MODIFYING SERVERFILES - Radio 'TASK' for missions.

[Panzertard]

Gent's - I must ask you to show caution regarding Speeds 'Radio / TASK mod'.

Inserting a addon into a server - via a mission can cause much grief for server admins who doesn't know about this feature.

I've experienced this first hand.

Yes, some of you do have mentioned the MOD in your mission-text - but it is insufficiently labeled and very easilly missed.

 

What happens is:

- You release a mission with this addon.

- The missions lacks a *clear label* such as "WILL MODIFY YOUR SERVER-FILES, use with caution. Please do not report bugs if you have this mod installed".

- The addon is inserted to server, the server crashes.

- The admin restarts the mission, and is oblivious to the changes.

Some admins have complained that 'their mission / radio is not working, it was working fine yesteday' - which can be caused by combination of this method and other issues in DCS.

 

What may happen later:

- Later, bad stuff may happen - crashes are reported in the bug section, and nobody knows that this addon has been installed.

- Patch updates may fail if the Server.lua is modified. And some people still doesn't know that it has been installed.

 

Please, do not insert addons via a mission.

Please use ModMan to release the addon - and tell Server-admins to install it using ModMan.

This way there will less confusion regarding 'non working AI / tasking', 'server crash', and upcoming 'patch issues'.

 

PS. The script & features themselves are good. But keep in mind when you get problems with your mission & server, please deactivate this script.

Check the "\SCRIPT\NET\Server.lua" and look for a "Server-old.lua", and swap the files to disable the mod.

Edited June 13, 2011 by Panzertard

[SmokeyTheLung]

Edited: my question is now moot.

 

I would like to add,

 

Although you might have to jump through some hoops in order to get this enabled/disabled, it is well worth it.

 

These missions with speeds mod have become the casual "drop in" server of choice for the 1st VFW, at least when I'm hosting.

 

Thanks for the heads up Panzer

Edited June 14, 2011 by SmokeyTheLung

[Speed]

Thanks to Panzer's help yesterday, I know how to make this a Modman mod now. That said, what I am pursuing for chatIOlibv2 is this:

 

-Modman install optional

 

-If the auto installer detects that the install of the chatIOlib is messed up or non-existant, it will now minimize to desktop (hopefully the lua set pause function actually works) and a command prompt window will pop up. It will say something like, "Do you want to install chatIOlib support into server.lua and/or servman_server.lua, if you chose yes then the old files will be backed up to <filename>_old.lua? Y/N"

 

Anyway, if you chose not to install it, the mission will close (CTD). If you do chose to install it, then it will install the mod and, hopefully, make a Modman entry, though that may not be possible due to people installing Modman in all sorts of places.

 

Anyway, the chatIOlibv2 will be compatible with chatIOlibv1, so all you would have to do to an old mission that is using chatIOlibv1 would be to overwrite the old script with the new.

 

I wanted to finish the scripting guide by this weekend, but honestly, this should be my highest priority.

 

Let me point at that so far though, server.lua hasn't been changed since I have been messing with it. Are you sure this would be a problem, Panzer? For example, I modified my unitPayloads.lua back in 1.1.0.6 and 1.1.0.7, and it was replaced in this latest 1.1.0.8 patch with a fresh one from ED. ED may have stopped basing their file compares during install off of date the file was modified.

 

Anyway, any kind of non-Modman install is likely to go away eventually, because from what I am being told, this is regarded as a security flaw. You could actually do all sorts of nasty things if you really wanted to, such as embedding malicious VBScripts into missions; however, the DCS community has always been small and mature enough that this hasn't been a problem. This may change by DCS: Fighter, however. HOPEFULLY, by the point ED has to lock out these capabilities, they have also made available to us lua functions and variables that eliminate the entire need of installing a mod for things like this.

 

At least ONLY the server has to install this mod.

Edited June 14, 2011 by Speed

[mia389]

What is modman? My server runs fine and I have never had issues. I dont use modman though. I keep hearing about it though. Is it something from Lockon?

[Panzertard]

ModMan is a "Manager to install Mods" for quite alot of Flightsims, including FC2, DCS:BS as well as DCS:A-10C

Very often used for Skin mods, cockpit mods, weapon mods etc - but also any other kind of file-mod.

 

It will take care of:

- Take backup of the original files

- Installing a mod to the game, correctly

- Allow users to uninstall mods easilly, and correctly.

- Lists all mods installed

- Create new mods with a builtin mod-maker.

 

This way a user will know what they have installed.

This way they can remove mods before running a patch - or remove mods just to troubleshoot.