From: sigma@escher.ipl.rpi.edu (Kevin Martin)
Subject: Re: Alt.games.gb (Galactic Bloodshed) FAQ [Part 2 of 2]
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 06:27:47 GMT

vaitkus@lexmark.com (Keith Vaitkus) writes:
>I wanted to post this e-gram to spur some discussion about the trials and
>tribulations of running gb games. There seemed to be more games running a 
>year ago, at least it seemed so to me. Are people having a harder time
>getting permissions to run games? What sort of problems come up later? 
>Are people starting games, only to get canned by some "higher up" that
>finds out later (or changes his/her mind) and squashes this cyber-space
>rebellion? "Games are fun -- and therefore cannot be (a) a serious activity
>and (b) must be a waste of $$"

Well, I no longer have the direct access to my RPI facilities with which I
ran GB games early this year, and there aren't any machines here at VT
which are sanctioned for such operations, EXCEPT for the undergraduates,
which really gets me steamed.

>Due to this perceived lack of reliable game servers, I am considering trying
>to get my company to sponsor one. However, the powers that be are corporate
>types, and correspondingly conservative. Are there any suggestions as to
>arguments I can make in favor of running gb? I love games, but I have
>found that many people do not share my enthusiasm - to say it mildly.
>There is also a university here, which I can try if all else fails,
>but I imagine the situation will be the same.
>"Why the @#$% should we 'waste' computer resources and $$$ on a game?"
>--The burden of proof is on me.

Tell them you have a harmless program, generally requires very little CPU
except a couple of times a day (at updates), needs a fair amount of disk
space, mostly runs itself (yeah, right ;).

>What kind of hardware resources are required? Will the diety need root
>access? Would it be feasible to run a game 5pm to 7am during the week,
>and all day weekends? What kind of network/cpu load are we talking? 
>Could it be dietied across the net? (ie by someone not physically
>at the hardware site.) etc.

Hardware - the system doesn't have to be especially fast.  That will mainly
affect the length of updates.  The network should be fairly good, though,
or there will be much moaning about lag and lost connections.  You don't
need root access, but it made things easier for me in some respects - I put
racegen in /etc/inetd.conf, but I've written a wrapper program to do that
since.  It also makes it easy to keep the server running - you could put it
in /etc/rc.local if no one minds, so it'll restart itself after the machine
reboots.

If you want the server not to run between 7am and 5pm, that's possible,
although it might inconvenience some people.  Generally, very little CPU or
network load is generated except at updates, when CPU usage can be intense.
Of course, renicing the server helps with that considerably.  You can
describe the network load as equivalent to N telnet connections (N = number
of players logged on), *except* that there's no overhead of the pty and
terminal driver.  Since select() is used, the server sleeps when no one's
doing anything.

As for dietying across the net... it's possible but I wouldn't enjoy the
situation.  It's too easy for things to go wrong that you can't immediately
handle without access to the hardware.  I cannot count the number of times
at RPI I had to run over to the lab and babysit the fileserver through a
reboot after someone's image processsing program caused a panic.  Without
that access, the server (and the entire lab) would have remained inoperative
until 9-10 the next morning.

Recommendation - run the server under a screen session.  If you don't have
screen, get it from prep.ai.mit.edu.  This makes it easy to detach the
session and reattach later from anywhere, so you can still keep an eye on
the server output.  It also protects you from HUPs and silly little things
like signals to terminal groups.

>Also, I have noticed some adds in Computer Game magazines for commercial
>modem-connected game servers. Has anyone tried any of these? The adds
>make them sound much like mud's, but are there any like gb? Do people
>think a gb-clone would work on such a modem-system? Any ideas on
>what hardware one would need for a good implementation? Would any
>of you pay to play one? 

I've no idea about these.  I remember seeing ads for Compuserve's stuff
years and years and years ago...

Well, I'm rambling.  Hope you can get a game running, even if for no other
reason than to keep the whole GB idea alive.

-- 
Kevin Martin
sigma@ipl.rpi.edu
"I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY didn't you BELIEVE me?!"