Trials & Tribulations of Running a Server

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Okay ... next question ... how do I get a DNS to work?

I used freedns.afraid.org to get 13acres.pwnz.org as a DNS name. This is mapped to my assigned IP address where I'm hosting the server. I can connect to the server IP in quake and it connects, but I can't connect to 13acres.pwnz.org. Anyone else want to try to connect to that? Server is up at the moment.

Are there settings in my router I need to mess with to get the DNS working on my end?

it will need a port range, but I don't know what they are. Try searching quakeone.com for server port range , or google Quake1 port server range , and that might turn up results easier the answer is on Quakeone.com somewhere.

I usually have more luck with using googles index of quakeone.com than actually using the quakeone.com search function, especially since google doesnt swat my hand for too many searches loool

[Mr.Burns]

Okay ... next question ... how do I get a DNS to work?

I used freedns.afraid.org to get 13acres.pwnz.org as a DNS name. This is mapped to my assigned IP address where I'm hosting the server. I can connect to the server IP in quake and it connects, but I can't connect to 13acres.pwnz.org. Anyone else want to try to connect to that? Server is up at the moment.

Are there settings in my router I need to mess with to get the DNS working on my end?

[Monty tries to think back to the beginning of time when he set up the SPC Quake server in the UK...]

Just to confirm, when you say "... I can connect to the server IP in quake and it connects..." do you mean the internal network address? or your external IP address viewable to the rest of the world? If it's the latter that suggests that 13acres.pwnz.org may not be resolving the TCP/IP address properly. Perhaps try confirm your external IP and then try and use tracert or even PING to see if 13acres.pwnz.org correctly resolves to your true external ip address.

One of the niggles with Quake that you're likely to come across is that although the server can be set to a particular port (e.g. the default of 26000), in many cases in order for your clients to connect to the server a whole range of ports need to be allowed through. It's as though Quake has an initial "Hello you can find me here" port and then uses different ports to set up the connection with the client / server. I seem to recall the FTE QuakeWorld engine can simplify the process by only using 1 port throughout - if only Netquake would do the same .

Assuming you are routing correctly, one option you could try is to put your "server" machine in your DMZ (if your router offers you that option) and then try to connect to your external IP/DNS address. This is likely to expose the machine to the outside world and after you have successfully connected you may need to look at enabling and configuring a suitable firewall to allow quake to use whatever ports it needs but still protect your server.

Another option you could experiment with is to configure the port forwarding of your router to allow the server connection port (e.g. 26000) through to the internal IP of the server, and also temporarily forward all UDP ports to the internal IP address of the server.

Hope this helps

Monty

[Mezmorki]

Thanks for the nice reply!

Here's the situation in more detail:

I can connect to the server internally (e.g. 192.168.1.100) from another computer on my network. My friend outside of the network can also connect to the server through the external ip address from my ISP (e.g. 73.356.43.13 - that's a random ip btw). So I know that the basic connectivity through the router and everything is working.
My friend kicked my ass in a duel last night I have ports TCP/UDP ports 20000-40000 opened on my router. I'm assuming that's enough?

But, if my friend tries to connect by typing "connect 13acres.pwnz.org" it fails to connect and the server doesn't give any indication that it's receiving a connection attempt.

So basically, the questions are thus:

(1) Is there anything I need to do with 13acres.pwnz.org in my ROUTER to get the DNS name to be recognized and work (given that the connection works if connecting to the external ip address directly)?

(2) Is there anything I need to do with 13acres.pwnz.org in my quake server settings (server config, command line, etc.) so that quake knows what to do with the DNS name?

(3) How do I open/forward all ports to 26000 (for example)?

(4) Strangely, I tried pinging my IP address (currently not at home) and pinging 13acres.pwnz.org and the request's all time out. Shouldn't pinging the IP do something when it hits the modem?

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I don't know if this is related or not, but ProQuake still doesn't work as a dedicated server for me. I can connect to it internally, but my friend gets "client to server keepalive" errors when we tries to connect remotely. Qrack works fine. I did a clean build of ProQuake and everything - not sure what the issue is unless it is somehow related the above.

[Spike]

vanilla netquake is really quite poo. its fine for a lan, but as soon as you take it out on the real internet you start to get port forwarding and other issues.
apparently your system requires ports 1024+ to be open. there are a few system services in that range, so be warned of that...
if qrack works fine, just use that instead of proquake?

fte serves netquake clients using a single port (sv_listen_nq 1; sv_port 26000; sv_nqplayerphysics 1)
dp also does (sv_protocol quake; if I recall correctly).
both provide dedicated server binaries.

don't be too surprised that you cannot ping your public address. icmp pings are frequently blocked by boundary routers. and even if they're not blocked, quite a lot of routers don't support hairpin nat connections (where an interior connection hits a public ip that resolves to a server internal to the nat)

anyway, 13acres.pwnz.org [98.209.21.68] appears to have some nq server running (via port 26xx), so I guess you got it working now.

[Mezmorki]

Thanks Spike for the information.

Regarding ProQuake ... I guess there are no features I specifically need from the ProQuake server (as opposed to Qrack), so I can just stick with Qrack since it works. It bugs me that PQ doesn't work ... but maybe I should just let it be.

Were you able to connect to my server via 13acres.pwnz.org? How did you tell something was running? Just curious to know what you did.

[Spike]

you can tell that something is running by connecting to 13acres.pwnz.org:26000 with a quake client and seeing that it redirects to some other auto-assigned port in the 1xxx-4xxx range (or whatever the actual max is). redirects are an annoying part of netquake protocols - that's the bit that gives all the problems.

anyway, because its in the 1024-5000 range, this implies that you're either running winxp or an old (<2.4) linux kernel. hurrah for fingerprinting with a quake client.

[Mezmorki]

you can tell that something is running by connecting to 13acres.pwnz.org:26000 with a quake client and seeing that it redirects to some other auto-assigned port in the 1xxx-4xxx range (or whatever the actual max is). redirects are an annoying part of netquake protocols - that's the bit that gives all the problems.

anyway, because its in the 1024-5000 range, this implies that you're either running winxp or an old (<2.4) linux kernel. hurrah for fingerprinting with a quake client.

Are you able to actually connect to the server and play?

I just tried from where I am (probably behind too many firewalls!) and it didn't work. But it's the same server running from last night that worked ... let me know. Thanks

[Mindf!3ldzX]

I tried connecting to 13acres.pwnz.org:26000 no luck.

[Spike]

I believe I would be able to play if I actually had the map/mod, yes.

like I said earlier, don't expect to always be able to connect to the public ip from your lan, unless you know that your router(s) supports hairpin routing.
you can add an entry to your hosts file if it really bugs you, so your dns name resolves to a local ip instead of a globally routable one.

[Mr.Burns]

I tried connecting to 13acres.pwnz.org:26000 no luck.

Same here from (England), but trying to connect to your ip 98.209.XXX.XXX did get me to a "connection accepted" but no further.

Kind regards

Monty

[Mezmorki]

Thank you all for checking!

Oh yeah, the server is running the Omicron bot mod at the moment ... so maybe that's why it didn't let you in. Also using various custom DM maps ... so again it might not let you in for that reason.

like I said earlier, don't expect to always be able to connect to the public ip from your lan, unless you know that your router(s) supports hairpin routing.

Yeup, I'm aware that that won't usually work ... need to use the internal 192.xxx. ip for internal connectivity.

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Hmmm ... I guess I still don't know what I need to do to make the DNS name (13acres.pwnz.org) work.

Maybe this?
http://www.howtogeek.com/69696/how-t...s-with-dd-wrt/

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Edit again ...

So yes, I believe that I need to setup a dynamic DNS name through my router, so my router knows to read that DNS name on its end. E.G., traffic is getting redirected to my IP, but the router is like "why are you knocking at my door, my address isn't 13acres.pwnz.org!? ... get off my lawn!"

Unfortunately my netgear router currently only supports DNS services from Dyndns.com - which no longer has free (or even cheap) options for DNS hosting. I have a hunch that updating my firmware might expand the list of options and maybe I can get a different DNS name from elsewhere that will work. Good grief!

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Thank you all for checking!

Oh yeah, the server is running the Omicron bot mod at the moment ... so maybe that's why it didn't let you in. Also using various custom DM maps ... so again it might not let you in for that reason.



Yeup, I'm aware that that won't usually work ... need to use the internal 192.xxx. ip for internal connectivity.

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Hmmm ... I guess I still don't know what I need to do to make the DNS name (13acres.pwnz.org) work.

Maybe this?
http://www.howtogeek.com/69696/how-t...s-with-dd-wrt/

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Edit again ...

So yes, I believe that I need to setup a dynamic DNS name through my router, so my router knows to read that DNS name on its end. E.G., traffic is getting redirected to my IP, but the router is like "why are you knocking at my door, my address isn't 13acres.pwnz.org!? ... get off my lawn!"

Unfortunately my netgear router currently only supports DNS services from Dyndns.com - which no longer has free (or even cheap) options for DNS hosting. I have a hunch that updating my firmware might expand the list of options and maybe I can get a different DNS name from elsewhere that will work. Good grief!

Have you considered whether or not servequake would be a viable option for you? I know many current servers are using the servequake addresses. Monty might know more about it!

[Mezmorki]

Well I've figured one thing out ... my router will simply never work with a custom DNS unless I pay access through DynDNS.

For future reference to others, you DO need to setup the dynamic DNS settings in your router for it to work - but MOST routers have a fairly limited pool of options for what DNS providers you can use, which sucks. DynDNS used to have a free option but now it is a paid-only service. Grrr...

I need to buy a new cable modem to go with my upgraded service, so I'll pick up a new router I think as well. Asus routers have a number of DNS provider options and Asus even runs it's own service as well. Plus there appears to be a vibrant scene for 3rd party firmware on Asus routers that will support nearly any DNS provider. I can get a modest Asus router for ~$40 that should do the trick. I'm done with netgear.

[Mr.Burns]

You might have a look at No-ip com which I believe still offers a free dyndns service.
I remember way back that some of these sort of providers can provide you with a little app that monitors your external ip and updates the providers records if/when it changes so that your DNS address will always get routed correctly. Personally, I never had to enable the DynDNS feature on my router (which was a Linksys at the time) in order to do this and for the most part it worked fine and dandy.

Hope this helps

Monty

[Mezmorki]

You might have a look at No-ip com which I believe still offers a free dyndns service.
I remember way back that some of these sort of providers can provide you with a little app that monitors your external ip and updates the providers records if/when it changes so that your DNS address will always get routed correctly. Personally, I never had to enable the DynDNS feature on my router (which was a Linksys at the time) in order to do this and for the most part it worked fine and dandy.

Hope this helps

Monty

Yes, I've seen mention of this. The problem is that even if my computer (via mentioned app) updates the DNS service, my "router" still can only use DDNS via the DysDNS provider ... which is ridiculous.

Turns out that I can flash the firmware on my router after all to use DD-WRT (3rd part firmware), although I need to downgrade to the stock/original firmware first (LOL because I just upgraded the firmware last night hoping it might add NO-IP to DNS providers). Why!?

So ... I'll have a stab at flashing DD-WRT firmware onto the unit, which supports afriad.org and all it's many DNS names. Hopefully this will work!