GameShare getting closed

[Anyder]

https://gameshare.co/index.html

GameShare
ITS TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
Sorry. I don't have the time to keep the old services up and running. GameMaster will shutdown on 01.06.2016. Best wishes for the future of our lovely old games... I'll be back some time with something great again...

[Led]

Perhaps we can ask them to help us set up a SWBF/SWBF2 master server.  We need to work together to keep the community from fragmenting further.

[Anyder]

Perhaps we can ask them to help us set up a SWBF/SWBF2 master server.  We need to work together to keep the community from fragmenting further.

I already contacted him

Hey Anyder,

Some things are required:

Get the following gamespy services up and running:
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-masterserver
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-natnegserver
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-keyauthserver
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-web
https://github.com/derkalle4/gamespy-statisticsserver

and get a DNS server up and running for the specific gamespy hostname (I
used dnsmasq with a wildcard for gamespy.com).

The other stuff would be an MySQL-Server (for database things) and a
webserver (like apache2 with php) for the never finished battlefrontII
statistics overview.

I used to have two virtual servers (one in germany, another in america)
who shared the mysql database. Also I used to keep the masterserver in
sync. You have to specify (in the sql database and in the config of the
services) the connection between multiple gamespy masterservers and
gamespy natnegservers so that two guys who aren't using the same
masterserver virtual machine could join each others game. This isn't
neccessary if you're only running one virtual machine at all.

And another hint: the services seems to run very stable and I haven't
the need to restart them every month. I did it only because of security
updates for my  ubuntu OS.

Best Regards,

Kalle

[DylanRocket]

That sucks. And right after they added support for the 2 PSP Battlefronts too. :\

[Gold Man]

So my question now is: If we do get a master server up and running based on Kalle's data, will the executables need to be updated again?

Also, will this mean there will be separate master servers for Euro and US players? Or does it not matter where the master server is located, but as long as there is one?

[Joseph]

We should quickly figure out whether any of us has the know-how to do this based on that info.

If not, it seems like the ideal situation is for Kalle to help us set this up, to the maximum extent that he can.

Does the info he shared represent the maximum extent to which he can help? If not, how willing is he to help beyond that? Maybe we could pay him to set it up for us (I'd chip in).

[Anyder]

So my question now is: If we do get a master server up and running based on Kalle's data, will the executables need to be updated again?

Yes, cause the IPs will be different. I'm already talking to {U.E.F}ACE about creating a VPS out of our Rootserver, and to host there the masterserver (IP will be similar cause it will be by Hetzner.de (same company).

Also, will this mean there will be separate master servers for Euro and US players? Or does it not matter where the master server is located, but as long as there is one?

I will just host one in EU so that we dont have to spend another 100€

[{PLA}gdh92]

We should quickly figure out whether any of us has the know-how to do this.
Maybe we could pay him to set it up for us (I'd chip in).

Same from me.

Edit: would kelle be willing to transfer his server into someone else's name to avoid changing everything?

[Anyder]

Same from me.

Edit: would kelle be willing to transfer his server into someone else's name to avoid changing everything?

Maybe it is not a matter of money, cause he would have told us to pay a little amount.
I can ask him if he'd be willing to do that.

[Led]

Anyder is interfacing with Kalle to see about a transfer.  We will let him try to work it out 

I've ordered a rental server in case this will work out.

[Drunken_Master]

Well we thought this day would probably come.  Thanks Anyder and good luck, last time when we had the miscommunications, he didn't seem interested in any money to help us set up our own.  Hopefully this time will be different.  I had only just started to try to dissect the communications to the GM server but didn't get far yet. 

[Led]

I have contacted Jedikiller for some help in case Kalle is not able to help us.  Stay tuned.

We went a year with tunngle, so one way or another we will still play SWBF 

[Helios]

Ill chip in if needed. Wanna keep SWBF alive for a while longer

[kalle]

To have Anyder as an "man in the middle" is maybe not ideal. So I start to discuss with you in this forum thread

The german masterserver is hosted by myvirtualserver.com and can maybe directly transfered to another owner. I don't know. It costs about 3,49€ / month. The second server is hosted by digitalocean and costs about 5€/month. I also have the domains "d.gameshare.me", "u.gameshare.me" and "*.gameshare.onl". I could redirect this domains to the new server(s), of course. But then you have to agree to not host any kind webpages on this available domains nor make any redirects to another pages for them.

Because of the money:
It was never a thing because of "to less money" for me. I had the paypal button for at least ~ 1,5years for now and only a few people (thanks for that!) spent some money. I've got around 40€ at all. That's not much compared to the costs for the virtual servers for a year + domains + time to answer just every thread on my community forums, but It was something good that people have done.

In my current situation I don't have the time that I need to spent to the whole project. At least a complete code rewrite would be neccessary to eliminate most of the bugs and to add support for new games at all. We don't have an 100% masterserver emulator for gamespy, it's just 70/80% right now. And there's much space for optimization, too.

Because of the two masterserver thing:
Some people in your community have the meaning that a "german" masterserver gives you a pad ping on your servers in US or somewhere else far away from germany. That's simply not true. I discussed a lot and I don't know why ever people still think that there is a need for a second masterserver. Last word in this: the masterserver is an application to give players a serverlist of available servers for their game and also provides some kind of account management. Your game client does not connect to the gameserver of your choice through the masterserver itself, you will directly connect to the gameserver of your choice. Your ping to this gameserver depends on your internet connection to this specific gameserver. So at least, hosting one virtual machine with at least 256MB RAM (double it to be safe...) and 1 vCPU would be enough to host the entire infrastructure. At least I've got a second masterserver to have a little load balancing, for worst case scenarios (one masterserver is not available atm -> so half of the people could play regardless of this case) and for destroying any discussion about bad pings... that was why I hosted a second server in america for 5€/month. It was for YOU guys

Because of the installation of the masterserver and all it's components:
In term of privacy I wouldn't recommend to use the user database (most entries are old and never used) and I won't give these entries to you. All passwords are encrypted but I can't make sure that you guys will decrypt them and try to login to popular web services. What I could help you guys initially is to a) make a video about hosting a gamemaster infrastructure or b) to install such a masterserver on an linux based distribution (Ubuntu 16.04 prefered) and give some of you advices over teamviewer. But only once. I don't have the time to correct problems in future. I don't wan't to improve the masterserver and make bugfixes because nobody can help me to make things even better. I searched for developers a year ago and I decided to make this code Open Source on 01.01.2016 and nobody helped me, either.

So do what you want to do with the sources and the virtual server and let me just out of all related administrative tasks. Server administration needs time and some knowledge about linux and other things. Don't be dump and buy a virtual server if you have no knowledge about how to secure it and tell me to install the software on it.

Best regards,
Kalle

[Led]

Hi Kalle,

Jedikiller is working on setting it up for us.  We will let you if we can get it going.

For the other members of SWBFgamers, please hold off on posting in this thread for a couple of days.

Thanks!