Multiple PCs Running Zone Servers

[AndMetal]

To rewind, what is the name of the launcher you use to load the dynamic zones? Is it also zone?

[trevius]

I believe that all of the launchers are zone. As far as I know, when setting a static zone the launcher_zones has to have "zone" set in it. And I am pretty sure it uses the same one for dynamics by default. But, it looks like you can set the launcher in the confix xml file.

And, I have been trying to login to my server through the browser, but it won't let me in even if I use my highest status account which is set to 250 status. I don't have a clue why.

[Aramid]

Originally Posted by trevius

I believe that all of the launchers are zone. As far as I know, when setting a static zone the launcher_zones has to have "zone" set in it. And I am pretty sure it uses the same one for dynamics by default. But, it looks like you can set the launcher in the confix xml file.

They don't have to be zone, they can be called anything you want. Do you not run eqlaunch with zone after it? ie: eqlaunch.exe zone

You can change the name of zone to anything you want.
Then just change your startup to eqlaunch.exe NOFLYZONE or whatever you name it.
You would have to use different ZONE names for the 2 servers or else they will both try to load up the SAME zones. This is why I named mine ZONEW (World Server Zones) and ZONEZ (Zone Server Zones).

Originally Posted by trevius

And, I have been trying to login to my server through the browser, but it won't let me in even if I use my highest status account which is set to 250 status. I don't have a clue why.

Did you go into your DATABASE and enter a PASSWORD in the PASSWORD field for this account? This has nothing to do with Game Login... Look at your account in the DB and see if you have a Password set.

[trevius]

Well, I am learning something new with every post you make, LOL!

Ya, I am using the batch file setup from the wiki server setup guide:

@echo off
start world.exe
cls
echo Wait for World to finish loading... Press Enter when done.
pause
start eqlaunch.exe zone
exit

So, if I am reading what you are saying correctly, I can setup the Main server PC batch as:

@echo off
start world.exe
cls
echo Wait for World to finish loading... Press Enter when done.
pause
start eqlaunch.exe zonew
exit

And then I am guessing I need to run eqlaunch.exe from the zone server? I was runnin zone.exe, so that was probably part of my problem lol. I am pretty sure I don't want to load world.exe on my zone server unless I was running it as my test secondary server. So, I imagine the batch file to start the zone server should look like:

start eqlaunch.exe zonez
exit

And thanks for the info on the login account. I did not set a password in it. I know it is blank by default since only the login server actually sees the passwords. I tried even using blank for the password, but that didn't work. I guess it requires some kinda password to be set for it to work.

So, if I set a password in the database for my admin account with status 250, will it still let me log in through the login server? I would think it should as long as the passwords both match. Otherwise, I could just create a new account with status 250 just for the web interface access.

Thanks again for all of your help on this Aramid! By the time I get this all setup I will have plenty of new knowledge and understanding of how this all works. I can't believe I never looked into setting up the templates to work. They seem like a really cool feature!

[Aramid]

Yes on the batch files.

Yes on the eqlaunch from the zone only server, just remember to change the name in the launcher table, in the DB as well, not just in the .bat file. ZoneW would have the 5 for the 5 dynamic zones and zonez would have a 0 for no dynamic zones. Then in launcher_zones table, you enter the zonez name and the zones you want to load statically and the startup port, which apparently ends up having nothing to do with port forwarding on your router. Forward the ports as they show up in the Templates ZONES page.
Start your World Server 1st and let it load it's zones, then when it is completely up and running, start the Zone Only Server.

You can only run WORLD on 1 Server, not both unless you are going to run a seperate EMU Server.

Eqlaunch is what launches the zones, I do believe it is required....

Yes, you can still use the Account to login and play the game as the login server only passes the LS ID #, not the password, so they do NOT have to match.

[trevius]

OK, I finally got everything to work accept for 1 thing. I can't figure out how to set my zone server to map to the quest directory on my world server.

Here is the snippet from the config file that I would think should set the mapping:

	<!-- Directory locations.  Defaults shown -->
	<directories>
		<quests>Z:\quests</quests>
	</directories>

I have tried mapping to it using \\servername\c\eqemu\quests, and I have tried mapping a drive to it as shown above. No matter what I do, it seems to only want to use the quest directory on the local PC for the zone server in those static zones. This isn't a huge deal, since I can just copy the folders over for the 5 static zones I have currently running on it after I make any quest changes there, but it would definitely be nice to have it running the right way.

Thanks again for all of your help Aramid! I certainly couldn't have gotten this working without you. My players will owe you thanks as well
Also, the whole thing about the port settings in the zone_launcher is confusing and annoying. Like you said, the port settings there seem to have no effect at all on what ports the zones load on. They load in the order that they are started starting at whatever port number you have set in the world server config.

I set mine up a little different than the way you did. I was running into an issue that way. I have 45 dynamic zones set to load on my world server and it takes so long to load them all that I get players logging into them before they are all up. This causes a problem if players load into one of the zones that are set dynamic on the zone server, because it will load a dynamic version when players log in, and then load the static one when I start the launcher on the zone server. So, to get around this, I had to set my static zones for the zone server on ports 7000-7004 and change all of my settings accordingly. Then, I set the world server to 7005-7050. This way, I start the launcher on the zone server first and THEN start the world server up. So, when it first starts, it loads the statics immediately. Then I hit a key to start the dynamic zones loading on the world server.

So far it seems to be working ok. If I can figure out this last issue with the quests, I will try to write up a guide to help people get these setup in the future, since everything I could find was little to no help with getting this setup properly. Heck, maybe I will stick it in the wiki if I can get that figured out. Haven't ever messed with updating a wiki before lol.

Thanks again for the help Aramid! I certainly couldn't have gotten this to work without you. My players will owe you thanks as well!

[Aramid]

I didn't even try to use one area for the quest, I have them on both servers, as this too would probably help keep the load balanced, unless it's world that's running all the quests anyway. Coders will have to let us know if the code allows for drive changes to the locations or just folder/directory changes.

If you get the Templates running, you can start up your world and then LOCK it via the Templates OR, make it LOCKED by default on boot up and then UNLOCK it when all the ones are up.

Glad I was able to help you get it up and running.