Server Set Up Guides: Can we do better?
 

Heyas,

I wanted to start a discussion about how server set up guides are done/handled/maintained. My understanding of the current practice is that community members have written there own, published to forum/wiki and occasionally they get updated. Most guides are claim to be 'complete' and take the user from start to finish.

I am wondering if we can not come up with a better way to do this. For example a group of us could agree to make a 'master guide' which multiple people are responsible for. DB guys handle all the set up, possible errors. Coding people handle set up, compiling etc. Each step in the set up will have its own wiki page and the people involved will be responsible for maintaining their pages. If the workload for creation and maintainable is spread among a number of people then ideally we would be able to keep it up to date.

A special forum could be made for server set up and configuration where hopefully the folks responsible for maintenance will read and post.

In general I think there are too many guides and the result is just confusing. Ideally if this process was stream-lined we may encourage more people to make servers!

This has been discussed before. Make a guide, put it on the wiki, keep it updated. Simple eh? Well, nobody has done it yet.

Simpler said than done, as they say. I guess my central premise is getting multiple people involved, try to keep communication going.

Doesn't take a committee to make a guide.

i started to try to document everything related to the quest system and the database once, then i realized how much it started to feel like work instead of something i enjoyed.

I am just suggesting a different approach.

Do you think if you had others helping you that it would have been easier and less like work?

no. that would just mean i'd have to work with other people who have a different way of doing things, which generally leads to even more work. besides, once you start using terms like "responsibility", volunteering sounds less enjoyable. of course, that is just my opinion.

regardless of any of that, if you think what you are suggesting will stick, write up a treatise and start a wiki on the subject. that's the beauty of wikis and community projects.

i will agree that forum posts are probably one of the worst places for guides (not easily maintained, and never by more than one person -- unless moderators are involved), except for the people can't be bothered to read wikis or use a search engine... and those are the people constantly updated guides tend to help the most.

Part of the problem is that there is no one guide that will work on any system. The differences between setting up on Windows vs Linux alone are too great to even consider putting both into the same guide without just causing lots of confusion and clutter. There are even plenty of differences between Windows XP, Vista/7/8, and Server 2008. To make sure all guides are accurate for all OS's, it means people have to go through the complete setup on each possible OS. And that needs to be done everytime a major change takes place in the setup, which means a ton of work.

There have been a good number of changes lately and there will be even more coming soon. Once the source gets moved from the SVN to git, I imagine someone will get a new guide written for Windows. I might try to update one of the Linux guides as well if I have the time. I just went through a full setup on Linux and it wasn't bad at all and still only deviates from the old guide a bit here and there. Of course, I have done that setup many times lol.

The EMu is going through a major change right now on several fronts.

It would probably be best to wait until the issues of the new setup are worked out before trying to establish a new wiki on it, otherwise you may end up
changing everything that you put into it.

Thank you. So assuming I went forward with the idea, the guide would need to be split in two+ for some parts. I assume that a lot of the DB related information would be platform agnostic.

Good call. For now though I am happy to just throw around ideas and make notes. There are people within the community who have such deep knowledge in certain areas and those are the folks who I want to draw into this discussion- So that they may judge and weigh the ideas.

Disney wifi == no fun

This is what I was going to wait for before beginning one for Windows unless someone beat me to the punch which would be fine by me. Well that and once the Disney magic was over. Minnie mouse turned down my proposal today, so I'm in a bit of a slump over that.. I hope I recover by the time I'm back.

not necessarily. especially given the fact that there are several different ways to create a database and source in data. command line, different utilities (which may or not be available on a given platform), etc.

as an aside, i hope you haven't taken anything i've said the wrong way. i'm all for your idea. i suppose i'm just a bit jaded. in general, it seems that the easier you make something like this for someone, the less drive they have to figure out how things work and why... and if they don't have this basic understanding, they end up doing something wrong and have to ask. then, do you add something else to your documentation or do you politely suggest they read the fine manual?

some examples of this would be the countless quest scripts that use multiple if statements instead of if/elsif/else chains. i've also seen some people say that if/elsif statements won't work without a default else block (not true at all). returning items inside of a conditional, so that all unused items are eaten if one of the conditions is met is also a big issue. as is copying and pasting similar snippets of code multiple times instead of using a short loop.

none of this is really related to the emulator itself, but a lack of understanding of the language used for scripting. regardless, some of them are documented in the forums or the wiki... and some of them are wrong, but some of them are style choices (like how to manage your database - i use the cli or mysql workbench).

ok, i'm done venting now. :)

Did I take it the wrong way? Yes :p I look at your post count, then at mine and wonder if I would be jaded too heh.

In regards to making things easy and a persons drive to understand how things work etc. I think thats a hard one. For me I would love to lower any barriers to entry for server development. We may end up with more posts with scripting issues as you suggest.

i'm not claiming to know everything about perl or the quest interfaces. i never stop learning and i absolutely love it.

sometimes i have no problem with telling someone they are doing it wrong, even if it's working. others, i just let it slide as it's not worth the headache... but then i can't help but feel responsible when they teach someone else how to do it wrong.

Do something on the wiki or its going to fail.

Trev,

I think I seen you say you rebuilt using Squeeze right? Any linux tut would be nice. I personally prefer Fedora, but linux is mostly linux and with a guide to set down the Must Haves it becomes much easier to work it out.

Thank you in advance :)
P.S. I seen where Fedora 19 plans to change to MariaDB, and other distro's seem to be looking in that direction... any thoughts for EMU to officially head that way as well?

Given that it a (almost completely) binary compatible drop in replacement for MySQL there's nothing really stopping you from using MariaDB right now if you really wanted.

Thanks KLS. On my last server I actually did use MariaDB and it seemed to do pretty well. From what I have been reading here recently MariaDB might begin to diverge a bit from Oracle. This is why I was asking, just in case.

http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka...rConfiguration

This is a great example. One page, dedicated to one step of the configuration process.

well i will use this server configuration to start off. there are a lot of questions of course but i want one that is for Fear client (steam). eventually i want PEQ database including moving mobs in the Fear expansion, having bots, etc.

right now i will use Rev2214 without bots, then using bots.

i know that most open source is always changing and the documents never get done. the opposite should be true.

i am not the best writer around, but i can try. it will be Fear-base, Rev2214, 32-bit, the right database, maps, etc, and for windows 7. others can write what they need for macs, linux, and even for iphones. it wont be a wiki, but someone else can convert for wiki here. or maybe do a rewrite. it will be on:

http://misfits.mischiefworks.net/index.php?board=142.0

or

http://misfits.mischiefworks.net and category EQEmu Server

if you find other categories, ignore them. they are meant for other people.

We're at 2444 right now. If you write a guide based on 2214 then it's already out of date.

If you're going to write it, why wouldn't you put it on the wiki? If you don't then you're just perpetuating the same problem with the other guides that people constantly complain are out of date even though they all contain all the steps you need to get things working. You might have to search a bit if a process has changed, like the addition of CMake, but the steps are all the same.

Still think its retarded to fragment that kind of stuff~

so far i have activeperl 5.12 32bit/5.14 64bits
mysql 5.0.67 32bit (should be 5.0.8?)
cmake 2.8.10

i have two database .sql files. that doesnt seem to be complete
i have a complete maps including the fear expansion that i used for live
i dont know if i need my spells from live or the emulator has it already

give me a starter for bin. 2214, 2444, or something else that includes Fear expansion and bot support. i can cmake one, if needed.
give me a starter for db.

after i get a successful build then i will think about where i will put the documentation. right now, its a starter for me but will require a rewrite.

i think an installer would take most of the problems away. one time eqemu had an installer. it wasnt well known, but a few had it and all you had to do is simple changes for the configuration. an installer would check what you had and even get you the stuff you need.


opensim has soas for standalone server that has everything you need: server, apache, mysql and you only need to start or stop the servers. its use localhost but some people can change the configuration for more regions, more prims, and set to external IP. since its for flash drive, most people dont change their IP.

now if i could do an installer, i would try that for EQEmu.

If you're going to write a guide, then you'll need to learn to compile the server. Perhaps you should start with another guide and update as you find issues. All the steps are the same as long as you don't get too attached to specific filenames.

1) Install prerequisites, Perl and MySQL.
2) Get source code and compile it
3) Get database, source it, update it to match the source code you just compiled.
4) Make a server directory, copy all the necessary files there, update the quests/plugins/maps from SVN.
5) Edit the config file, run the server, and be happy.

binary packages / installers have a nasty habit of not being kept up to date.

you are right. in opensim we have a development team that is working on server itself. then a person builds a special for those that want to not deal with everything. then another team builds one for a certain grid. then a person build the soas usb version.

so i got BitRock to give me a open source license yesterday for EQEmu. its for all OSes so that is good. i also want to find someone that can take EQEmu and put in all inside a container, like soas. the only thing soas doesnt include is the client because there are too many clients. but it is easy to set up the client.

I think the Fear expansion should be the new baseline. everyone should download the steam F2P because it wont last that long but long enough until the next release.

so i am going to work on getting EQEmu to Fear as best i can. also i am going to work on a usb version. and of course the document for it.

so far, i have all the external programs that i need: perl, mysql and installed. i have 2444 and compiled it. i have peqdatabase-Rev2294 and peqquest-Rev2294. of course there is no Rev2444, but i will deal with that later.

Yes, there is. It's what you have once you've sourced 2294 and applied all the updates.

where are the updates?

Do you actually think you are in a position to write a guide explaining something you clearly do not understand?

well tell me where the update for sql are then since you clearly understand things.

**posted twice**

I am planning on moving ahead with this idea in the coming weeks. I just opened my server for alpha and have a list of bugs as long as my arm so that puts me out for a bit.

Check the utils/sql/svn folder

me too. i am taking it easy but i am ready to load the sql server. i dont know how the minilogin is now. i am going to use SQLyog instead of Navicat since the thing has only a 30-day license.

when i get to the EQEmu binaries i think i will have problems. thats why i am going to look at 2214 to see how they are set up. i will update my misfit web server, so you can look at it and if you have questions, you can message me on here.

since i want a package and installer, i dont know what i am going to do yet since some of the stuff is from EQ live. i have 2 accounts that are gold, and 2 that are silver for live but i cant guarantee that others have an account for live. i would have to talk to the project manager here to see if an installer is a good idea. same thing with usb. usually you have to get permission for everything that you put on the portable so i may do it for myself and a few others but not for general distribution.

ah, thank you. i was in a hurry. i see them there. a lot of them. gads. more then the wow emulator. i hate working with databases.

If you can't compile the server code you have no business writing a guide, unless you wish to teach others to not understand how things work.

Compiling is not difficult at all, especially now that CMake handles finding the perl and MySQL dependencies for you.

bah. done.