MG/Dedicated Server

Starting MegaGlest 3.6.0 it is possible to host a dedicated headless game server. This means you can now install MegaGlest on a dedicated or virtual private server hosted in a data center, or a virtual server on your computer. This can be quite useful since data centers usually provide way better network connectivity at affordable pricing than ISPs can provide (and users can afford) in residential areas, meaning less people will drop out of games, and there will be less latency ('better ping'). Moreover, dedicated servers can run 24/7 so servers can be available for hosting games at any time.

Requirements
To host your own headless server, you will need a dedicated or virtual private server which roughly meets the minimum requirements the MegaGlest README lists. You should actually be okay with 512 MB unallocated RAM, though, meaning remaing free memory after it has fully started up. Of course, you do not actually need to have a good video/graphics or audio card. You currently do need to have a (any) video card, though.

Hosting
The cheapest way to host is probably to go with a Virtual Private Server (VPS). There are unbelievably many VPS providers out there and we have little to no experience with them so we can't really make a recommendation at this point. Prices range from less than US $10 per month to amounts which would be better spent on a dedicated server. Please check websites such as lowendbox.com, webhostingtalk.com and webhostlist.de which compare and discuss various offers.

There are also few 'free' VPS offers. All we can say there is that Amazons free-for-one-year VPS and Host1Free's VPS do not provide sufficient resources to run a dedicated gameserver while some of the offers by FreeVPS.us may work based on the resources they list. But we haven't actually tried this, since, of course, this offer is not entirely free but you need to dance the hula-hula. Generally, there are only few free offers on the Internet now, and those are usually by idealistic computer enthusiasts, almost never by companies - those always come with strings attached (which is completely understandable from their profit driven perspective). There are also donation based offers, or organisations operating without the target of/need to generating profits (community service / hosting / colocation providers), which can be a good choice.

Operating system
Since we have to decide for one operating system, we go the easy (and good) way and use Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze). These steps may also work on later Debian versions as well as on Ubuntu servers.

Install a minimal Debian GNU/Linux server. This can be done with a Debian Netinstall CD image as well as by many other ways. The details are considered out of the scope of this manual - see the Debian website and installation manual.

You should now have a working minimal Debian server. Start by working as the root user. Depending on how you will manage this server you may want to install some additional packages:

apt-get install unattended-upgrades openssh-server less screen

If you installed an SSH server you can do the remaining installation remotely.

MegaGlest installation
The next steps are specific to the installation and configuration of MegaGlest on your dedicated server. If you already have a working multi-use(r) Debian 6.0 server, this is the point to start following this tutorial.

Still working as root, create a new restricted user megaglest:

adduser megaglest

Also as root, install dependencies for MegaGlest:

apt-get install bzip2 p7zip-full libsdl1.2debian-alsa libglu1 libsm6 libopenal1 libvorbisfile3 libglew1.5 libfontconfig1 libldap-2.4-2 libidn11

Now switch to the megaglest user, this is the last time you need to work as root:

su -l megaglest

Download MegaGlest 3.6.0.3:

wget -O megaglest3.6.0.3_i386_64_linux_bin.tar.bz2 http://sourceforge.net/projects/megaglest/files/megaglest_3.6.0.3/megaglest3.6.0.3_i386_64_linux_bin.tar.bz2/download wget -O megaglest-data-3.6.0.3.tar.xz http://sourceforge.net/projects/megaglest/files/megaglest_3.6.0.3/megaglest-data-3.6.0.3.tar.xz/download

Unpack, add a convenient symlink, then clean up:

tar -xJf ./megaglest-data-3.6.0.3.tar.xz ln -s megaglest-3.6.0.3 megaglest cd ./megaglest-3.6.0.3 tar --exclude='*/.svn/*' -xjf ../megaglest3.6.0.3_i386_64_linux_bin.tar.bz2 rm start_megaglest_configurator start_megaglest_g3dviewer start_megaglest_mapeditor megaglest_configurator megaglest_editor megaglest_g3dviewer mkdir -p ~/.megaglest

Do a test run:

megaglest@gameserver:~/megaglest-3.6.0.3$ ./start_megaglest --version gamedir [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3] Looking for LDCONFIG []... LDCONFIG environment variable is not set... Found LDCONFIG using which [/sbin/ldconfig]... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libopenal.so.1] was found in [/usr/lib/libopenal.so.1] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libdirectfb-1.2.so.0] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libfusion-1.2.so.0] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libdirect-1.2.so.0] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libjpeg.so.62] was found in [/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so.62] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libpng15.so.15] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... new library link [/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0] pointed to from [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libpng15.so.15] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libcurl.so.4] was found in [/usr/lib/libcurl.so.4] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libxerces-c-3.1.so] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libicudata.so.40] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libicuuc.so.40] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libGLEW.so.1.5] was found in [/usr/lib/libGLEW.so.1.5] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libGLEW.so.1.5] was found in [/usr/lib/libGLEW.so.1.5] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libogg.so.0] was found in [/usr/lib/libogg.so.0] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libvorbis.so.0] was found in [/usr/lib/libvorbis.so.0] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libvorbisfile.so.3] was found in [/usr/lib/libvorbisfile.so.3] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libfontconfig.so.1] was found in [/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libfreetype.so.6] was found in [/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libgnutls.so.26] was found in [/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnutls.so.26] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libldap_r-2.4.so.2] was found in [/usr/lib/libldap_r-2.4.so.2] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libresolv.so.2] was found in [/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/liblua5.1.so.0] was found in [/usr/lib/liblua5.1.so.0] default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libftgl.so.2] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libircclient.so.1] is missing, attempting to find and link to a newer version if available... default library [/home/megaglest/megaglest-3.6.0.3/lib/libdl.so.2] was found in [/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2] megaglest v3.6.0.3 Compiled using: GNUC: 40401 [64bit] on: Jan 24 2012 13:33:42 SVN: [Rev: 3080] - using STREFLOP megaglest@gameserver:~/megaglest$

These library messages are completely normal and can be ignored. All of them go to standard error. The only line returned to standard output is the very last one - the version info. Congratulations, MegaGlest works!

Firewall configuration
Now you need to ensure that people can actually connect to it from the Internet so that it will get listed on the master server. For this to work, Internet originated traffic must be able to reach the server on TCP port 61357. For FTP functionality (not currently supported on headless servers by the time of writing) you also need to make Internet originated traffic on TCP ports 61358 to 61366 reach the server.

Once publishing to the master server succeeded you (and others) may connect to it from within your Desktops' MegaGlest installation. The first user connecting to a headless server controls it. If this user disconnects, the next user who already joined / will join is in control.

MegaGlest configuration
You may now want to set a server name, this is currently done via the NetPlayerName option in glestuser.ini:

mkdir -p ~/.megaglest echo 'NetPlayerName=MyTestServer' > ~/.megaglest/glestuser.ini Obviously you should replace  by something which nicely and uniquely describes this server (or its owner). Watch out, there is a low character limit in place.

You are now ready to go. However, for advanced configuration, many more options which may matter for a game server are available. Here is an optional example for a more complex  file: NetPlayerName=Edit_glestuser.ini FactorySound=None These and all other glestuser.ini options are documented on this wiki.
 * 1) For more information on these options, please consult
 * 2) http://wiki.megaglest.org/INI
 * 1) Network settings
 * 1) ServerPort=61357
 * 2) MasterServerExternalPort=61357
 * 3) MasterServerExternalPortList=61357,61367,61377,61387,61397,80,1080,8000,8080,443,21,22,25,110,143,587,993,995
 * 4) FTPServerPort=61358
 * 5) EnableFTPServer=1
 * 6) EnableFTPServerInternetTechtreeXfer=1
 * 7) EnableFTPServerInternetTilesetXfer=1
 * 8) EnableFTPXfer=1
 * 9) Masterserver=http://master.megaglest.org/
 * 1) Logging
 * 2) LogPath=$HOME/.megaglest/
 * 3) DebugLogFile=debug.log
 * 4) DebugMode=true
 * 5) DebugNetwork=true
 * 6) DebugPerformance=true
 * 7) DebugWorldSynch=true
 * 8) AiLog=true
 * 9) ThreadedLogging=true
 * 1) Audio
 * 2) Disable all sound processing
 * 1) QA
 * 2) AutoTest=true
 * 1) File archives
 * 2) FileArchiveExtractCommand=7z
 * 3) FileArchiveExtractCommandParameters=x -o{outputpath} {archivename}
 * 4) FileArchiveExtractCommandSuccessResult=0
 * 5) FileArchiveExtension=.7z

Game server automation
If you want to run the game server regularly, you can introduce some level of automation. You may want to make it start up automatically on boot. And you most likely want to have it quit and restart the game process after every played game to rule out side effects which may drain on system resources - remember, the headless server is still a pretty young feature, and restarting the game is very quick and does not hurt. Here's a crontab and a management script to do both of the above:

wget http://dl.megaglest.org/megaglest-gameserver.tar.gz tar xzf megaglest-gameserver.tar.gz chmod +x start_megaglest_gameserver.sh crontab cron rm megaglest-gameserver.tar.gz cron
 * 1) Careful: only do this when there is not already a crontab for your user ('crontab -l' to check).
 * 2) In case there already is one then just add the contents of the 'cron' file to your crontab,
 * 3) by running crontab -e.

After the next reboot, the gameserver should start up automatically.

Use utilities like top (or ps) and iotop to inspect how things are going. Server logs are created at. If you run into any bugs, please report them at http://bugs.megaglest.org. If you have any questions, please discuss them at http://forum.megaglest.org/. Please report your experiences there, too.