[v2.3.1.0] SRCDS Admin - manage your Source servers (now supports auto-update))

[Xtreme2damax]

Is anyone, particularly the author of this tool around and checking this thread?

[Shona]

Which File do this tool take for the maps? because i can choose all maps from l4d2 there are only the maps from c1-c5

[moxie2020]

Hi, I used to love this program but lately it has been a detriment. If a server hangs for a few secs it automatically launches another server and it defaults to the next available port. Ultimately I get duplicate servers running and my resources are drained causing my players to leave. Is there a way to adjust the sensitivity of the program or block launches from using new ports?

[moxie2020]

Auto update does not work either. Is this supported anymore? Does anyone know a replacement?

[mrben]

(01-12-2012, 05:27 PM)moxie2020 Wrote:  Auto update does not work either. Is this supported anymore? Does anyone know a replacement?

See below.

Cheers
MrBen

[mrben]

For those looking for an alternative Windows solution. I found the following program entirely by accident and I've been using it now for some weeks and it works as promised, so I would recommend giving it a try.

http://forlix.org/gameaddons/srcds_manager.shtml

It does not have a GUI and you cannot manage (start/shutdown) individual servers with it, but I just use it with HLSW, and use HLSW with Rcon for those restart or map-change type tasks.

http://www.hlsw.org/

There is also a nice Sourcemod plugin available now that shuts down your servers early/mid morning and the Forlix manager spots this and restarts them.

http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=87291

With Forlix Manager watching the servers, managing each game servers memory and handling all Valve updates, and HLSW for remote server management, and the server restart plugin restarting the servers each morning to clear out the memory cache, the three of these working together provide pretty much a maintenance free option for windows server operators.

I'm not connected with any of these programs, just thought I'd bring Forlix to peoples attention as I had never heard of it before I found it and it saves me a lot of maintenance work now.

Cheers
MrBen

[Shona]

This is no alternative solution because then i can use SRCDS Guardian or i wrote my own CMD which makes the same.

No other programm can replace SRCDS Admin, because i don't need a CMD or other programm and this makes the programm unique

Oh i wrote before a few month to BR5DY but no answer so i think this programm become no more updates

[moxie2020]

Your program is the only one that has all of these features. The problem is most of them are broken.

1. Autoupdate - Does not work anymore
2. Server timeout - is too quick resulting in servers restarting when they are running just fine.
3. Duplicate Instances - The program sometimes launches a server instance and thinks it has failed even though it is already running. Then it can launch another server instance.
4. Email - Emails are too generic. If you have multiple locations how are you supposed to know which "server 1" it is referring to? It would be better if it used the server hostname or even ip address.
5. No Support - I have seen these issues reported for 5 months or more now and there is no response. If you do not want to support it anymore could you please post the source code so someone can make the necessary changes.

Please help. The community really needs a solution like this.

[moxie2020]

(03-03-2012, 02:50 AM)mrben Wrote:  For those looking for an alternative Windows solution. I found the following program entirely by accident and I've been using it now for some weeks and it works as promised, so I would recommend giving it a try.

http://forlix.org/gameaddons/srcds_manager.shtml

It does not have a GUI and you cannot manage (start/shutdown) individual servers with it, but I just use it with HLSW, and use HLSW with Rcon for those restart or map-change type tasks.

http://www.hlsw.org/

There is also a nice Sourcemod plugin available now that shuts down your servers early/mid morning and the Forlix manager spots this and restarts them.

http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=87291

With Forlix Manager watching the servers, managing each game servers memory and handling all Valve updates, and HLSW for remote server management, and the server restart plugin restarting the servers each morning to clear out the memory cache, the three of these working together provide pretty much a maintenance free option for windows server operators.

I'm not connected with any of these programs, just thought I'd bring Forlix to peoples attention as I had never heard of it before I found it and it saves me a lot of maintenance work now.

Cheers
MrBen

How happy are you with Forlix? The autoupdate feature works properly? The issue I have with it is you cannot reboot individual servers once it is running. Isn't this a major issue? You use HLSW to reboot them but what if you need to work on an individual server and need to stop one for an extended amount of time? Also, if a server hangs does Forlix run a full hlupdate first or does it simply restart the server (a difference of 10 minutes or more)? When SRCDS admin was working properly that was the nicest feature, its ability to distinguish between a failure and an update.

I am stuck using SRCDS Guardian right now but if you can convince me Forlix does a good job with server hangups I will switch immediately.

[mrben]

(04-07-2012, 01:27 PM)moxie2020 Wrote:  How happy are you with Forlix? The autoupdate feature works properly? The issue I have with it is you cannot reboot individual servers once it is running. Isn't this a major issue? You use HLSW to reboot them but what if you need to work on an individual server and need to stop one for an extended amount of time? Also, if a server hangs does Forlix run a full hlupdate first or does it simply restart the server (a difference of 10 minutes or more)? When SRCDS admin was working properly that was the nicest feature, its ability to distinguish between a failure and an update.

I am stuck using SRCDS Guardian right now but if you can convince me Forlix does a good job with server hangups I will switch immediately.

Unfortunately I've just stopped using Forlix, but only because I found it too sensitive to server timeouts and it was occassionally restarting healthy full servers, which of course just isn't acceptable, no matter how rare the problem was. Forlix handles updates intelligently using its own metamod plugin, so only runs the update tool when required and not on every restart.

In answer to your other question, the Forlix author said in June 2011

Quote:A GUI monitor application is planned (in the distant future...), from where individual servers can be stopped and restarted, or the update process triggered manually. Right now, stopping individual servers is not possible, and neither is the changing of startup parameters for individual servers without restarting the service (and thereby all servers).

Forlix is a solid program apart from the timeout issue. It's a shame. I may email the author and point him here to see if I can get him to fix the timeout issue and excite him into working on the GUI version :-)

So, for now I'm now back to using SRCDS Guardian myself, slightly modified to run the update tool on every restart (a pain), as I am using http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=170532 to catch Valve updates when they are released. I also have another SM plugin that restarts the servers every morning between 5am-6am to keep them lean and mean.

Using the above plugins our servers can at least be left unsupervised now, but I agree, we desperately need a windows manager like SRCDS Admin that actually works and doesn't suffer from the problems SRCDS Admin had. I would certainly donate money towards such a program as I have done on other projects that make my life easier such as the awesome ant-cheat plugin SMAC.

[moxie2020]

(04-07-2012, 10:50 PM)mrben Wrote:  

(04-07-2012, 01:27 PM)moxie2020 Wrote:  How happy are you with Forlix? The autoupdate feature works properly? The issue I have with it is you cannot reboot individual servers once it is running. Isn't this a major issue? You use HLSW to reboot them but what if you need to work on an individual server and need to stop one for an extended amount of time? Also, if a server hangs does Forlix run a full hlupdate first or does it simply restart the server (a difference of 10 minutes or more)? When SRCDS admin was working properly that was the nicest feature, its ability to distinguish between a failure and an update.

I am stuck using SRCDS Guardian right now but if you can convince me Forlix does a good job with server hangups I will switch immediately.

Unfortunately I've just stopped using Forlix, but only because I found it too sensitive to server timeouts and it was occassionally restarting healthy full servers, which of course just isn't acceptable, no matter how rare the problem was. Forlix handles updates intelligently using its own metamod plugin, so only runs the update tool when required and not on every restart.

In answer to your other question, the Forlix author said in June 2011

Quote:A GUI monitor application is planned (in the distant future...), from where individual servers can be stopped and restarted, or the update process triggered manually. Right now, stopping individual servers is not possible, and neither is the changing of startup parameters for individual servers without restarting the service (and thereby all servers).

Forlix is a solid program apart from the timeout issue. It's a shame. I may email the author and point him here to see if I can get him to fix the timeout issue and excite him into working on the GUI version :-)

So, for now I'm now back to using SRCDS Guardian myself, slightly modified to run the update tool on every restart (a pain), as I am using http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=170532 to catch Valve updates when they are released. I also have another SM plugin that restarts the servers every morning between 5am-6am to keep them lean and mean.

Using the above plugins our servers can at least be left unsupervised now, but I agree, we desperately need a windows manager like SRCDS Admin that actually works and doesn't suffer from the problems SRCDS Admin had. I would certainly donate money towards such a program as I have done on other projects that make my life easier such as the awesome ant-cheat plugin SMAC.

That is the setup I am using as well. I was told that you could use guardian with firedameon so that you could also monitor for hangups which guardian doesn't do. There is another program called serverchecker.
I am inquiring about autoupdates but it monitors the server and is adjustable in its sensitivity. serverchecker
If autoupdates can work with this it will be the best solution of them all.

[moxie2020]

The source code for server checker and Forlix are both available I wonder if a programmer could use Forlix's metamod fix to feed serverchecker.

[mrben]

I've emailed the Forlix author and pointed him this way, so fingers crossed he pops by.

I trialed Server Checker (as I used to use it way back) but had to drop that too as it was causing little lag spikes every 20 or 40 seconds (can't remember now what it was) as it pinged the servers to check they were up. That was on server 2008, it may be fine on other OS.

[Forlix]

Yeah, here I am, popping by...
I'm aware of the issue that it takes servers ages to start up after a system reboot, and I already increased the timeout for that first launch to 2 minutes. It still happens for me sometimes that servers are killed a few times after a reboot, but I didnt really care anymore - ultimately after a few tries all the servers will be up and running. Maybe I will increase it even further, 10 minutes or something...

I didnt have any issues with the timeout being too short in normal server operation, however, and its already very generous (pings every 5 seconds, and on the 4th timeout in series - so after 20 seconds - it kills the server). After all its important to have the server back online quickly after a hang, so that most of the players will reconnect. It may also be that someone is flooding your server and that is the reason why it didnt respond to the pings...

The only occurrence I have experienced myself where it kills a healthy full server is when the memory limit is reached due to all those leaks in the engine... but nothing I can do about that - if I set my limits too high, ultimately the whole OS will freeze when the RAM is full (I dont have a pagefile in my environment).

And dont count on a GUI to appear any time soon. I dont really see that its worth the work. You shouldnt be restarting or working on your servers that often in a production environment that you need a GUI, and I'm perfectly fine with the text file method. Sure you can't shut down an individual server, but again this is not such a big problem. If I really have to shutdown a server for an extended period then I stop my service during night time when almost all servers are empty.

But anyway, everyone is free to take my source code and change it to their needs, all you need is MSVC6 and thats it.
And yes, the Metamod plugin can be used by other tools as well. After all, all it does is shut down the server in case of an update and place a certain text file in the game directory. Even a simple batch-script could work off of that and launch the update tool when it sees that the text file exists.

[mrben]

Thanks for stopping by Forlix. For sure it's not the news we wanted to hear, but I understand what you are saying. For those of us with many servers the ability to stop and start them individually is quite important for many reasons, although most can be dealt with via HLSW and rcon, some need a full restart.

It is possible that the non-bootup timeouts I mentioned could have been caused by exceeding the memory allocation, although I restart our servers early every morning to counter the SRCDS memory leaks etc.

Your words have inspired me and I think with a batch file and your mmrpatch plugin we can find a solution to one of our problems, so thank you for that and all the work you put in to the manager and MM plugin!

Cheers.