Use checkfile on single files

[suma 8]

Currently many OFP server admins use checkfile functionality to check if whole pbo is intact. Unfortuntely this detection is not 100 % reliable, as cheater may be in fact using a different .pbo file (I will not go into detail how this is possible).

However, no matter what pbo file he will use, the OFP application needs to be acesss the files instead, and therefore it is always possible and reliable to use checkfiles functionality to check integrity of a single file (model, texture) inside of a pbo. When doing this, you never need to add Addon, Dta, Res\Dta or any mod-folder as a part of the file path, as this is fully transparent to OFP. On the other hand, you need to specify a file name.

Example: instead of checking dta\hwtl\Data3D\merged.pbo, you could check merged\00007mc_vojakw2.paa or any other file depending on your decision.

I hope this idea will help those interested to prevent cheating better on their servers.

[joltan 0]

Would this also bring up an error if other files in the the pbo were changed but the checked file still resembled the original?

Edit: I think this is a great idea, and even if it might not be possible to check the integrity of the whole pbo - at least the actual config used could be verified in a reliable way!

[sicilian 0]

Why didn't you say it before?

Nice idea! But will only work if the admins know how cheats functionally work!

But it's a good advise for the next times...    thx

First add to checkfile to prevent red and green soldiers and that anyone dont have trees (dont forget to have the merged.pbo on the server!):

merged\00000.paa;

merged\00001&krovi4.paa;

merged\00002.paa;

merged\00003krovi2.paa;

merged\00004krovi2.paa;

merged\00005krovi3.paa;

merged\00006krovi3.paa;

merged\00007mc_vojakw2.paa;

merged\00008mc_vojake2.paa;

merged\00009mc_vojakw2.paa;

merged\00010mc_vojake2.paa;

merged\00011&str_fikovnik.paa

For further more prevention of cheats add folowing line for each common used weapons on maps:

g36a\config.cpp;

m16\config.cpp

...

to be continued

[zyklone 1]

Excellent news.

This will take care of the mod folder cheaters nicely.

It's working fine on most addons.

But I can't get it to work on merged.pbo

It's always detected as modified.

Did anyone get that part to work on Linux dedicated server?

[benu 1]

Why didn't you say it before?

Kegetys did they this multiple times already, although he suggested using it for __cur_mp

[Ex0dUd 0]

Quote[/b] ]Did anyone get that part to work on Linux dedicated server?

hmmm, as i know linux server doesnt need res/dta/hwtl/merged.pbo, therefor it could be that the file isnt on ur server, upload it and test it again, anyways have to test it on my own 1st :P

[suma 8]

Quote[/b] ]Why didn't you say it before?

Why was theory of relativity not known in 19th century? I did not say it, because I did not think about the problem deep enough to see this simple solution. Actually I think anyone with a deeper addon making knowledge could be able to come up with the same think, as it does not need any internal OFP code knowledge, it only uses the way how OFP "internal file space" works (the only "internal" fact is the fact that the file checking uses the same file space as the rest of OFP).

[zyklone 1]

Quote[/b] ]Did anyone get that part to work on Linux dedicated server?

hmmm, as i know linux server doesnt need res/dta/hwtl/merged.pbo, therefor it could be that the file isnt on ur server, upload it and test it again, anyways have to test it on my own 1st :P

It was on the server. The Linux dedicated did not load things from those directories though.

Putting merged.pbo in Addons/ instead fixed.

[benu 1]

You should check your flashpoint.cfg whether the server uses hwtl or not.

[NKVD 0]

thx Suma

[--TS--Segal 0]

Ja etim bolbesam esho v janvare-fevrale pisal pro takuju hren. Oni tolko sejchaz rodili

[Batstat 10]

Hi; needed to place merged.pbo in t\Res\AddOns also for windows server. Flashpoint.cfg not cheked, dont know what to do there.

Regards

[suma 8]

You should check your flashpoint.cfg whether the server uses hwtl or not.

After receiving one PM I realize the method described has a serious limitation:

It assumes all players use HW T&L. If not, it will report modified files. Even checking some files inside of Data3D or Data can be unreliable because of this - selection of all pbos inside of HWTL folder (Data, Data3D and Merged) depends on whether the player is using HW T&L or not.

I hope still admins will find some clever use of this filechecking method.

[benu 1]

I knew about the hwtl issue but figured "who would NOT use hwtl these days"? I mean, you lose performance and effects by turning it off and gain nothing, and all cards should be able to do it.

Well, thinking about the cards some people mentioned they are using in the dxdll thread maybe not all cards used these days support it, ie there are still people playing ofp with really old cards.... but so far we did not have any problems yet.

[RN Malboeuf 12]

I knew about the hwtl issue but figured "who would NOT use hwtl these days"? I mean, you lose performance and effects by turning it off and gain nothing, and all cards should be able to do it.

Well, thinking about the cards some people mentioned they are using in the dxdll thread maybe not all cards used these days support it, ie there are still people playing ofp with really old cards.... but so far we did not have any problems yet.

this is not overly true, some cards when this is turned off will have the CPU take over some of this, more so in the older cards like ATI Radeons 8500 ect, you would never see a difference

[RN Malboeuf 12]

Unfortuntely this detection is not 100 % reliable, as cheater may be in fact using a different .pbo file (I will not go into detail how this is possible).

ugggggg

i just stumbled across another way it can be done

sigh

[benu 1]

I knew about the hwtl issue but figured "who would NOT use hwtl these days"? I mean, you lose performance and effects by turning it off and gain nothing, and all cards should be able to do it.

Well, thinking about the cards some people mentioned they are using in the dxdll thread maybe not all cards used these days support it, ie there are still people playing ofp with really old cards.... but so far we did not have any problems yet.

this is not overly true, some cards when this is turned off will have the CPU take over some of this, more so in the older cards like ATI Radeons 8500 ect, you would never see a difference

Yeah, if you turn it off your cpu will have to compute those effects in software, which means more cpu load. And as cpu is the limiting factor in ofp this means less performance. For all cards except those that don't support those effects in hw and do them sw anyway

Hi; needed to place merged.pbo in t\Res\AddOns also for windows server. Flashpoint.cfg not cheked, dont know what to do there.

You should check for a line that says:<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">HW_Type="Direct3D HW T&L";

If this is in it uses hwtl, if it isn't it doesn't.

Placing it into the res\dta folder (not addons btw) might be a bad idea.

[RN Malboeuf 12]

i cant remember in 3 years my CPU maxing out while playing OFP

i have a Ti4800 for a while and i can run at 5000 setview with max detail and not get less then 45 fps with or with out HTWL

if your CPU is not maxed then it will take the strain off your GPU on the older cards to increase frame rate

the new cards wont have a problem running OFPs older style engine

but i have never in 3 years seen a difference in obects with HTLW off unless the CPU was maxed (testest a 333mhz compaq once with 8 megs vid PCI and 64 megs ram heh)

[Batstat 10]

Quote[/b] ] Code Sample  

HW_Type="Direct3D HW T&L";

Sorry Benu but I don't know how to put your sign and date July 28 2004,09:50 after the Bold Quote and before the frame.

Accordning to our servers flashpoint.cfg the statment: HW_Type="Direct3D HW T&L is in there. But never the less we are ending up with modified entrys for every statment we put in.

The merged.pbo are now located in the default dir: ..\OperationFlashpoint\Res\Dta\Hwtl

As I said before, the server running XP.

After your post we deleted merged.pbo under res\addons, witch by the way did seem to work.

Until we find a solution, we wil turn this checkfile options off. Have a nice summer.

Regards

[benu 1]

Afaik the ofp client uses either res\dta or res\dta\hwtl, depending on whether hwtl is set or not. I am not 100% sure about the dedi server, but for the linux server using hwtl and checking for files inside merged.pbo did not generate any errors yet. If you only check for files inside the merged.pbo then it should not really matter for the filecheck where you put it, but i am not sure if you get other problems when putting it into the addons folder. As merged.pbo seems to only contain textures and the odd textfile this should work, but i am not sure about the other pbos.

BTW: Do you have cwc+resistance or goty installed on your server? Do you run with or with -nomap?

[Batstat 10]

Thx for your reply Benu.

Our dedi is based on Goty. We do not use -nomap as a parameter, when starting the server. Currently we use @wgl located in sep. mod folder. Mfcti1.16.pbo mod located in OperationFlashpoint\AddOns.

Put NoPryl in your filter and you wil locate the server. Open from 18:00 - 06:00 CET. Every thursday from 21:00 CET we come togheter for fun and training 10 - 15 ppl.

If I understand your info btw lines, we can try to put merged.pbo in OperationFlashpoint\Res\Dta. Anyway this may not be the biggest all time issue, so I guess we can manage without the addional cheat testing.

By the way we dont ban people with modified res\dta.pbo or res\hwtl\data.pbo either. Because the server report this as modified files, also for people that 5 min before has copyed the files from the server over to his own PC. Strange?

Thx again Benu  

[benu 1]

Just two questions:

1) should one start those entries with \ or not? Like \merged\... or merged\...?

2) is there a maximum length for the checkfile section of the server.cfg? After experimenting and putting around 100 lines into the checkfile section the server did not start any more. After removing those lines it worked again.

[suma 8]

1) should one start those entries with \ or not? Like \merged\... or merged\...?

No leading backslach, like "merged\" ..

Quote[/b] ]2) is there a maximum length for the checkfile section of the server.cfg? After experimenting and putting around 100 lines into the checkfile section the server did not start any more. After removing those lines it worked again.

There is no limit I am aware of, but it is quite possible you might overflow some buffers in the config file parser, and the parser is unable to cope with this.

[benu 1]

I tested a little:

1) I added lines to checkfiles until the server did not start anymore and then removed lines from the MOTD. Didn't help.

2) I took out on line from the checkfiles section. Server started again. I modified one of the existing line to be very long. Server did still start.

So i conclude that it does not have something to do with the length of the whole config (because of point 1) or with the length in characters (because of point 2), but only with the number of lines in that section.

In my case the limit was 85 lines (strange number for a buffer overflow?!?). Is this different from server to server, depending on some setting, or a general value for all servers? Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[sicilian 0]

long checkfiles:

Propably it will work if you put all together on a single line.

merged.pbo:

HW_Type="Direct3D HW T&L"; does not help on the windows server. Not sure but I think the server ignores this line cause it doesn't need it.

Putting in addons shows up no problems at the moment.

I think the server doesn't handle the merged, so it only loads it in memory and therefore enables for checking. Those hwtl files will only be used at the client side I think.