Test Connect and CommunityTool

Progress reports and musings from the developers on the current gaming tools.

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trevor
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Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by trevor »

Test Connection on the Start Server dialog should be working again.

The way Test Connection works is to make a socket connection back to your MT host from a php page on the rptools site.

This means that the php page must be able to make outgoing socket calls. This was by far the biggest headache at the previous host. They just couldn't seem to get the configuration set up correctly, and cost many hours online with customer support trying to get them to fix it.

The new host, in contradiction to what I was told before signing up with them, said that I could only have a single outbound port opened up through their firewall. This obviously won't work because people can host their MT on any arbitrary port.

So I decided to take control back from the host, which has the added benefit of moving closer to a CommunityTool type world.

I've written a very small web server of sorts. It's job is to handle very specific requests. The one request it knows how to do now is verify if it can connect to an MT server.

The php service on the rptools site knows how to call it.

So when you click Test Connection MT makes a socket call to the rptools site (can't avoid that since it's hardwired into every MT going back to 1.1) which then makes a web call to my service (currently running on my home machine) passing in the host ip and port, which then makes the connection to your MT host and responds to the php page whether it could or not, then the php page responds to your MT the result.

Which brings us to CommunityTool. The intention with CommunityTool is to have a standalone application that can run pretty much anywhere. We'll have an "official" community host set up, but anyone can take the CmtyTool and run their own. The RPTools site will keep track of hosts that are running (you can selectively have your host register with rptools to be added to the list, just like with MT games).

That way if the official service goes offline for whatever reason (power outage, hardware failure, whatever) there will be other hosts you can hook up on.

The key that ties the rptools site, test connection, and CmtyTool together is that the rptools site keeps track of a registry of services, so we're not dependent on the host to configure themselves to our needs.

Plus, now I've got a head start on community services coding ;)
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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Azhrei
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Azhrei »

So, y'all heard the man -- be testing this thing!

I'll leave the banner up on the MapTool page until we get a half-dozen or so posts here that the new scheme works for them. (It works for me.)

I understand that there will be multiple servers that connect to RPTools for the purpose of saying, "I'm Here -- use me!" and then the Test Connection can be farmed out. But there is still the RPTools bottleneck, right?

I suppose there could be a round-robin DNS configured to alternate between two hosts, with the hosts keeping the server registry updated behind the scenes.

This is pretty cool, though. :) It might be neat to have the Test Connection service report information about the machine that actually made the test. Then the user would get a message that said, "Your machine was visible from Kuala Lumpur! Your configuration appears to work!" ;)

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Rumble
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Rumble »

I be testing. Worked for me. MapTool congratulated me on its lack of invisibility to the outside world.

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trevor
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by trevor »

Heh, funny :) Thanks for the update
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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Azhrei
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Azhrei »

We don't have many people testing. :( But I took the banner off the MapTool forum anyway. I'm sure we'll find out if it fails again. ;)

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trevor
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by trevor »

I think there are lots of people using it, just not aware of this post. I can see that the service has been used.
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Phergus »

I tested it. Once.

If it would make you feel better I could do it again. :)

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Azhrei
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Azhrei »

Yeah, right. :)

I just wanted to know that it was more than 3 (Trevor, myself, and Rumble). That's not a very large data set...

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Rumble
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Rumble »

Azhrei wrote:Yeah, right. :)

I just wanted to know that it was more than 3 (Trevor, myself, and Rumble). That's not a very large data set...
And I though size didn't matter.

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Mrugnak
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Mrugnak »

It's working for me, if you want another data point :D

Zandari
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Zandari »

Just so nobody feels lonely, I clicked it, and was visible.

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Azhrei
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by Azhrei »

Thank you. That's much better. :)

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RedDog
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by RedDog »

Worked fine for me too

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trevor
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Re: Test Connect and CommunityTool

Post by trevor »

Excellent
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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