Trackmania server

[thatbloke]

Hello Admins...

I would like to request that we run a Trackmania Nations server on Promethius.

I have been reading up on doing it and as far as I can see it *should* just be a case of copying the server binary to a folder somewhere and just running it. There are also various TM server management mods out there for managing the servers, having played on various servers I know which one I want to use (xaseco - but that is entirely open to debate).

Now I'm no admin and I don't have the required access to Promethius to setup the server so I would like to request that I can schedule a some time with an admin so that we can get a server up and running

Once its up and running I'll then need to configure it, and I would also like the ability to be able to copy new (custom) tracks to the server - I'm not sure how big (in terms of filesize) the tracks are, but this can always be limited to a particular number of tracks or a particular filesize if required.

 

[Zooggy]

Hello,

I would like to say, I am in total support of this initiative.

TMNF is made of win!

Cheers,
J.

 

[waterproofbob]

Hello,

I would like to say, I am in total support of this initiative.

TMNF is made of win!

Cheers,
J.

Yeah what he said.

As well as decent mods we'll need some cool tracks, but for getting it going I guess the stock ones are cool.

 

[thatbloke]

Yeah what he said.

As well as decent mods we'll need some cool tracks, but for getting it going I guess the stock ones are cool.

Aye, we can get it going with a selection of the default tracks and then look at adding tracks and customising it afterward - both from THN members and other locations online, if they are any good

 

[Ronin Storm]

In principle, absolutely.

In practise, we're short on server ops and/or time from the existing server ops.

So, the two things that can be done to help here are:

1. Find all the information required on how to set up a Trackmania Nations server on Linux (Gentoo, if possible).
2. Find someone who is Linux competent, has time free in an ongoing basis to keep the server updated, and who will also pass Haven and my "safe to allow onto Promethius shell" check.

That last check is fairly nebulous, I admit, but it's a real criteria. Joe Newguy isn't getting a shell account on Prom, doubly not as a server op. Mr McNaughty also isn't getting a server account. However, neither of those rule out most of the people here.

Any suggestions / volunteers?

 

[Traxata]

I could do it, I'll poke IF about a crash course in using stuff properly again
I don't know if I can do an install though?

 

[Iron_fist]

i probably won't have a chance to look at it till the weekend but if someone wants to link the details i should be able to look into getting it set up

i know that the stuff for the TM server KC setup is still there so there is even possibly a straight update from Nations to NF.

If i can get all my fees etc sorted tomorrow then i will probably be able to have a look on Fri otherwise it'll be sat before i can have a look in

 

[thatbloke]

I'm not expecting magical miracles instantly - I am perfectly happy with using Linux, all the hardware I use at work is linux so although I don't have any experience with linux server administration, I am certainly a competent Linux user (the main piece of software I program runs on custom Linux distributions).

Regarding information about setting up the server, the following links appear to have all of the info that I think (hope) are required for setting up the server.

Dedicated server info on the TM wiki

A forum post linked to by the wiki page, this contains alot of detailed info about setting up the server. It also has links to download the server binary itself.

It seems that one of us will need to create an account for it somewhere, so if someone with the required access and priviliges would be available at some point at the weekend we can sort all that out as we can put it under my own key.

 

[Ronin Storm]

I'm not expecting magical miracles instantly

No no, completely understand.

I'm aware that requests to the Admins tend to be responded to in one of four ways:

• We just say that there's no way we're doing that, for whatever reason.
• We do it there and then.
• We do it in "a few weeks".
• It gets left for many months, even years.

We're short on the "there and then" capacity and sometimes "a few weeks" is too long. Really, we should have something between (b) and (c) but practically we don't. It's there that I see a capacity problem for us.

And, for the record, I'm insanely grateful to the server admins who do give over their free time to configure and maintain THN's game servers; I could expect nothing more from a volunteer team and I often wish I could pay you! It's just that there's not enough free time in the server admin team to do anything different.

Still, that's somewhat OT.

thatbloke & Trax: happy to talk to you both about server admin stuff; for a new game server, I'm fine with you making mistakes and learning as you go. I get more twitchy (and I'm pretty sure Haven does too) in letting less experienced admins at extant game servers that we've already configured. Somehow feels fine to let a new thing break and help out but less so for something we've spent our time configuring; feels like breaking our toys or something. I should be around a bit more next week (hopefully) so I can spend a little time talking through with you and see whether you're up for it.

Iron: you're awesome, thank you for helping out so much! (and don't feel you have to)

 

[elDiablo]

Others have already offered, but I'm happy to set it up as well, if need be. I'm more than happy for someone else to take the lead, and just ping me if they are away and want someone to watch over it though. Or whatever!

 

[Ronin Storm]

You know I love you, elD.

 

[thatbloke]

Ok, so shall we schedule a time where some of us can look at this together in the same place at the same time?

I would suggest some point either Friday afternoon (around 4pm) or Saturday lunch/afternoon, some time around 12pm?

 

[Traxata]

thatbloke & Trax: happy to talk to you both about server admin stuff; for a new game server, I'm fine with you making mistakes and learning as you go. I get more twitchy (and I'm pretty sure Haven does too) in letting less experienced admins at extant game servers that we've already configured. Somehow feels fine to let a new thing break and help out but less so for something we've spent our time configuring; feels like breaking our toys or something. I should be around a bit more next week (hopefully) so I can spend a little time talking through with you and see whether you're up for it.

I don't think I did too badly on CoD4, I only broke the server once...