Master Server and DNAS

[Dracula]

Hey Everybody, This is Dracula
I'm wondering if anyone can clarify how we got to this point on the PS2 platform.
I remember GameSpy went down and the Kalle and LAkeks from GameMaster created Openspy to give us back the master server list. Then I remember Sony's announcement that they were shutting down the DNAS server. 
The GameMaster people were looking into it, but it didn't look like they were going to be able to make it work.  When the DNAS server shut down, we were all getting "error-611" or something, but shortly after it magically started working again.  I never did figure out how.
Can someone fill me in on who is responsible for getting us back online with DNAS?
Thanks.  ;

[Led]

Sony DNAS went away about one month ago.

Someone at http://www.ps2onlinegaming.com/  made an alternative DNAS server somehow.

I have used my DNS server to point to the new DNAS server.  I think the ps2onlinegaming folks can give you the full story.

There also appears to be a way to bypass the DNAS check all together by a mod or hex editing. 
see this link and all posts for both methods:
http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?topic=10250.0


I will edit this post with more links when I find them.


A few points to clarify:

Gamemaster is not Openspy.  Openspy was another development.

Gamemaster binaries were transferred to SWBFgamers and we call it SWBFspy.  We support SWBF1/2 but in theory other games could be supported if we knew what we were doing, but we don't    Kalle was nice to get it set up for us, but he is out of the picture now.

I run a DNS server that sends requests from PS2 games to the SWBFspy and DNAS (initially SONY, but now the replacement).   My DNS server was configured by looking at xChristianx DNS server that supports multiple games.

[Mike]

Hi Dracula. Led's info is right. Here's a bit of a timeline...

GameSpy stopped working on PS2 around July of 2014. By this point Kalle and LAkeks had already made GameMaster and I already tested that it was working on PS2 in June 2014. GameMaster ran the master server list for us from July 2014 until June 2016. Kalle helped transfer some of his work over to SWBFSpy here and Led made a DNS server for our PS2s to connect to, which points them to SWBFSpy which hosts the master server list.

Around April 1st of 2016 there was a rumor going around that Sony was going to shut down DNAS for the Playstation 2. This rumor was actually false, and what was shutdown was something pertaining to Final Fantasy XI. I think there might have been DNAS errors for 1 or 2 days on PS2 around this time, but then they went away. I am not sure what caused this or if it was just a coincidence but DNAS kept running past April for sure. This might be because we connect through a workaround DNS server to DNAS but I am not sure. I believe Sony kept up some part of DNAS because it was being used by the PSP. That is until around October. (I could be a little wrong in this paragraph there's something about the authentication aspect of DNAS still being up, but we had to go through SWBFSpy or some other DNS on our PS2s first to get authenticated. It was kinda down but also kinda still working fine and I'm not super clear on how. Druken_Master explains it here a little: http://www.ps2onlinegaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1907&start=20 . Also I think its possible Kalle did something to the GameMaster DNS in April that we weren't aware of that pointed us to the right addresses of Sony's that were still up but we just didn't know about it.

Anyway last month, for the first time, Sony's DNAS servers shut down all the way. The reason we didn't see many issues at the time was because the 2 workarounds we use (Christains DNS and SWBFSpy) had their DNS servers pointing us at the new replacement server that No23 managed to make before we could notice any downtime really.

I think No23, a user on the PS2onlinegaming forums is the answer to your question. He managed to make a server that emulated what the official Sony one used to do up until October 2016, so I believe your thanks should go to him:
http://ps2onlinegaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1990

I told Led the new address numbers of this workaround made by No23 and he put them into the DNS server table.