[Server] HOMETOWN

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rubenwardy
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by rubenwardy » Post

ExeterDad wrote:This is the reason I've upped my player limit. I was tired of the server always being too full for our regular players to join.
In 0.5 you'll be able to use this function: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... .txt#L2543 to allow certain players to join. Until then, if you can compile Minetest then cherry pick this commit: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/co ... 879752756e

Code: Select all

git fetch
git cherry-pick 40dd03e328ff0ae36338615114cb38879752756e
# compile
Then you'll be able to use register_can_bypass_userlimit

Alternatively, I suggest writing an on prejoinplayer callback to block any new players (less than a week) with 3 numbers once it reaches a certain number of players. More complicated but all you can really do.
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ExeterDad
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

rubenwardy wrote:Also, another thing - escaping jail is very easy, and you can just teleport after. Really you should come out in the spawn area, and not be able to teleport or change your skin until you work sufficiently far away.
Not sure what you are saying here. You can teleport out of jail? Something is definitely broken if that's the case. All chat commands or buttons that teleport a player /tpr, /tphr, /home, /spawn and such check if a player is in jail (or in the course) and won't teleport with the exception of the real /teleport command that only staff use. If you mean escape. The player can leave the jail after sleeping in one of the three jail beds and are teleported to spawn, and the debt is fulfilled. If the player chooses to escape out the back door and navigate the course, they are free to leave as well. But they will or should still be in the jail clothes, and are at risk of being sent back to jail for the remainder of the day if killed (bounty awarded) or if leaving the server and returning. The jail was never designed to keep the player until release. It's merely to slow them down and hopefully discourage spawn killing over and over.
Please elaborate if you've noticed behavior other than described so we can get it fixed :)

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

rubenwardy wrote:In 0.5 you'll be able to use this function: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... .txt#L2543 to allow certain players to join. Until then, if you can compile Minetest then cherry pick this commit: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/co ... 879752756e
Oddly, I was just toying around with this idea just today :)

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

rubenwardy wrote:any new players (less than a week)
Minetest doesn't provide a way to get the join date from the players.sqlite database last I knew. Has that changed recently?

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by mnh48 » Post

I thought I'm the only one who felt the lag... and I just ignore it because we always had bad internet here, even the "signal strength" is quite low for some Minetest servers (which includes my own private server, hosted in US)...
I know it's (reversed?) ping but yeah I call it signal strength:
Image

I'm thinking that teleport to escape jail only works because of the lag? I've had friends in jail tried to teleport to me and the server prevented it from happening... There's a secret door to escape from jail but these escapees could be killed for reward...

---
my shop is only partly finished but it's now opened to public... that also means my old mini-shop at my house is closed, they were moved to my real shop... it's at the long unnamed road (maybe it is Applecrest Way) running from north to south-east of the server...

for mini-shop returning customers: it's not that far from my house, just walk your way to the left side of the road by turning to the left from my house... (I actually planned to build the shop directly in front of my house but eddd got the area first - without building anything - so I build it next to him...)

the only thing I can't restock for now is coal lumps, others has been restocked... xD there's parking lots for your carts too... :P
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The big shop sign I built in front of my shop... xD
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by SFP » Post

ExeterDad wrote:
Fixerol wrote:I was absent for some time, in a few joins I've noticed it is very laggy, one day it was 2.5 (max_lag), today when I joined - it was 6-8, noticed slow chunk load too. Seems abnormal to me, please look into this.
I assure you we have been trying to discover what's been going on.
There hasn't been any mods added for quite some time other than the Halloween related ones that have since been disabled. We have however switched our auth.txt to the sauth sqlite database. We've been doing a vacuum full on our 41 Gig postgresql database weekly and running autovac constantly. I have been trying different settings to attempt to tune the database to get it optimized. However I'm wondering if I should be turning autovac off or way down since we are full vacuuming every week anyway. I suspect when postgresql's vac is writing the database is locking preventing access for Minetest. I also wonder if the conversion of player files to Minetests new players.sqlite is a issue as rubenwardy noted massive writes to the sqlite database with every inventory item added/removed. We also prune redundant players nightly and run vacuum on all the sqlite databases nightly between restarts.
Seems the more we try to optimize and do things "right as possible" the more something breaks.

And I'm convinced "someone" out there is running some kind of bot script. Ours, and many other servers get hit with waves of players with numbers at the end of their names. And I don't believe they are all players from those mobile apps everyone's complaining about. These players have no rhyme nor reason to how they move about and "interact" with the server or players. This is the reason I've upped my player limit. I was tired of the server always being too full for our regular players to join.
Earlier when I was on, there were 78 players on. Spawn was crawling with players wandering around a couple blocks at a time and picking their noses. I'd bet only a few of them were real players.
You could add something like quiz, like for player registration?
Questions can be like 1) Which game are you playing now. 2) What's this server name.... etc. I bet that would keep bots, or other minetest rip-off clients off
Speak when you're spoken to, maybe I might answer.
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

muhdnurhidayat wrote:even the "signal strength" is quite low
The "signal" bars are silly. What you see there is what servers.minetest.net is reporting the ping to be from the Netherlands to HOMETOWN's server located in the middle of the US. So it's no way related to how the ping really is in relation to your location. You will get the same "reading" from anywhere in the world. Even if you were in the parking lot of the datacenter of our host. lol

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

So during restart tonight I've scripted it to revert from the players.sqlite database back to original text files.
This should be interesting :P

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by GreenXenith » Post

ExeterDad wrote:So during restart tonight I've scripted it to revert from the players.sqlite database back to original text files.
This should be interesting :P
I thought we switched to sqlite to try to reduce the lag in the first place..
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

GreenDimond wrote:
ExeterDad wrote:So during restart tonight I've scripted it to revert from the players.sqlite database back to original text files.
This should be interesting :P
I thought we switched to sqlite to try to reduce the lag in the first place..
We migrated the player files to sqlite3 in June after Minetest introduced player backends in 0.4.16. I waited for a bit after release to get a feel how it was working for other people before we did it. It was supposed to awesome. And maybe it still can be with a bit more work. rubenwardy posted this the other day https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/6608 and it caught my eye as I've noticed quite a bit of i/o with the players.sqlite and it seems quite possible he may be on to something as our lag spikes hard these days without much code change other than growing database files. Thinking back, there is a possibility the timeframes kinda match up. Reverting back to player files is something I feel we should do to try to pinpoint what's going on with the server.
As far as the recent switch from auth.txt to auth.sqlite goes, we are still using that until we see how tonights test works out.

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Lone_Wolf » Post

I'm getting 15-20 FPS at spawn (Unusual for me) and the map loads a lot faster
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Chem871 » Post

Edad, I think rubenwardy meant that escaping jail through the Powder House is easy, and you can teleport to wherever after. It is kinda easy, but it's better than doing nothing for a full minute trying to become innocent again :3
What is SCP-055?

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by BBmine » Post

Chem871 wrote:Edad, I think rubenwardy meant that escaping jail through the Powder House is easy, and you can teleport to wherever after. It is kinda easy, but it's better than doing nothing for a full minute trying to become innocent again :3
Yeah but then when you log out and rejoin you'll be back in jail.

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Chem871 » Post

That kinda sucks, it's a time-waster. If the admins could make it so the more people a jail escapee kills, the more they're worth to be killed, that would be cool.
What is SCP-055?

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Fixer » Post

I assure you we have been trying to discover what's been going on.
Try enabling mod profiler, it will show what takes so much cpu time. It is very useful tool.
Last edited by Fixer on Sun Nov 12, 2017 15:24, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

The whole point of the jail is to take spawn killers out of the game for a short while to give people a chance to get clear of the spawn point and not be harassed too much. If you make the sleeping in bed too long, people lose interest and just move on to another server. The alternate way out isn't designed to be too hard either. Just another method of taking them out of the game for a bit, and get them away from the spawn point.
The rewards for killing a escaped convict is merely a way to make life a bit harder for the escapee. And it adds a "penalty-free" way to be allowed to kill for no reason within spawn. Of course it's a bit satisfying as well :D
Adding the rewards also added the relentless challenge of trying to out code the exploits. There seems to be a need to earn easy gold by our more criminal minded players.

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by angelo1123_ » Post

I think this server needs a mod that stops guest account from joining.

Maybe xanadu's mod will do great
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by harmony » Post

MommyKat wrote:
harmony wrote:Hey everyone! So I am quitting Minetest forever, I'm not coming back. I'm retiring my moderator place. I'm sorry ya'll, I have to move on to something different, not new games or anything but life. Real life. I'm serious this time. Good bye all, I'll be on tomorrow and a few days after to give away my things and sell things, and say my good byes. I have to leave.
You'll be back. So far everyone that has left "forever" has come back. BUT....try to enjoy real life. Far too many people are substituting a digital life for a real one, and online friends for real human interaction. Go out there and seize the day, and throttle it hard!!!

If you come back, you'll be welcomed with big hugs. If you don't, we'll know you've successfully carpe'd the diem. Luv you lots, nom nom!
I don't think you will want me back anyway. *sigh* and I'm going to do my best to get BTS autograph Chem :D
저는 방탄소년단 를 사랑해요!!! 아미!! 김남준,김석진,민윤기,정호석,박지민,김태형,전정국,방탄소년단!
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Chem871 » Post

'course we want you back Ynom Ynom :D
What is SCP-055?

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Lone_Wolf » Post

Chem871 wrote:'course we want you back Ynom Ynom :D
^What dis guy said^
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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by BBmine » Post

Chem871 wrote:'course we want you back Ynom Ynom :D
Yes! And I believe she IS back!

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by BBmine » Post

Is ExeterDad's mod gonna be here for Christmas? viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10701#p293565

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by ExeterDad » Post

BBmine wrote:Is ExeterDad's mod gonna be here for Christmas? viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10701#p293565
Maybe. :)

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by Kibbie » Post

The lag issue has been identified and resolved. The issue was resolved over the weekend, but we monitored for a few days to be sure. We appreciate the patience of our players while this was being worked on, we had many players unable to access the server at all, or giving up due to the extreme lag. We look forward to our players returning and the server getting back to normal!

From ExeterDad:
I noticed this morning that the sauth.sqlite was taking one heck of a hit and being accessed way more than I was comfortable with:

Code: Select all

$ inotifywatch -t 30 -r *
Establishing watches...
Finished establishing watches, now collecting statistics.
total  access  modify  attrib  close_write  open  delete_self  filename
6869754  6869748  6       0       0            0     0            sauth.sqlite
1017   128     889     0       0            0     0            players.sqlite
384    192     192     0       0            0     0            debug.txt
8      0       4       0       2            2     0            homes
4      0       2       0       1            1     0            xban.db
3      0       0       1       0            0     1            env_meta.txt
The above command monitors the server directory for 30 seconds and then returns the results of how many times the files were accessed (read). Also how many times written to etc. The sauth.sqlite in this example was hit nearly 7 million times in 30 seconds. The debug.txt, as you know, flies by when the server is busy and only took 192 hits. At the time there were around 21 players logged in, not a big deal for the server, but one heck of a bunch of hits to sauth.sqlite (merely login information).

We switched to sauth.sqlite to break away from the auth.txt method as it's prone to corruption and is written to and read much too much, and will start getting behind if there are many players logging in/out at the same time. If it gets behind - and it is common on larger servers - all things mod related will stop on the server until auth.txt finally catches up. Big lag spikes.

As it turns out, the mod that replaces auth.txt with a sqlite3 database has an issue. I haven't had time to debug it, or even report it to the author. Our version is the very latest verion, and supposedly should work better than the original releases as it introduced caching. Older versions of the mod has great reviews from other server owners, they claimed the performance of the server increased by many times after replacing the auth.txt auth_handler with sauth and it's sqlite database.

So when Kibbie texted me at work with reports of huge, huge, huge lag. I checked the server files with the same command listed above and found the sauth.sqlite was getting hit over 12 million times in 30 seconds. In response I disabled the sauth mod and reverted back to the auth.txt method and restarted the server from work. So far the server lag has been much better, but still has the occasional lag spikes that prompted us to move away from it to begin with.

I haven't given up on sauth.sqlite. It just makes sense that it will out perform auth.txt eventually. It just needs some fixing.

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Re: [Server] HOMETOWN

by sorcerykid » Post

The main shortcoming of the builtin authentication handler is excessive I/O operations. The size and format of auth.txt and even the fact the records are all stored in memory really has no bearing on server performance or reliability. I documented my findings earlier this year, after extensive testing on my own server:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16656

My server's auth.txt file is well over 170 MB, yet max_lag rarely exceeds 0.1s even during peak hours. In 10 months time, the file has never been corrupted and the file has never required pruning. I think this is clear evidence that migrating to an SQL database is unnecessary. After all, the bottleneck is not the auth.txt file itself, it is the method of I/O even if the core devs seem reluctant to acknowledge this fact.

It's also worth noting that most of the servers to my knowledge (other than your own) that have deployed the sauth mod have low activity so they aren't really suitable candidates for stress testing.

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