Multiple PCs Running Zone Servers

[Aramid]

It seems that the only way to make this really work, is that it has to be changed in the code.
Does anyone know what the zone_server table is for in the DB? I added in a zone there and it picked up the last_alive time, so it's in the code some where. Seems you could edit in the zones and port and have the code look at what port the zone is supposed to be on and reload with that port number?

Wondering why we haven't heard from any of the Ops who run multi-servers?

[trevius]

I PM'd Cavedude directly and this is what he had to say about it:

Under Linux, creating a symlink from the world quest folder to the daughter zone directory works perfectly. However, I doubt this will work under Windows (though, give it a try.) Under Linux, a symlink is a true shortcut to the folder/directory and is treated the same as if it were the normal data. Windows, however will often treat the shortcut for what it is, nothing more than a file with the destination folder/file info contained within. This is especially true over a network and will often cause situations like this to fail. I am pretty certain EQEmu looks for the quests folder in a sub directory of the main binary directory, so specifying a path in eqemu_config.xml will likely fail. So, the only thing you are left with is to have a separate quest folder. That isn't so bad, however as that's one less thing zone will need to communicate to the world server for. The more self reliant it is, the better off it is.

As for the zones taking over new ports when they crash... That's a problem with EQEmu and it bothers the hell out of me. When a static zone crashes or is shut down it becomes dynamic, including taking over a port reserved for dynamic zones when it comes back up. It also has the inherent problem of clearing spawn timers, so nameds pop back up and player corpses don't depop/move to GY/SR. I've asked a few times to get this behavior changed so static zones will reboot as static zones, eliminating all of these problems but it looks like a major overhaul of the system would be required. In my case, I have two machines on different networks so my ports can overlap. If you're on the same network, that's not an option obviously (unless you want to get into port/IP forwarding/spoofing, which can get messy and pretty much requires Linux). My only suggestion is to prevent static zones from rebooting automatically in variables (hopefully that still works). You'll then lose a static zone of course, however the zone that crashed should open on the dynamic server the next time a player tries to enter it, making it accessible. You'll just need to keep an eye out on how many zones you have available since they won't auto-boot after a crash. You may want to give yourself extra dynamics since it's very uncommon to crash a dynamic instance to the point where it won't re-open (though, I have seen that on TGC, sadly)

I hope this helps, and if you have anymore questions, feel free to ask.

IMO there has to be another way to do this, so I might try contacting some of the other server admins that I am pretty sure use multiple zone servers. I think KMRA uses a few and probably TZ/VZ too. Maybe TheLieka can help. I might try bugging him about it tomorrow :P

[trevius]

Originally Posted by Aramid

It seems that the only way to make this really work, is that it has to be changed in the code.
Does anyone know what the zone_server table is for in the DB? I added in a zone there and it picked up the last_alive time, so it's in the code some where. Seems you could edit in the zones and port and have the code look at what port the zone is supposed to be on and reload with that port number?

Wondering why we haven't heard from any of the Ops who run multi-servers?

I tried setting up this table with 5 zones and it didn't seem to have any effect at all. I am guessing this might be an old table that isn't used anymore for anything. It is empty by default and I have never seen any info on what to put in there.

[TheLieka]

We run all of our zones from one server, so I honestly have zero experience with this zone_servers issue.

As far as junctions (as they're called in NTFS) to network shares, it can be done with LSE (Link Shell Extensions).
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks...kshellext.html

Basically, you'll want to make c:\eqemu\quests pull from s:\eqemu\quests (where s:\ is a mapped network drive).

Dax

[trevius]

As a follow up to this thread, I wanted to make note that I have contacted all major servers and found that none of them other than PEQ use multiple zone servers. The only one I didn't check with that might be using it is Dragon Soul, which is a Chinese server.

So, it seems that this feature isn't very useful until some change is made to the code that will allow the world server to assign port ranges per zone server.

If I can ever get to a state where I understand code well enough, I might try a crack at getting this added into the source. But, right now that is a ways off. If any other coders have a chance to look into this before then, I would greatly appreciate any feedback. I would mainly like to know if this would be something very complicated to change, or of this could be something that might not be too bad to add in.

Hopefully this post will come in handy for someone considering multiple zone servers in the future. And maybe there will eventually be a fix to get this working

[Aramid]

Trevius,

Did you contact Rojadruid?

Below is a post he made back in November of 2007. Although, I just tried to login to his sever and I just get booted back to the login screen.

An EQ server farm is completly possible, thats the way my server runs, I am currently running 4 computers that spread the load nicley. Its all n how you setup the config file on each machine.
__________________
Rojadruid

Innoruuk Server [legit, CaveDude's Database]
Server Admin.

[trevius]

Ahh, I knew I had read that exact message somewhere, but wasn't able to find it when I was looking for it.

I found these 2 related posts:
http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/showthread.php?t=24754

http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23916

I am PMing froglok23 and rojadruid in case either of them still read these forums and have any input into getting this working the way I want. My guess is that they got it setup and working, but that they never noticed that if a zone crashes, the world server doesn't know which port range to assign to which zone server. And that this causes the zone to be unavailable.

I am trying to get a linux server up and running to see if it works any differently as far as multiple zone servers go. Windows definitely has issues as far as I have seen.

The main problem is that the setting in the config for ports on the world server PC are the only ports that the world server will will ever create new zones on. So, even if you set a separate range of ports in the config on your zone only server, that port range pretty much just gets ignored.

Hopefully one of the guys I am PMing will have a solution and will reply here or PM me with it. I would love to get this working.

[Aramid]

Originally Posted by trevius

I am trying to get a linux server up and running to see if it works any differently as far as multiple zone servers go. Windows definitely has issues as far as I have seen.

Hopefully one of the guys I am PMing will have a solution and will reply here or PM me with it. I would love to get this working.

If your setting up a Linux Server JUST to see if it behaves differently for the Zones, don't. I run on Linux and when a zone crashes, it does the exact same thing. Unless they have a different method, which I would love to hear about, then I think your only option is to run the zones on a server by itself, leaving all the 7000 ports set to that zone server. Only way to KNOW if it helps with lag etc... is to try it.