve our needs, so we (read: I) don't have to shell out for a game server provider to set it up for us. The problem is that it runs CentOS, and nothing else, which means I have to delve into the deep and dark hole that is Linux. So far, it's not been going horribly. I got the game transfered, I got the server installed, and I can start the server. But then, nothing happens. I've opened ports left and right, I've set up the server.cfg and edited arma2oaserver, I've restarted it, I've banged my head against it (Figuratively, I live in Northern Norway, the server is in Germany. I may have a huge ego, but not even my ego reaches to Germany), and it won't appear in the server list.

Then I noticed that my log file was somewhere in the vicinity of 20 MBs. So I killed the server, deleted the log file and then started the server up again and let it run for ten minutes.

So, without further bad jokes, here are the server.cfg, the arma2oaserver and the log file after 10 minutes, on pastebin for your convenience:

Actually, apparently I'm not allowed to post links until I have a post. So I'll try editing them in, if not, I'll just double post and hope I don't get burned at the stake.

Log file

arma2oaserver

server.cfg

Also, I should note, the log file has had duplicates removed.

On a second note: Running the server for 10 minutes created about 12 200MB files called core.XXXXXX (Xs being numbers). I assume this is not normal, anyone know why?

Edited April 26, 2012 by Skyenet

[Banshee 9]

Are you running a 64- or 32-Bit OS?

What version of CentOS are you using?

Please also check this: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Dedicated_Server#Linux

[Skyenet 1]

Are you running a 64- or 32-Bit OS?

What version of CentOS are you using?

Please also check this: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Dedicated_Server#Linux

I am running CentOS 5.6, 32-bit. My homesetup, on which the ArmA2 was originally installed then transfered to the server, is a 64-bit system, Windows 7, if that matters.

Also, on that note, I found a few things I had forgotten, so I redid the arma2oa.cfg,the arma2oaserver and the serve.cfg, and edited the player.arma2profile because I had forgotten that earlier. I still get the same massive amounts of errors and server restarts.

[killswitch 19]

I am running CentOS 5.6, 32-bit. My homesetup, on which the ArmA2 was originally installed then transfered to the server, is a 64-bit system, Windows 7, if that matters.

Also, on that note, I found a few things I had forgotten, so I redid the arma2oa.cfg,the arma2oaserver and the serve.cfg, and edited the player.arma2profile because I had forgotten that earlier. I still get the same massive amounts of errors and server restarts.

CentOS? ArmA II server keeps restarting? Lots of files named core.XXXXX being created? Yep, I have a sneaky suspicion. :-) Try disabling BattlEye in the server.cfg for a moment and restart the ArmA II server. If that solves the continously restarting server issue, the problem is most likely SELinux being in the enforcing state. It will notice BE doing something that's not allowed by the default SELinux policies and thus prevents the server from running. This then leads to a crash, wich causes the core dump files ("core.XXXXX") you are seeing. Should this be the case, that is, disabling BattlEye in the config lets you start the server, try setting SELinux into permissive mode and try the ArmA II server again (with BattlEye enabled again).

So, how do you switch SELinux between different modes? Say hello to the setenforce command. As root, run

setenforce 0

This will put SELinux in permissive mode until the next reboot. Enable BattlEye in the server.cfg again and try running the game server again. You can then set it back to enforcing mode after the gaming session using

setenforce 1

(as root) afterwards.

Now, we have a bit of a Catch-22. You want SELinux for protection, but you also want to be able to use BattlEye for your ArmA II game server. How to keep SELinux enabled (enforcing), yet allow the ArmA II server and BattlEye to do their thing? Short of creating a custom SELinux policy for the ArmA II server, you could make use of an existing security context type that will allow this. As root, set the SELinux file type to java_exec_t for the dedicated server executable ("server"):

chcon -t java_exec_t /path/to/arma2/server

Also, you should make sure you don't have the PMC or BAF mod folders on the server. They are not needed and having them there will cause errors.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Killswitch