Multiple PCs Running Zone Servers

[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.

[trevius]

Well, nexus crashed and for some reason restarted on 7050 which made the zone unreachable. I don't know why it would restart on another port when port 7002 was still available...

delveb (delveb)	7000	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
potimeb (potimeb)	7001	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
solrotower (solrotower)	7003	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
veeshan (veeshan)	7004	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7039	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7040	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7041	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: potimeb (potimeb)	7042	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: frozenshadow (frozenshadow)	7043	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7044	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7045	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: povalor (povalor)	7046	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7047	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: stillmoonb (stillmoonb)	7048	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
Dynamic: Idle	7049	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill
nexus (nexus)	7050	Players	View Log	Restart - Kill

Anyone that has been running a server with multiple zone servers for a while able to lend a hand, please lol?

[Aramid]

Originally Posted by trevius

Well, nexus crashed and for some reason restarted on 7050 which made the zone unreachable. I don't know why it would restart on another port when port 7002 was still available...
Anyone that has been running a server with multiple zone servers for a while able to lend a hand, please lol?

Then you may want to rethink your launching setup... The Launcher has to connect to world and you said you are starting the zone server first, so it may start it's zones first, but now World see's the higher zone numbers last. I would start the world locked and wait until all zones are up and running, then unlock the world, but that's just me.

[trevius]

The problem is that there is no way to set a zone server to use any specific port when a zone crashes and restarts. It will just use the next available one, but I don't think it ever uses the same one it was on before.

Unfortunately, this means that there is no way in the current system for me to setup my servers to run zones on both of them without risking zones being unavailable due to being on the wrong port.

I am going to make a post in the bugs section about the launcher_zones table port setting being completely pointless. I am also going to make a feature request for an entry in the config file to let it set port assignment per zone server.

	<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 server and "zoneb" being the name of the zone launcher set in the zone server batch file (start eqlaunch.exe zoneb).

I think that would be the simplest solution. And again, once I get this all worked out, I will write up a nice guide in the wiki for it.

I hope I don't get mattmeck'd (tm) for making double posts! This post here is for support, the bug post I am going to make is to get the ports issue filed as a bug and the feature request post is the one to request a new setting in the config file. IMO, those are all separate even though they do all relate to this one same issue. Maybe posting the right things in the right places will get them looked at by the right people.

[Aramid]

What happens is when a zone crashes, it restarts on the next highest zone port above the last one used. I had dynamic zones boot from the zonew (World Server) 1st on ports 7000 thru 7004. I logged in and zoned into a dynamic zone and crashed the zone. When it restarted it was on port 7011 which was the next zone number in the queue so to speak. I crashed it again and it restarted on 7012... AND both times it restarted on the zonez server where it was originally on the zonew server. but... I was still able to get into the zone because port 7011 was forwarded to the server with zonez where it restarted.... So, it appears to restart on the next port in line and on the last zone server used.

It just keeps getting better.....

[trevius]

Ya, if I wanted to run all dynamic zones, this wouldn't be an issue. The reason I am setting this up in the first place is because one of my raid zones gets over 20 players quite often and on the world server, it is too much for it to handle and it crashes ALOT! I am sure this is more than a little annoying to my players. So, I am setting it and 4 other heavy traffic zones to run on my main PC which has much more ram and a faster CPU. This should increase overall stability by a great amount and maybe even let me have more players on my server. So, I need to have static zones setup to run on the zone server. I don't want to just split the dynamics between servers.

The problem is if I set a zone to static, and no matter what port I actually start it on (before or after the dynamics on the world server are all loaded), I can get it working fine. But as soon as it crashes, the zone will have a big risk of starting on the wrong port dynamically and since it is specified in the launcher_zones table to launch that static zone on my secondary zone server, it will be unavailable to players.

Now, this issue wouldn't be too bad if my zones stayed up all of the time. I am sure the ones on my zone server PC would be pretty stable there. But, I use a zone resetter quest script that I wrote to reset each of these zones after they have been up a certain number of hours. Nexus is set to reset after 4 hours, which is basically restarted the same as if the zone had crashed. I need the zone resetter to deal with the player ghosts issue that apparently only occurs on Windows.