[0.4.14] LinuxGaming2 - Shutdown

[noob101]

So it struck the server again. Doesn't happen often, but the whole thing seems down, IRC included. Could you guys look into it and of course fix it any time soon? Thanks a ton!

See ya in-game, noob101

[LazyJ]

Update

Our world is in the process of getting settled into a new VPS home.

Back in September, Orby emailed Miner and I to tell us, that because he no longer used the VPS, he was going to shut it down. After receiving his email I immediately emailed him back asking what the time frame was so we would know when the final day came to move the latest version of our world and related files to its new home.

Orby forgot to get back to either Miner or me with that date and time information before shutting down the VPS.

So... the transition will not go as smoothly as Miner and I had planned.

Tonight, after getting home from work, I started my downloads and checks on the VPS and, like the rest of you, found out that all of linuxgaming.us was down. I sent an email to Orby, asking him to start the server one last time so Miner and I could transfer the last active date's files to the new VPS. Otherwise it would take over 16hrs to upload my copy of the backup to the new VPS. Thankfully, Orby did.

Unfortunately, Orby shutdown the server before Friday morning's backup. I manually ran a backup of the world tonight but it only captures what was created on Thursday before Orby shutdown the VPS. At what time that was, I don't know, but at least we have the world as it was at the last moment on its old home VPS.

Miner and I have been anticipating, discussing, and planning for when this day would come for the past two years. The past couple weeks we have been setting up the new VPS after work (me) and classes (Miner).

The new VPS is pretty much the same specs as the old one but we will have more room on the hard disk.

Miner has been applying what he's been studying in college about network security administration to harden the VPS against attacks and setting up our own IRC server that will operate our own web-based IRC client as well as regular, stand-alone IRC clients. (I'm still a clueless, knuckledragger when it comes to IRC stuff so it is all in Miners capable hands). Miner has also been able to get a very cool, web-based, Google Maps-like version of the overview maps to work.

So, an IRC server and our own web-based IRC client is in the works but not yet functional; we'll be working on that after the MT server is up and running again.

Further down the line we will have a basic website for the web-based IRC client, and the Google Maps-like overview map of the entire world. This Minetest.net thread has worked very well as our main source of information about our server so we'll keep it that way.

The new VPS's Minetest is a recent release of MT 0.4.13-dev. and while it is functional, it is not ready for the public yet until I get tonight's transfer of world files settled into their new homes. After that I will run clearobjects again and vacuum the database. That will probably take 9hrs and I'll let that run while I get some sleep. Once clearobjects and the vacuum are done, I do a final sanity check and then post the connection info for the new VPS sometime Saturday... and then I can get back to my mountain-sized ToDo list of mods, tweaks, and fixes, as well as work on the website and help Miner (if I can) with the IRC.

Don't panic.

LinuxGaming is still here. ;)

[noob101]

WOW!

Well, that explains it.
Thanks LazyJ for informing me/us of the status. And very many thanks to both of you, LazyJ and Miner_48er for another turn of much work you're putting into it. What else can we do to thank you? Please set up a button on the new server's website like "Buy me a beer" or coffee if that's better.

Concerning the backup: Isn't only the last max. 15 minutes lost this way? I think we can and now certainly have to live with that.
As for the new overview map: That sounds totally awesome! Can barely stand the wait to see that!
But aren't there certain areas some people wouldn't wish to appear on map, or at least not prematurely?

These other questions remain:
Will the IRC be only web-based? I'd prefer my hexchat... - but should be possible.
Who's hosting the new server, or basically: What are its specs?
Is there a way to stay in contact in the meantime? If so, pls. PM.

Once more a big THANK YOU!

Meet you in-game, noob101

[Kpenguin]

Thanks for your hard work guys!

[LazyJ]

Update

Our Minetest server is up and running! \o/

Connection info:

Address: LinuxGaming2.com
Port: 30000

The world is the same and all of the builds are still there.

The engine has been updated to the 2015_10_10 GitHub release of MT 0.4.13-dev but the minetest_game is still the old one. The version of minetest_game that we use has become too customized to just drop in a new GitHub release of the standard game. It is on my ToDo list of things to work through and update.

As for the server specs and host, they are literally the same as we had before. It is the same hosting service but under a different subscription.

• 8 virtual cores (this is a Virtual Private Server)
• 4gb of RAM
• 80gb hard disk
• Ubuntu 12.045 LTS

The hard disk is the same size as before but now we have more room because we have the whole hard disk to ourselves. On the previous VPS, we had to share hard disk space with about 40gb of Orby's own files.

The OS is a few years behind but that is the version of Ubuntu most of the other hosting services offered. My guess is that because the hosting services are using the OS for commercial purposes, they have to pay licensing fees. Those licensing fees can be very expensive so they probably stick with the version they have until its support runs out some years later.

When we get the IRC server worked-out you will be able to connect to it with Hexchat, Xchat, Quassel, Irrsi, KiwiIRC, and most any other IRC client just as before. The web-based version will be a page, on our future website, that you can use to log into our IRC channel directly without having to install an IRC client.

BUT... we still have to get the IRC server setup with SASL, ChanServ and some certificates. We don't want to just dump something in and hope it works. With that in mind, expect interruptions and periods of down-time over the next few weeks as Miner and I continue to work on things.

So, again, our Minetest server is up and running now, the world is the same, all of your builds are still there, and the server will shut-down to do its backups at the regular time and then auto-restart just as it has for the past few years.

Address: LinuxGaming2.com
Port: 30000

[LazyJ]

Update

I've been told that earlier versions of MT 0.4.13 won't connect to the server because of the strict protocol. If you aren't able to connect and see an error message about "strict protocol", try updating your Minetest client.

[wilkgr76]

Notice
[*] Lavalamp and Lavalamp2 mods now return an empty bucket when crafting the lamps. (credit to brothersome for finding this.)[/list]

I thought (for some reason) this was intended behaviour, so I didn't report it. One thing I did find though was that if you right click snow (not the blocks) with snow in your hand, the snow in your hand will just disappear (that is, remove one from the stack) without piling it up.

[LazyJ]

Howdy, wilkgr ;)

I haven't checked recently but the standard version of the lava lamps doesn't return the bucket after crafting a lava lamp. Returning an empty bucket is something I added to the mods.

The version of Snow that we use is old and has been broke a few times by minetest_game updates along the way (weather references and some attributes of default snow and ice nodes, not provided for by the Snow mod, were removed by the devs). Now that the new versions of minetest_game have larger, better snow biomes the mapgen part of Snow isn't needed but its snow and ice nodes, as well as the default attributes the devs removed, are needed and I have yet to update and rework those. It's on my ever-growing ToDo list for our server.

[Worldblender]

Maybe I could help you with one/some/all of that stuff? This could help teach me something new, and I could help speed up your work.

[wilkgr76]

Howdy, wilkgr ;)

I haven't checked recently but the standard version of the lava lamps doesn't return the bucket after crafting a lava lamp. Returning an empty bucket is something I added to the mods.

The version of Snow that we use is old and has been broke a few times by minetest_game updates along the way (weather references and some attributes of default snow and ice nodes, not provided for by the Snow mod, were removed by the devs). Now that the new versions of minetest_game have larger, better snow biomes the mapgen part of Snow isn't needed but its snow and ice nodes, as well as the default attributes the devs removed, are needed and I have yet to update and rework those. It's on my ever-growing ToDo list for our server.

I'd recommend using the moresnow mod. It'll even put "caps" on fences and make the snow fit to saw'd blocks. And it adds carpets.

[Worldblender]

Eeek! I just saw that I can't craft "small bundle of sticks" anymore, which means that I can no longer craft the fireplace and the upscale office chair. The four sticks now just craft directly into their respective wood. Will there be some alternate method of crafting those two items, or will there be another way to craft "small bundle of sticks" anymore?

[wilkgr76]

Eeek! I just saw that I can't craft "small bundle of sticks anymore", which means that I can no longer craft the fireplace and the upscale office chair. The four sticks now just craft directly into their respective wood. Will there be some alternate method of crafting those two items, or will there be another way to craft "small bundle of sticks anymore"?

Heh. I saw that issue on VanessaE's server the other day.

[LazyJ]

Worldblender, thanks for the offer of help but I prefer to work on the mods myself. The custom tweaks I make to mods are influenced by future plans, long-term concerns, past experiences, as well as input from players, and other admins and server-ops that I network with. These aspects, altogether, make the custom work I do on the mods much more complex and personal than just editing a few lines of code.

wilkgr, I'm familiar with Sokomine's "MoreSnow" mod - I created the autumn leaves texture and suggested to Soko to use them to create fall time leaves on stairs and roofs. ;) MoreSnow's snow cannon has me worried about a bug that is/was in the Snow mod where thrown snow balls would delete solid blocks if the snowball hit the block from the side. I also don't want players setting up snow cannons to blast snow into and onto other players' builds. Especially if the snow lands near torches or lava. The melting snow results in floods of water or, in the case of lava, cooled lava turned obsidian, pumice, or basalt redirecting lava flow into places it shouldn't be.

I've made a note to look into the recipe for "small bundle of sticks" and recipes that use that recipe item. A block of wood crafts down into four sticks so the reverse is a way to turn unused sticks back into something more useful. Maybe by adding a string of cotton to the four sticks (to tie the bundle together with) could be used to craft the "small bundle of sticks" item or use a fixed position recipe for crafting the bundle vs reverse crafting back into a block of wood? "Small bundle of sticks" comes from GloopBlocks and I see there have been some recent updates to that mod. I'll take a look and see what's what and try to figure something out.

[wilkgr76]

wilkgr, I'm familiar with Sokomine's "MoreSnow" mod - I created the autumn leaves texture and suggested to Soko to use them to create fall time leaves on stairs and roofs. ;) MoreSnow's snow cannon has me worried about a bug that is/was in the Snow mod where thrown snow balls would delete solid blocks if the snowball hit the block from the side. I also don't want players setting up snow cannons to blast snow into and onto other players' builds. Especially if the snow lands near torches or lava. The melting snow results in floods of water or, in the case of lava, cooled lava turned obsidian, pumice, or basalt redirecting lava flow into places it shouldn't be.
.

The snow cannon can be easily removed. Also, testing in singleplayer showed that snow just bounces of solid blocks when thrown from the side. I'm not sure, but I think that the landing snow doesn't update the blocks around it, so it wouldn't melt. Besides - the current snow is also throwable.

It's just that this bugs me a lot - I think I have already lost half a stack of snow due to the right-click issue.

[Worldblender]

Just in case anyone would like to have his/her own copy of this server before the VPS switch, here it is: http://www.linuxgaming.us/minetest_backups/
The backups still run everyday, but the contents will never change again.

[noob101]

Snip:

Worldblender, thanks for the offer of help but I prefer to work on the mods myself...

Just in case: If you can ever think of anything to help you, let us know. I already offered this before and unless things change drastically for me, I won't stop offering it.

Until then, well, keep up that fantastic job you two are doing at keeping that server up and running, and a good place at that. Cheers!

See ya, noob101

[wilkgr76]

(Post removed)

[LazyJ]

Thanks, noob and wilkgr ;)

The best help players can do for the server is to be civil and decent toward each other. From my observations of other Minetest servers, it is an amazingly rare thing to find a server where the players are genuinely civil and decent to each other and to the newcomers.

I really mean it when I say good people are far more valuable than great builders.

We have a good group of players who are leading by example just by being the good folk that they are.

My thanks to all of them. ;)

[botch]

I couldn't find a "Like" button anywhere. I like this post though
Botch

Thanks, noob and wilkgr ;)

The best help players can do for the server is to be civil and decent toward each other. From my observations of other Minetest servers, it is an amazingly rare thing to find a server where the players are genuinely civil and decent to each other and to the newcomers.

I really mean it when I say good people are far more valuable than great builders.

We have a good group of players who are leading by example just by being the good folk that they are.

My thanks to all of them. ;)

[LazyJ]

Update

The IRC server is now setup and some of the bugs squashed. You can connect with your IRC clients or web IRC like kikiirc. The dedicated web chat for our Minetest server is still in the works.

LinuxGaming2's IRC Connection Info:
Address: linuxgaming2.com
Port:
For SSL connection, use: 6697
For a non-SSL connection, use: 6667
Channels:

• #minetest - This is the channel that is piped into the game. In-game chat and IRC chat go back-and-forth.
• #LinuxGaming2 - This is the channel to use if you want to chat outside of the game and not be interrupted by young players who don't yet know what IRC is and don't want to be asked "can i liv wit u" or "ware r u" every time you chat with someone.

If you are using the SSL connection, port 6697, use these extra settings in your IRC client (these are what I use in my HexChat):

• Accept invalid SSL certificates. We are working on getting official certificates but for now we have to use self-signed certificates.
• Use SSL for all servers.

If you are using the non-SSL connection, port 6667, then you don't need any of that SSL setting stuff.

[LazyJ]

Update

I've been receiving reports from players that they are unable to connect to our server if they are using MT 0.4.12 clients. Our server uses strict protocol version checking so Minetest doesn't have to do more processing to try to accommodate older versions. When this protocol check was implemented, it would allow versions of Minetest as far back as two versions older (ie. MT 0.4.10 client could connect to an MT 0.4.12 server but an MT 0.4.9 client couldn't).

Apparently that changed with MT 0.4.13.

I asked one of the devs, "est31", and they confirmed that with MT 0.4.13's protocol check, the client's *must be* 0.4.13 themselves to be able to connect.

So going forward, when the server is upgraded to MT 0.4.14 on up, player's clients will also have to upgrade to be able to connect.

Since I prefer to wait a while before upgrading the server's engine, each version upgrade has been out long enough for pre-compiled Mintest clients for Windows and PPAs to have been made available for players to upgrade with. So it won't be like the server's engine will be upgraded before any client upgrades will be available.

[LazyJ]

Update

Lag and particularly lag spikes, have been an issue for our world since ever since the world was created. Now that Miner and I have more access to the VPS itself, we have been trying to learn more about what is going on to try to figure out how to reduce the lag and stop the lag spikes.

Over the past couple nights I've been monitoring the MT server and the VPS, comparing htop to the VPS's system monitor when players were active on the MT server. While everyone is busily mining and building, the virtual cpu cores, RAM, and hard disk of the VPS are *not* being stressed. Less than half of the RAM is being used, less than half of the hard disk is being used, and the eight cpus barely twitch except for the one cpu that is handling Minetest at the time (and even then it only fluctuated between <10 and 33%).

That eliminated the possibility the lag and lag spikes are caused by insufficient (virtual) hardware specs.

The connection to and from the VPS was then the remaining component to investigate.

Last night, I worked through the night trying to reduce the lag. Several restarts of the MT server and the VPS itself were involved; each time trying out different combinations of settings on the MT server and the VPS.

I made sure all the applications were up-to-date on the VPS, studied more about firewalls and reviewed the VPS's firewall settings. Then I chatted with one of the hosting company's tech support people about the lag and lag spikes we have been experiencing over the years. They said they would investigate the matter. With that, pretty much all that can be done about the lag, from the server side of things, has been looked into.

[Kpenguin]

Thanks for all your hard work LazyJ and Miner_48er! We all appreciate you hard work to make the server better!

Would it be possible to increase the output of the lava buckets for furnace fuel? They aren't stackable, so you have to constantly be re-fueling your furnaces, and they only smelt 20 blocks compared to 100 blocks in MC. Just a thought if you have time....

I really enjoy playing on this server! Great builds, nice people, great admins, well maintained, what more can you ask for?

Kpenguin

[LazyJ]

Update

Last night I ran the world database through SQLite3's integrity check and the results came back "ok", meaning the world database is *not* corrupted. I'll take that as a good sign considering the database's age and size.

I'm getting reports of thrown items not going into the other person's inventory. I'm not able to reproduce the problem on my home computer's version of our world. It may be a new bug introduced by MT0413 or it may be an old bug that is being aggravated by the higher levels of lag now or it may be something else still unknown; I can only make educated guesses at this point. So for the time being, don't pass stuff to other players by throwing it at them, use an unlocked chest or a barter table.

[wilkgr76]

Update

Last night I ran the world database through SQLite3's integrity check and the results came back "ok", meaning the world database is *not* corrupted. I'll take that as a good sign considering the database's age and size.

I'm getting reports of thrown items not going into the other person's inventory. I'm not able to reproduce the problem on my home computer's version of our world. It may be a new bug introduced by MT0413 or it may be an old bug that is being aggravated by the higher levels of lag now or it may be something else still unknown; I can only make educated guesses at this point. So for the time being, don't pass stuff to other players by throwing it at them, use an unlocked chest or a barter table.

That's precisely what caused me to lose my evil pick. :( (Of course, it fell out of an item frame, not from another person, but same diff)

EDIT: Thanks for the new one! (I just logged in and dicovered I had one!!)