Ofc 0 Posted February 11, 2003 Currently operating a Linux Dedicated Server. Operation Flashpoint was uploaded, patches 1.85b and 1.90f installed and it appears to work. However, after anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours while mid game the server crashes and the game needs started up again. Everything appears normal however so I'm presuming its a patch issue or one wasn't installed? Any help is appreciated. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
benu 1 Posted February 11, 2003 We had a player crashing the server 3 times last week. Whenever he connected there was "player ... connecting"... the "player ... connected" never came. Server went down a few seconds later. The guy came back two times, both times the server crashed. Happened with linux dedi 1.90f which ran for a long time without problems before that incident. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
joltan 0 Posted February 11, 2003 It's the XML - it happened on our server twice. First to another user and then to myself. Without having (knowingly) changed anything we crashed the server whenever we tried to connect. Removing the XML entry from the userinfo.cfg was all that was needed to resolve this... The curious thing is that it worked fine before - same XML, same hosting site, same config entry - neither had been changed in more than a month, during wich it worked perfectly with the linux server. Also connecting to a Windows server worked without problems. Seems like the XML bug still prevails. Unfortunately I deleted the XML files and the user entry in the way of finding the cause of the problem, so I couldn't send the files to BIS for examination. Server is 1.90f, too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ofc 0 Posted February 12, 2003 I appreciate your assistance in the issue. I did as stated and removed the squad="" and any links that may have been included in the userinfo.cfg files in any user folders. However the linux server has still had a few game terminations still. Is there any other solution you may know of, or is this purely a result of players having some sort of unfriendly XML in use and possibly from 1.85 players connecting... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whisperFFW06 0 Posted February 12, 2003 We do not have crash, everything was running fine until 2 weeks ago, the server experienced freezing (server does not respond, connections are impossible, but the process is still running on th Linux box), at least once per day, like we had be4 1.90f. One thing that has changed at the time freezing began t appear was new addons installed on server, including Comanche. I first though it was the comanche, so I removed it, but still freezes, so it is not this addons. I've removed yesterday all addons added in the last 3 weeks, I'm waiting to see ifi the server freezes once more. Other than that, I don't see anything changed which could have affect freezings. The situations where the server goes down are various, all kind of missions, any number of players, etc.... I did not check players and squad directories in tmpxxx directories. I'll let an update on the results. Whis' Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
joltan 0 Posted February 12, 2003 Well, we have had 1-2 missions crashing the server in a way like Whisper descibed it - I had to connect to the shell and kill the server manually to get it up again. The missions run fine on windows machines and they were using Addons (both were Nam missions, not sure if any other addons were used or if it is addons related at all, as the Nam pack runs stable with our other missions). This is completely unrelated to the XML crashes though, as I described them in my other posting above. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ofc 0 Posted February 12, 2003 It's definitely not the usual map or xml crashing problem. The server religiously terminates within 15-20 minutes while in game.. even the second game installed on the server also does the same thing. Starting to resemble a server side problem. Thanks for you input gentlemen. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
H-Milch1 0 Posted February 14, 2003 Same problem here! Server crashes very soon when some players are on it! We use SUSE 8.1.... Can someone help PLEASE! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Skunk Monkey 0 Posted February 14, 2003 Bug confirmed for us on SES, running Slackware Linux. xml's that were previosly fine crash the server, it must be shutdown and restarted from the command line. I'm trying to get the xml address from the player and a copy of his userinfo.cfg which I will send to BIS with the hope that they can find out why. There was a major xml bug with earlier linux versions but this does seem VERY limited bug. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whisperFFW06 0 Posted February 17, 2003 Having problems with players connecting (different issue, described above), I did something which could be usefull for you, but it blocks XML downloading. I used iptables (featured in Linux Vers 2.4 min) to block outgoing HTTP requests : iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-port-unreachable This is in fact the same solution used on Win ded servers when XML issues appeared, using firewall. So far, it works fine, we have been able to play w/ 24 pple and many connexions/disconnexions w/out server hanging, which was not the case since the bug reappeared. I'll keep you informed in case the "solution" finally does not work. Whis' Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shrike 0 Posted February 17, 2003 Now that you mention it...We have been experiencing lots of crashes lately, too. It started about 3 weeks ago. What I don't get is that before it was very stable, the OFP server was up for 4 or 5 days in a row without restarting. Now, all of a sudden it keeps crashing although we did not change a single bit on the server installation... Whatever the reason may be...why did it start now anyway? If find it very odd that nobody heard a complain from Linux server admins for a long time after the release of 1.90f beta. Now everybody is reporting the same/similar problem, and for all of us it started around 2-3 weeks ago... What could a player possibily change in his OFP installation that crashes the server? And it is getting worse, crashes seem to appear more often now, e.g. yesterday night on Zeus...5 total crashes in 1 hour which also meant from 34 to 3 players in one hour...highly frustrating at least! Maybe it's time for a Linux 1.91 release server...any heads up on this, BIS? While you're there, please look into the lag/desync spikes caused by connecting players. I know the problem exists on Win32 as well but the effect on gameplay is less obvious. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Skunk Monkey 0 Posted February 18, 2003 We have traced the problem to bad XML's. Well XML's that did work, but now dont, I'm hoping to send BIS all the info I have. As soon as the players concerned send me there XML address and userinfo.cfg. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
H-Milch1 0 Posted March 19, 2003 We have still this problem! Any solution? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whisperFFW06 0 Posted March 19, 2003 Read my reply about iptables for a temporary solution. Works fine for my server. No crash since iptables has been set up. Whis' Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shrike 0 Posted March 19, 2003 Can you explain to a Linux newbie where to put that iptable thingy? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whisperFFW06 0 Posted March 19, 2003 Windows version of OFP ded server has been subject to the same kind of XML parsing error, and a solution used by that time was to set up a firewall on the server to block the http queries initiated by the server to get the xml files, so that the file never reaches the server and is never parsed. A firewall is present under Linux for Linux Version 2.4 and later, it is called iptables. Basically, you set up rules for incoming, outgoing and traversing packets on your server (ie : from this IP to this IP, with this port, do that, or that, etc...) The goal is to stop http (port 80) request to get out of the server. As root, type the following command : iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-port-unreachable This should work. To check the rules, type iptables -L you should have something like : </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[root@pingzero root]# iptables -L Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination REJECT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:http reject-with icmp-port-unreachable <span id='postcolor'> Take care, this blocks any http request from the server. If you, like me, use wget to get files from URLs, you should add something to permit a single user to make outgoing http requests (a user different from the one launching OFP). Hope this helps. Whis' Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shrike 0 Posted March 20, 2003 Thank you very much! I guess that would mean that our nice server query tool relying on Apache would stop to work wouldn't it? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whisperFFW06 0 Posted March 20, 2003 If the Apache server is on the same machine than the OFP server, then yes, it will be blcked. You then have to add the user checking part of the filter (ie make a rule which blocks outgoing http request by the user would launched ofp server), and launch the apache server with another user. I don't have the user check command in mind, I'll try to find. Whis' Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
