Look What I Made! (Server Tracking)

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:27 am

DL'ed the new .exe, not seeing any changes nor new options.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:08 pm

Huh. Are you sure you've copied the exe over the old exe? Are you using a shortcut? The new program is ~132kb, the old one was ~96kb for a quick reference.

Hialmar · Post by **Hialmar** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:15 am

I just downloaded it and it's still version 1.0. (96 K)

Are you sure you uploaded the new version.

PS: it's the first time I download it.
PPS: I'll do a little wiresharking to see if I can find a way to get a correct list of online players.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:51 am

Hialmar wrote:I just downloaded it and it's still version 1.0. (96 K)

Are you sure you uploaded the new version.

PS: it's the first time I download it.
PPS: I'll do a little wiresharking to see if I can find a way to get a correct list of online players.

... Bizarre... on the page, it says the file is 132kb and when I download it, it is the new version... I have added all the files as a ZIP file.

If you can get a list of the online players, that'd be great, otherwise I have a less nice backup plan, that I'd like to talk to Roek about...

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:20 am

Hialmar wrote:I just downloaded it and it's still version 1.0. (96 K)

Are you sure you uploaded the new version.

Just checked, it certainly is the 1.1version uploaded there. Hialmar, I guess that's just a problem with living in Europe (or America, for that matter...), you guys are stuck forever in our past.

Hialmar · Post by **Hialmar** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:38 pm

It works now with the zip file.

Wiresharking didn't get me anything really usable.
For NWN2 you have to log completely in order to see the players connected list so it's a real mess.
For NWN1 it could be a bit easier (you can see the player list just after connecting but before selecting a character and logging in fully) but you'd still have to be connected with a GSID and need the server password.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:14 pm

Our SQL database for persistency gives PC names and online status (it is the source for the data on the webpage application that shows online players), but I see a few problems with using it to inform a downloadable applet.

1) It would not work for NWN2 servers which do not use the ACR (only Exodus and ALFA would potentially work that way, and Exodus uses a localhost SQL Server presently, so not externally query-able). The current arrangement of the monitor deal appears to work for most all sorts of servers, so it's going to get plenty of use and be widely appreciated by the NWN2 community in general.

2) Even if it is only Read-access to the central SQL DB which is incorporated into the application, there is still the possibility of it being used to query "off-limits" meta information which could cause significant problems down the line (statistics, GP amounts, alignment data, dieties, locations within a server, etc: for all PCs in ALFA across all servers). If this login information would have to be inside the code somewhere, I'd definitely not want it to be downloadable by whomever.

3) Depending on frequency of queries, if the application becomes popular, it might begin to increase the lag/burden on the game servers themselves, which have to "wait in line" to send/receive persistency information to the same SQL server as everyone running the server monitoring applet. This will only get worse when we shift over to storing larger information (p-chest contents) in the SQL database.

For now, ALFA members (maybe nonmembers too?) can just go to the website and mouse over the server listing to get the player info, seems like a needless use of resources to duplicate that effort for this application to me. As is, folks can run the server monitor to watch numbers, then use the website for more info if they see people on. Just my $0.02 though.

The application looks like nice work though!

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:03 pm

AcadiusLost wrote:Our SQL database for persistency gives PC names and online status (it is the source for the data on the webpage application that shows online players), but I see a few problems with using it to inform a downloadable applet.

1) It would not work for NWN2 servers which do not use the ACR (only Exodus and ALFA would potentially work that way, and Exodus uses a localhost SQL Server presently, so not externally query-able). The current arrangement of the monitor deal appears to work for most all sorts of servers, so it's going to get plenty of use and be widely appreciated by the NWN2 community in general.

It should work for any server that uses a database to store login information (most likely through NWNx4). That database would have to be accessible externally though for the application to query it directly.

2) Even if it is only Read-access to the central SQL DB which is incorporated into the application, there is still the possibility of it being used to query "off-limits" meta information which could cause significant problems down the line (statistics, GP amounts, alignment data, dieties, locations within a server, etc: for all PCs in ALFA across all servers). If this login information would have to be inside the code somewhere, I'd definitely not want it to be downloadable by whomever.

I would have put the login information in the code initially, but eventually I would have used an encryption/decryption method to form the connectionstring so it could be used more generically.

The idea was I would include an string encryption program, where the admin of a server would encrypt all the connection information and provide it to the players in an encrypted form to put in their ServerList.txt... so no connection information would be in the code itself.

However, that was my last resort and I really didn't like it, so this and:

3) Depending on frequency of queries, if the application becomes popular, it might begin to increase the lag/burden on the game servers themselves, which have to "wait in line" to send/receive persistency information to the same SQL server as everyone running the server monitoring applet. This will only get worse when we shift over to storing larger information (p-chest contents) in the SQL database.

this to a much greater degree, are why I have dismissed the idea of my program querying a database directly.

For now, ALFA members (maybe nonmembers too?) can just go to the website and mouse over the server listing to get the player info, seems like a needless use of resources to duplicate that effort for this application to me. As is, folks can run the server monitor to watch numbers, then use the website for more info if they see people on. Just my $0.02 though.

The application looks like nice work though!

Well... Ideally, this isn't just something for ALFA. I'd like it to be useful to the NWN community as a whole.

Plus having a players online function allows me to eventually implement "favoured players" functionality, so Mr. Duncan could get a popup when Aitana or Muse or Kiyoti or Mikayla log in to a server he is monitoring that supports the player list implementation I'm looking at doing now (and another function I'm looking at implementing is a launch button that does a direct connect to that server from within my program... but at the moment, that only seems to work for NWN1).

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:11 pm

I think AL thought you made this for ALFA.

We already kinda have that functionality plus a ton more because nwnx4 can log way more data than nwnserver makes available to GS.

Its a cool tool though, well done. Honestly a bit surprised you had the skills to do this. I like the geek-aspect of it quite verily

Hialmar · Post by **Hialmar** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:06 pm

What I thought we could have is a php page on this website which would list players for a given server:
e.g.
http://www.alandfaraway.org/players.php?server=013
would give the list of players of TSM using about the same code Roek uses for the javascript popups.

Then Nick's tool could just connect to this url and print this data in a panel.

This way there is no problem with SQL remote connections (and we could even implement some caching mechanism so as not to query all the time).

It would be specific to ALFA but Nick could upload this php page code (minus our private login/pass to the SQL server) on the vault so that if other PW want to implement it they just have to customize this file and drop it on their website.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:18 pm

Hialmar wrote:What I thought we could have is a php page on this website which would list players for a given server:
e.g.
http://www.alandfaraway.org/players.php?server=013
would give the list of players of TSM using about the same code Roek uses for the javascript popups.

Then Nick's tool could just connect to this url and print this data in a panel.

This way there is no problem with SQL remote connections (and we could even implement some caching mechanism so as not to query all the time).

It would be specific to ALFA but Nick could upload this php page code (minus our private login/pass to the SQL server) on the vault so that if other PW want to implement it they just have to customize this file and drop it on their website.

I had basically the same idea, and have already passed it over to Roek.

Except it would be significantly easier to read a text file in a specific format. If it ends up as php code I may be able to just read the text on the screen, but my attempt at reading a php file straight just got me a load of php code.

I thought about requiring a header as the first row in the file, e.g., Player|Character|IsDM|DateTimeConnected|etc... so different servers could define which information to display, but the problem with that is that then I wouldn't be able to know what column has what information... I'd just be dumping it into a grid and using the header row as the column headings, so it'd be more functional if the file is always in the same format, i.e., no header row, columns always in the same order, must be blank/default value if that data isn't available.

Actually... maybe I'll implement it both ways... and just set it as an option as to how to read it...

Hialmar · Post by **Hialmar** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:43 am

You'll only see the output of the php file which can be formatted as you want.

I suppose there are classes in C# that let's you open a remote resource by giving it an URL.
It exists in Java and as C# was copied on Java it should be there somewhere.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 11:43 pm

Hialmar wrote:You'll only see the output of the php file which can be formatted as you want.

I suppose there are classes in C# that let's you open a remote resource by giving it an URL.
It exists in Java and as C# was copied on Java it should be there somewhere.

I guess I must be doing it wrong then, because whenever I read http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/index.php, I just get the stuff you see when you do a view source on a page.

i.e.,

Spoiler:

Tried it about 4 different ways, and it's always the same.

hollyfant · Post by **hollyfant** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:36 am

That looks like properly formatted html to me. What are you using to display it?

Hialmar · Post by **Hialmar** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:56 pm

Of course.
This is because the index.php php page outputs HTML.
However you can create php pages that generate anything you'd like: XML, pure text...

It should be something specific however so either Roek develops it or I can give it a try.
I'll be slower than Roek because I don't know drupal.

A Land Far Away

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