Author Topic: Broken: Experimental Server Listing (Read 15233 times)

DrSuperGood · « **on:** July 09, 2016, 03:07:24 AM »

Something really ought to be done about the broken Experimental Server Listing page. This page can be found as a sub-fourm link from the Game Servers board.

Quote

Heroku | No such app
There is no app configured at that hostname.
Perhaps the app owner has renamed it, or you mistyped the URL.

This page has not worked for nearly a year now, something that has been mentioned in several topics already. If it cannot be easily fixed then it should be temporarily hidden/removed so as to not confuse people until it is fixed.

From what I understand the experimental server listing application is running. However the web listing is either not linked correctly (wrong URL?) or broken.

prissi · « **Reply #1 on:** July 09, 2016, 06:09:51 PM »

I am not sure the experimetnal server list is running. However, the normal list runs on the server, and I think I cannot run both instance on the same server, as they would clashes with ports (I can only run one 80 port per machine and this is a very small VPS). I could run an experimental server lsiting on another port though.

TurfIt · « **Reply #2 on:** July 09, 2016, 10:58:14 PM »

Changing port would require an Experimental .exe update...

Or just run them both on a different port with a reverse proxy on 80 to redirect. eg. http://wiki.squid-cache.org/ConfigExamples/Reverse/MultipleWebservers#Switching_on_Domains

prissi · « **Reply #3 on:** July 10, 2016, 11:37:36 PM »

Actually, I have not idea how to do that. The server only handles node.js and nothing else, even the DNS lookup is done elsewhere.

TurfIt · « **Reply #4 on:** July 11, 2016, 07:14:29 PM »

What platform is the server running on? i.e. What software with reverse proxy functionality is installed/installable? (squid, apache, nginx, etc...)
Is https://github.com/tbentropy/simlist what's running?

prissi · « **Reply #5 on:** July 11, 2016, 09:54:14 PM »

Yes that script (with a few changes on a virtual server with 128 MB ram and 1 GB hardisk space, running a Debian 7. (Which was the only OS which could run there. One the other hand that server cost me 80 cent a month ... It runs Nodejs 4.4.7.)

jamespetts · « **Reply #6 on:** July 12, 2016, 12:42:05 PM »

I could modify the port in the code if necessary, although someone would need to tell me where to find it.

prissi · « **Reply #7 on:** July 12, 2016, 09:49:26 PM »

I can happily run a second instance on a different port. OR have somebody else run the the nodejs on their server (it is really low effort, low CPU cost).

jamespetts · « **Reply #8 on:** July 12, 2016, 11:42:00 PM »

If somebody can tell me where to change the port number in the code (as I am not familiar with the network code), I should be very grateful. It would be good to have the Experimental announce server running again.

TurfIt · « **Reply #9 on:** July 12, 2016, 11:54:12 PM »

Is your search broken? ANNOUNCE_SERVER

I'd suggest setting up a test listing server and make sure both standard and experimental clients and servers will share properly - especially the case of an experimental server advertising and standard clients receiving. I presume the list servers were made separate for a reason...

I'll still look at seeing if a reverse proxy and two listing server instances can fit into 128MB.

@prissi - can you post the changes you made to the listing server source mentioned above?

DrSuperGood · « **Reply #10 on:** July 13, 2016, 12:32:14 AM »

One really should use a common listing server but expand it to support multiple distributions. This would likely save resources and hassle in the long run. Too bad people did not think of this when they made the functionality as retrofitting it is likely to be difficult.

TurfIt · « **Reply #11 on:** July 13, 2016, 02:09:36 AM »

Source is available if you care to rewrite it... (if it worked that is!)

---
I can't get the listing server to work at all.
First it complains of "dns.validate - failure (valid IPv4 but does not match request IP" which is nonsense.
Bypassing that check gives a TypeError: attached (since I can't seem to copy text from the Debian console either...)
So I'd need a working source to get any further - debugging nodejs crap is not for me.

Isaac.Eiland-Hall · « **Reply #12 on:** July 13, 2016, 02:42:23 AM »

Quote from: prissi on July 12, 2016, 09:49:26 PM

I can happily run a second instance on a different port. OR have somebody else run the the nodejs on their server (it is really low effort, low CPU cost).

If desired, it could easily go on my secondary server, although if that is desired, we might have to work together to figure out how to make it work. It's not running cPanel - but it is running VirtualMin. But I have zero experience with node.js, except understanding the barest of fundamentals.

If it *is* desired, I'll do some googling to see if it works.

Vladki · « **Reply #13 on:** July 13, 2016, 03:52:32 PM »

Is it really necessary to have two list servers? Is distinguishing by version and pakset not enough?

DrSuperGood · « **Reply #14 on:** July 13, 2016, 07:42:12 PM »

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Is distinguishing by version and pakset not enough?

It is not enough because it does not tell what it is a version or pakset of... Basically the listing server assumes all versioning and paksets are equal, and not of entirely different applications. The pakset and version of standard and experimental might somehow end up overlapping at stages causing problems.

prissi · « **Reply #15 on:** July 13, 2016, 09:43:12 PM »

experimetnal also uses a different versioning of the main executable, so in principle one would not be able to join "wrong servers". Thus, as long as the announce protocoll (and the other few server bits) are not hacked, both could be on the same server. But I think experimental savegame format is no longer backward compatible.

Sadly I am still very busy for the next week; but adding some small support for simultanious support of both is not too difficult. But then, also running node.js and fixing the code was simple.

Ashley · « **Reply #16 on:** July 13, 2016, 11:25:20 PM »

In a twist of irony Heroku actually now has a free tier of their service which lets you run something 24/7 (I had to move the listing server off there originally due to them changing their free offering such that it shut the server down for 6 hours a day, my thanks to Prissi for setting it up elsewhere).

So one option would be to just set the experimental listing up on heroku again. Heck, if you made the app name "simlist-experimental" then the DNS redirection would even just work again...

(I am not going to do this myself because I don't wish to be responsible for it again).

Vladki · « **Reply #17 on:** October 28, 2016, 11:31:43 AM »

Isaac, would you please install nodejs on server.exp.simutrans.com. I'll try to set up a listing server for experimental.

jamespetts · « **Reply #18 on:** October 28, 2016, 11:33:12 AM »

Vladki - thank you; that is very helpful.

prissi · « **Reply #19 on:** October 28, 2016, 08:48:26 PM »

http://simlist-exp-simulist-exp.44fs.preview.openshiftapps.com/ runs another listingserver. It is hosted free on openshift. SO if Isaac changes the experimental DNS to this one, it should work at the moment.

Nevertheless installing nodejs and a listserver is very easy. But please use my version as the newer version of nodejs tend to add superfluous ::ffff: to IPv4 number and DNS names: https://github.com/prissi/simlist

jamespetts · « **Reply #20 on:** October 28, 2016, 08:51:15 PM »

Please let me know when you have updated this so that I know whether and to what to change the URL specified in the code.

prissi · « **Reply #21 on:** October 28, 2016, 09:26:46 PM »

This should work right now under this URL. But I have no idea how stable it is. Only long term tests will reveals this.

jamespetts · « **Reply #22 on:** October 29, 2016, 01:35:02 AM »

I have changed the server listing address to this URL in the code and applied that to the Bridgewater-Brunel server, but, unless I am doing something wrong, it does not seem to be working. The code that I changed is as follows (with the original code commented out; in version.h):