Testing out Trackmania on my game server and I just have it worked out on my test server from the CLI and will next start testing the startup scripts I will be using and seeing if the network routing steps I took affected other games and applications.
The first challenge that I had was first finding the most recent Trackmania Forever dedicated server code. I started working with the 2006 version that's offered all over the internet and then upon further searching forums about issues found code from this year, "03-15-2010" (TrackmaniaServer_2010-03-15.zip) which contains Linux & Windows server versions as opposed to working with 2006 bits (TmDedicatedServer_2006-01-29.tgz).
I had found the configuration parameters to my liking with the 2006 bits and really the 2010 configuration parameters weren't different, just some switches weren't needed on the CLI to launch the command plus a nice addition in the configuration file.
I actually had the 2006 flavor up and running one one system I have but alas this only has one NIC and that is always my issue since my production game server has two NICs'. After moving the 2006 configuration to another system that will soon be in production and has multi-homed NIC's is when the fun started!
I have run into routing issues previously with my multi-homed NIC systems with my web server & game server functions so the fact that these challenges would be there with Trackmania was no surprise. My NIC's on these systems are not teamed on one network but exist on a separate internal LAN that then goes out on certain forwarded ports to a different static WAN. Normally though in the specific application configuration files are parameters you configure to bind to to a certain NIC, then you see which way the packets route and tweak accordingly.
Well the configuration files on Trackmania for binding and pointing towards certain NIC's wasn't working for me the way it did with other games/web applications.
I'll have to sit back and go into more details later but I finally was able to get my Trackmania Forever server recognized locally on the LAN and on the internet at the same time. I was previously able to only get either online or LAN recognized at one time!
Now I have to see if the network tweaks affected my other games/web servers and databases etc. that also use those connections on the system. I then have to see if my other systems that have hooks into my game server can reach the server with the associated network tweaks.
Oh and I actually had to overcome my own path issues I had when running the test script/commands as well since I had the 2006 bits launching from one directory and the 2010 bits from another directory I needed to get some QA going on my locations and make sure my commands/scripts pointed to the correct files! DOH!!
I will not be able to work on this tomorrow but hopefully soon. I will keep you posted on the progress. I have some other online games I will be hosting on my servers and update my other games.
You will start seeing other projects on my other Blogs on DA Hoytt's Universe like live video streamed from a location to my site and updating photo sharing software, eCommerce site, blog software, music streaming software and server consolidation to cool down my office/computer room here at home where it all runs from since 2004!
Come on back soon and I'll have something different for you!
