Server Config Setting to Assign Port Ranges Per Zone Server

[trevius]

The idea is to have a configuration setting to specify which ports to use for which zone server all in the World Server config. This is so the World Server knows which ports to use when loading dynamic or static zones on separate zone server, and so you can define clearly separate port ranges for each.

The new settings would look something like this:

	<zones>
		<defaultstatus>0</defaultstatus>
		<!-- Sets port range for world to use to auto configure zones -->
		<ports zonea low="7000" high="7049"/>
                <ports zoneb low="7050" high="7100"/>
	</zones>

With "zonea" being the name of the zone launcher set in the start.bat file (start eqlaunch.exe zonea) of the world/zone server PC and "zoneb" being the name of the zone launcher set in the zone server PC batch file (start eqlaunch.exe zoneb).

I am not a coder at all, so I don't know how hard it would be to get this change working. I think this would make setting up extra zone servers very simple. As it is now, the only way I can see multiple zone server working without any flaws are if you are running them on 2 completely separate networks with separate internet connections and IPs to allow for overlapping port ranges, or to have zones that never ever crash (unlikely).

My understanding of how ports work with multiple zone servers currently:

Basically, the world server will boot up zones on the first port available as defined in the config on the World Server PC here:

	<zones>
		<defaultstatus>0</defaultstatus>
		<!-- Sets port range for world to use to auto configure zones -->
		<ports low="7000" high="7100"/>
	</zones>

It boots whatever zones are available from the launcher first. So, if you load up your zone server before loading the world, it will start loading the zones on the zone server starting at port 7000 until it has loaded all static and/or dynamic zones from the zone server. Let say you use 5 statics and 5 dynamics, so it will load the last zone from the zone server onto port 7009 (10 zones). In this case, you will need to have ports 7000 to 7009 forwarded in your router to the zone server PC. Then, you hit the enter key (or any key) in the launcher window on the world server PC to start the zones loading on the world server PC. Let say it is another 10 dynamic zones and these are loaded on ports 7010 to 7019. Again, you will need to have your router forward these ports to the world server.

So, now everything is up and working properly. Everything can work perfectly this way as long as no zones crash. If there is a crash, there is a likely chance that zones will start loading on the wrong ports of the zone and/or world server. This causes the zones to be unavailable to players.

I have a post in the support forum for trying to get this working properly, but I have come to the conclusion that it can't unless you have a separate network or some kind of port spoofing to let both PCs use the same ports.

If anyone can figure out how to make this change, I think it would be very useful. But I would gladly accept any corrections if there is a way to set this up without having issues that I am somehow missing.