Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead - Linux Standalone Server 1.52 BETA UPDATED to b.71900

[maruk 80]

UPDATED:

Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead - Linux Standalone Server 1.52 BETA build 7900 is available now for testing.

Please provide us with feedback to this topic.

It should significantly improve stability and performance, esp. on quad-core systems)

Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead - Linux Standalone Server 1.52 BETA

===============================================================

Copyrigt © 2010 Bohemia Interactive Studio. All rights reserved.

For more information please visit

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Dedicated_Server

Installation instructions:

==========================

1. Following programs must have been installed on your Linux-box:

tar, gcc. Optional: md5sum (for setup integrity check)

1a. On some verions of Linux (this was reported for RedHat 9

and Gentoo linux 2.4.20) the NSCD deamon must be installed to

run ArmA 2 server successfully. Caching of DNS would be sufficient.

2. Copy the whole "ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead" directory from Windows

to some Linux-directory (arma2arrowhead). DON'T DO ANY DATA CONVERSIONS

(even "dos2unix" translation of text files is not necessary).

Example: you can use PKZIP (WinZip, PowerArchiver, etc.) on

Windows and "unzip" on Linux.

Don't use upper case letters in the ArmA2 directory name

(/home/bob/arma2arrowhead will be good, /home/bob/ArmA2ArrowHead

may cause some troubles).

ArmA2 directory should contain subdirectories "Addons", "Bin",

"Campaigns", etc.

3. Copy the "server-x.xx.tar.gz" (x.xx is version number) file into

the arma2arrowhead directory. Unpack and install it with commands:

arma2arrowhead$ tar -xjf server-x.xx.tar.bz2

arma2arrowhead$ ./install

Watch the messages - they will inform you whether your installation

is successful.

4. Dedicated server can be started in foreground:

arma2arrowhead$ ./server

Or in background:

o$ nohup ./server > out.txt 2> err.txt &

[1] <pid>

5. Running server can be stopped by executing:

$ kill -s SIGINT <pid>

Where <pid> is process-id of mother server thread (printed out in

"nohup" command).

6. ArmA2 ArrowHead server has a feature: command-line parameter

"-pid=<pid_file>". It causes creation of <pid_file> with

PID of root ArmA2 process. If IP port specified in "-port=<nn>"

parameter is busy (in usage), ArmA2 will terminate immediately

and <pid_file> won't be written..

7. The "arma2server" script is provided for automatic server

start/restart/status query/etc. Please be sure to edit

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS in lines 12 to 18 !

After this is done, install (hard-link?) the script into

"/etc/rc.d/init.d/arma2server" file. After that it can be managed

by "chkconfig" (see info/man).

Edited July 2, 2010 by Maruk
Updated

[_x_ 10]

Awesome. I'm very glad to see that you're keeping us informed. Going to try this out now/tomorrow.

[Defunkt 431]

Great, thank you BIS. Can I ask for details on how the folders should be arranged and the command line set for a combined OA-with-A2 installation?

[maruk 80]

There are two ways to run merged version.

Very simple way is to start the exe in this style:

ARMA2OAPATH\ARMA2OA.exe -mod=ARMA2PATH;ARMA2OAPATH\EXPANSION"

However, best way is going to be replicate structure of merged game installation (e.g. sprocket versions installed into each other) but I currently have not it avail on this system. It is important to understand the role of mods now in the game: to pre-filter games for clients.

It is highly recommended that servers report to have the correct mods, depending on what is currently running there (e.g. A2, A2+OA, A2+OA+USERMOD etc.)

Edited June 29, 2010 by Maruk

[TCEd 0]

so... seeing that our ArmA2 Linux server still doesn't have a patch for the recent 1.07 patch, will this patch work instead? If not, then can anyone give me a clue as to when you plan on releasing the Linux server files for recent 1.07 patch???? Our main battle server is dead in the water atm...

[Defunkt 431]

However, best way is going to be replicate structure of merged game installation (e.g. sprocket versions installed into each other) but I currently have not it avail on this system. It is important to understand the role of mods now in the game: to pre-filter games for clients.

Okay mixed success with this so far. Within my existing ArmA2 install I have created...

./expansion/addons

./expansion/dta

./expansion/battleye

./expansion/keys

...and copied these files from my Windows install (or beserver .so/.cfg) making sure they're all lowercased. I've replaced the 1.05 server binary with the new one and it starts fine with...

./server -mod=expansion (other parameters omitted)

...and I can load and play OA content quite happily. When I try to run a mission that uses A2 content, either a custom mission or a default mission like 01. Deathmatch the log shows "Reading mission..." and my client shows "Wait For Host" and neither progresses after that no matter how long I wait (no further entries are written to the log). CPU utilisation sits between 60 and 90% (one core). Running Debian (Etch).

[Defunkt 431]

Noticed (when trying -exthreads=1) in the server browser it was showing ca;expansion;@expansion so removed the -mod parameter but no change to described behavior. Not sure if the server thinks I'm in the game or not (browser shows me as playing), I suppose this might be a client issue.

EDIT: Not sure why this didn't append to the previous post as usual.

[Lonestar 11]

Thank you very much for all this information Maruk

Really appreciated :)

[Defunkt 431]

Okay mixed success with this so far.

...

I suppose this might be a client issue.

Working now, the only things that changed in the interim were;

1. I added -cpucount=2 to the server startup script (not in the original ArmA2 version).

2. I added the correct Operation Arrowhead Player ID to my squad.xml.

Edited June 30, 2010 by Defunkt
Resolved another issue with BattlEye version.

[_x_ 10]

Ran the server with only -cpucount=8 and it stayed up for about 5 hours before it segfaulted while running the 16 player CTI map. I played a bit at the start and 10 minutes before it crashed and had about 10 people playing on the server towards the end. Performance wise it seemed comparable to ArmA2, but my memory is a bit fuzzy tbh; the fps was at 20-25 with it dipping blow 20 every now and then. Nobody seemed to desync and as far as I could tell there was no JIP lag (this seems more wrong to me than anything ;)).

[Sekra 10]

Ummm.. Why is the OA server also versioned (on the filename) as 1.07? This might cause (and did actually with the vanilla A2 server on my linux box where I eventually noticed that the A2 1.07 was a wrong link) cause some confusion...

[whisper 0]

When I use

BattlEye=1;

I get a "server creation failed".

Anyone has been having luck running OA Linux with BE activated?

When I start the server, ./battleye/beserver.so is deleted and I get a "BattlEye initialization failed", followed by failed server creation.

Edited July 1, 2010 by whisper

[HitmanFF 6]

When I use

BattlEye=1;

I get a "server creation failed".

Anyone has been having luck running OA Linux with BE activated?

When I start the server, ./battleye/beserver.so is deleted and I get a "BattlEye initialization failed", followed by failed server creation.

I can confirm this behaviour. I haven't managed to get BE running yet on the OA linux server.

[Defunkt 431]

I have BattlEye working in a combined A2OA install with it running in ./expansion/battleye/

Actually now that you mention it I think beserver.so did vanish out of ./battleye/ a couple of times before I worked out I needed to run it within the expansion folder.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Defunkt

[$able 2]

I have BattlEye working in a combined A2OA install with it running in ./expansion/battleye/

That's the solution.

BIS mistakenly didn't put it into this folder, so please do that manually for now. Hopefully it will be corrected in the next version.

Why the beserver.so is deleted when residing in the wrong folder is very weird. I will ask BIS about this as well.

[whisper 0]

Thanks for the tip, it works now :)

[djczing 10]

Ok well I was looking here for some tips on how to install combined A2 and A2OA on linux.

But, after unpacking the OA linux server package, I see that there are only a couple of things in there, so figured it would be easy to:

1. Copy complete arma2 and arma2OA combined directory from your client (windows) box to the linux server arma2 directory.

2. Install the standalone 1.07 arma 2 linux dedicated server per instructions. (done, tested, runs well)

3. in a seperate directory, unpack the linux arma2OA server package. The 2 important pieces are the arma2server script, and the server executable.

4. Rename arma2server to armaoaserver

5. Rename server to oaserver

6. copy each to your main arma2 linux directory.

7. You are ready to try the linux oaserver by executing ./oaserver

I just did this and am on the server playing mountain warfare with no problems.

Next steps are to edit the armaoaserver script to change the server executable in there to oaserver. I will also change it the way I changed my arma2server start script, so it will read a file called 'servermodlist' at startup to load any modset. I then create text files with the mod sets that I use for any different map/scenario, and just rename them to 'servermodlist' wehn I want them to load.

So in the end, you have 2 server executables - server, and oaserver. You have 2 server start scripts - arma2server, and armaoaserver.

Next step is to see if I really need the duplication, or can I run, say, BE warfare on chernarus with the OA server executable. If I can run all my chernarus stuff using the OA server, then having the linux 1.07 arma 2 dedicated server installed at all is not needed.

I figure it will be needed however.

[Sekra 10]

Just a quick question for the devs, are we to still use

reportingIP = "arma2pc.master.gamespy.com";

with OA dediservers or is there a new browser for that?

[maruk 80]

I believe it should be for A2OA:

reportingIP = "arma2oapc.master.gamespy.com";

[djczing 10]

Well I can report that so far, both the A2 and the OA linux servers are running very well. No issues noted.

The threading optimizations are also making a huge difference.

Thanks !

[thhamm 53]

Well I can report that so far, both the A2 and the OA linux servers are running very well. No issues noted.

same here too.

[_x_ 10]

Well, the latest build hasn't crashed yet.

[helldesign 10]

...

ArmA2 directory should contain subdirectories "Addons", "Bin", "Campaigns", etc.

...

I copied game directory into my dedicated server machine (OS Debian), rename it to "arma2" (lowercase), i have created directory "server1" with arma2.cfg and server.cfg

I noticed that "arma2/" does not contain "Bin" and "Campaigns" folders... (my game is Arma 2 Combined Operations)

When I try to run the server, I get a lot error messages:

./server -name=server1 -config=server1\server.cfg -cfg=server1\arma2.cfg -profiles=server

...
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicles/StaticMortar.nvTarget'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicles/StaticMortar.radarType'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicles/StaticMortar.soundLocked'.
Warning Message: Size: '/' not an array
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicles/StaticMortar.soundIncommingMissile'.
Warning Message: Size: '/' not an array
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.cfgFormations'.
Warning Message: No entry '.East'.
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.cfgFormations'.
Warning Message: No entry '.West'.
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.cfgFormations'.
Warning Message: No entry '.Guer'.
...

Any help?

Edited July 3, 2010 by helldesign

[ArmAZilla 10]

did you run ./install before trying to run the server?

[helldesign 10]

did you run ./install before trying to run the server?

Yes, I did.

Maybe the problem is that my game is combined version, not only Operation Arrowhead ?

Edited July 3, 2010 by helldesign