Brett's Blog

Alright, the other week I signed on to my BNC (IRC Bouncer) and left it as is. A few minutes later, I checked my additional mIRC program w/ BNC  the connection to the GeekShed network. Looked all fine, I did a /list of the network to see what was popping that day on the network. With that said, #Chris at the time was the largest channel on the network. So I decide to join it and see what all the hub-bub was. No more than a minute later… I am G-Lined(read:Z:Lined) by the IRC Operator Talia.

However, for what reason?

You may not spam or advertise your URL, Trojan virus or other malicious software

First off, I joined a channel just to see what was going on. Secondly, I was behind a virtual host (vHost) set by one of the staff of the network a few months back (has.a.special.vhost was my mask). Thirdly, this virtual host was on and enabled when i joined this channel. Fourthly, my BNC was on the host of ReplayIRC.com.

So what gives? I joined a channel, nearly insta-Z:Lined on join. Congrats GeekShed - You’ve lost another idler of the network. Sure it’s only one user but with all of the hell storm’s that I’ve seen on some mailing lists/forums, others have gotten the near same or same treatment.

Some issues to list of your network.

1. An IRC Operator apparently cannot tell the difference between a vhosted, cloaked or normal unmasked host.
2. Apparently… a /whois to lower access level IRC operators shows full information on your IRCD. To whom, some apparently do not understand what much of it even means.
3. IRC operators are pretty much assuming I’ve joined the channel to apparently do something bad.  Awesome!! – Wrong, it’s pathetic and childish.
4. I originally came to your network after it split off from the previous network. I was invited to that network which split off and moved to Geekshed. I followed suit and joined up with GeekShed.

• Yes, I will agree that the old network had some pretty harsh stuff going on.
• Yes, I am aware of the drama the unfolded about it.
• Sure, the “Z”line is for only eight days. (For anyone wondering)
• No, I don’t care to know the details.

It is sad to see this moderately sized network glineing/zlineing people for things they’ve never done or never had any intentions to do. Congrats GeekShed, you’ve pretty much have given your network a bad reputation from me and nothing at this point will change that.  I’m not one to bitch, moan and groan about other IRC networks. I’m actually the person who wants to help bring things together and build up decent relationships across networks. However, this sort of IRC operator stupidity takes the cake, hands down. Before you(read: any irc network in general) give people IRC Operator access, for gods sake make sure that they know what information that they are getting access to and know what they are looking at.

For the record, I’ve been using IRC since 2000 under the name of bctrainers and sometimes bc on smaller networks. I’m pretty certain I know my way around IRC networks and such. I’m pretty happy running a small IRC network, great way to network with others and build out groups some groups within some gaming communities.

Well, for Christmas I got a new digital camcorder. I was going for the Canaon HFS100, but i did not have enough money for it. So i had to settle for the Sony HDR-XR100. To be honest, I really wished Nebraska Furniture Mart had the canon camcorder in stock, it outperforms this current digital camcorder by a lot.

The night time mode on this camera is absolute crap. Lots of grain, lots of out of focus. Otherwise, i like it. Small, not any longer than from the base of my palm/wrist to half of my middle finger. So it’s got a few plusses. I will be getting a DVI cable so that I can feed it to a laptop and than feed that to an online streaming site. Which would be put on here come spring/summer 2010!

So there’s one thing you all can look forward to in 2010, me storm chasing!

Hey all, for the past few months I’ve been using an edited version of the MediaWiki WebChat plugin. Much of the code was either trimmed out or cleaned up. With the fact of fixing the issues that the mibbit client had with it. With that said, might as post it online for anyone wishing to use this extension edit. Full credit of the original author goes to Robert Leverington, thanks for your hard work on the original files for this.

You can find two wiki websites running this extension currently: http://sgrwiki.com and http://shk.replayirc.com

First, add this to  LocalSettings.php:

require_once("$IP/extensions/WebChat/WebChat.php");
//Have a widget theme? Put the code here.
$wgWebChatSettings = '1b7d59d273fecac05ee8d06d918d9ea5';
//Set the server to connect to
$wgWebChatServer  = 'irc.replayirc.com';
// Channel to connect to. A # is not needed.
$wgWebChatChannel = 'stargate-resistance';
// Which web chat client to use. 'Mibbit' is the currently the only one in the Array.
// Edit the array in WebChat.php to add more.
$wgWebChatClient = 'Mibbit';
$wgAvailableRights[] = 'webchat';
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['webchat'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['webchat'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['webchat'] = true;

Then get this zip file or wget this zipfile and extract it to the `extensions/` folder. The zip archive is located here: http://brettc.replayirc.com/files/WebChat.zip

Please be sure to edit the Webchat.i18n.php file ‘en’ array and edit the server and channel for the webchat-footer. I couldn’t get the crazy thing to pull the settings from LocalSettings.php properly.

Well, it’s been a good 12 hours since Left 4 Dead 2 was officially released! I’ve been having quite the fun time playing on the various servers I’ve setup for the community and ReplayIRC. A few of our servers are in the top 1000 and top 100 list! Makes me feel good that this game is quite popular, but yet at the same time i feel that there isn’t enough servers to go around currently because all of our servers in versus mode is FULL since launch. Anyhow, I have something that might be useful for server admins – mainly ones on linux/unix flavors. This tutorial is assuming that you’ve made a NEW account for the game – We named our user, l4d2.

1. wget http://storefront.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.bin
2. chmod 755 hldsupdatetool.bin
3. ./hldsupdatetool.bin
4. type ‘yes’ at the prompt.
5. ./steam
6. It’ll probably update and want you to type it again, so type ./steam once more.
7. Once updated, type: ./steam -command update -game left4dead2 -dir ~
   • Where ~ means your home root directory.
8. Once installed which can take a while, you will need to edit/create a server configuration. See below for some basics.
9. Once configured, (tip: use screen command) go to the left4dead directory of where you installed the server files to and type: ./srcds_linux -console -game left4dead2 +ip “IP.IP.IP.IP” +hostport 27015 +map c5m1_waterfront.bsp +exec server.cfg
10. Whalaa! Your server should be up and running.

Now for the ReplayIRC Server Configuration. I hope this will be useful for you server admins. The CONFIG FILES have to go into the ~/left4dead2/cfg directory, named server.cfg. It’s a good idea afterwords to remove the excessive comments that I’ve added in.

hostname "ReplayIRC.com Server"
rcon_password "set_this_or_be_damned"
sv_contact "some@email.tld"
sv_clearhinthistory 0
//Essentially 100 "tick"rate for these sv_* settings.
sv_minrate 15000
sv_maxrate 30000
sv_mincmdrate 66
sv_maxcmdrate 101
//MOTD
motd_enabled 1
motdfile "motd.txt"
hostfile "host.txt"
//Logging
log 1
log_level 99 //Absolute verbose logging, set lower if you don't like spam.
sv_log_onefile 0
sv_log_logfile 1
sv_logbans 1
sv_logecho 1
//
//boring stuff
//
sv_downloadurl "" //Leaving this as blank - no use, yet.
// sv_gametypes sets the game types that you want your server to run.
// survival, versus, coop, there's a few others out there.
// To set multiple types, set a comma,in,between,the,settings.
// See bulleted list below this mono-text format.
// Note: mp_gamemode does not appear to be in l4d2 unlike l4d1.
sv_gametypes "versus"
sv_lan 0 //Lan(1) or Internet(0)
//Steam group number to assign to server.
// Used for steam groups in game from steamcommunity.com
sv_steamgroup #######
//1 = Do not connect to the Match Making Service, 0 does.
// Keep at 0 if you want to be public.
sv_steamgroup_exclusive 0
//Allow connections without creating lobby. If set to 1,
// this would disallow outside connects.
sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0
//Region - This sets the lobby in which your server will be part of.
// You will want to set this to the closest location to your server
// eastcoast:0, westcoast:1, south america:2, europe:3, asia:4,
// australia:5, middle east:6, africa:7, world:255
sv_region 0
//Allow use of cheats: 0 Off, 1 On
sv_cheats 0
//All talk - Allow both teams to use audio chat to speak with each other
// 0 Off, 1 On
sv_alltalk 0

Notes:

• If you get: “sh: uncompress: command not found” after typing yes for ./hldsupdatetool.bin, as root type: ln -s /usr/bin/gunzip /usr/bin/uncompress – You will need to have gunzip installed for the command to work.
• Much of the games configuration variables are the same as the original left4dead. So if you’ve previously administered that game, this should be a walk in the park.
  
• Server variables for game types: versus, survival, coop, scavenge (i think). There’s another one, but i haven’t found it yet.
  

Final thoughts: The server for linux still has a ways to go, hopefully future updates will be better than what is currently supplied. Happy zombie hunting!!

Comments are welcome, however I’m not any sort of guru when it comes to Source Dedicated Servers…

Made a few updates to it tonight( November 19, 2009 at 14:53), some changes were found and applied.

While I haven’t updated my blog in quite some time,I might as well do so now.

The good bad and boring…

Good:
- New groups are flocking to ReplayIRC (yay!!)
- About done with college for the year!

Bad:
- More college to go.
- No job yet…
- IRC services are getting updates but at the expense of join / quits… a lot.
- Not much money means no new stuff for me to get for a while.

The boring:
- Server maintenance
- Waiting for LEFT FOR DEAD TWO TO COME OUT ARGH!IHWEHKADGJDSFGH

So there you have it, the simple monthly recap.

Come 2010, I plan on streaming(live video) some tornado’s out around central to eastern Kansas. So we will see about that. I’ll have a post regarding it and a stream when it comes time. Plus at an added factor, a lot of pictures of the storm formation.