[Plug-ins] Installing Mani Admin Plugin

[Drocona]

SRCDS.com Tutorials, “Installing Mani Admin plugin”

Requirements:
To install Mani Admin Plugin based on Metamod:Source you need Metamod:Source installed on the server, please read the Metamod: Source tutorial to install it.
See this tutorial for Metamod:Source
http://forums.srcds.com/viewtopic/6595

What is Mani Admin Plugin:
Mani Admin Plugin is the most popular server administration tool used in Source Engine games, It changes gameplay, adds voting capabilities, sounds, “billboards” and, most importantly, easy administration. It can spice up your server, make it serious, make it popular; mostly anything you like to do with it. For more information about what Mani Admin Plugin can do for your server(s) see http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com
There are two ways of installing Mani Admin Plugin (I will explain both):
1) Install Metamod:Source based, I prefer this option, It’s quick and you can disable plug-ins on the fly through MM:S without having to restart the server.
2) Install as a stand-alone plug-in, this uses a .vdf file, it runs independent of other plug-ins.

How to get Mani Admin Plugin:
Mani Admin Plugin (MAP) can simply be downloaded from their main website (http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com) as a package (.zip).There are two packages available, the fist package is for games based on the original Source Engine (CS:S, DOD:S, HL2:DM etc.), the second package is for the new Source engine (TF2 and other Orange Box games). In this tutorial I will be installing MAP on a CS:S server, so I download the first package. Note: The installation process is exactly the same for all games, don’t worry.

The installation:
Now that you have the package downloaded above, we can start with the actual installation. Start by extracting the package somewhere on your computer, you should get the following out of the package:


These files have to be placed in the SRCDS\<modfolder>\, for me it’s C:\SRCDS\cstrike\, I simply copy the folders and upload them to my server’s cstrike folder. If it asks to overwrite files, click “yes”.
When the upload/copy is finished, this is what the folders should contain:

Picture explanation: In the addons folder I already have metamod, if you don’t want to install MAP based on Metamod: Source ignore this folder. There are a LOT of files in the cfg\mani_admin_plugin folder, I haven’t listed all those in the screenshot, the files buypreset.....vdf, game.cfg, server.cfg, skill1.cfg and valve.rc are already there from the base install of the server.

Now onto making MAP load, as I said there are two ways, I will explain how to install on Metamod:Source first, if you want to load it as a stand-alone plug-in skip this part and continue at “Method 2”.

Method 1: Loading through Metamod:Source.
To load MAP on MM:S we have to add the MM:S configuration file to let it know where MAP is located. Browse to your SRCDS\<modfolder>\addons\metamod\ folder and locate “metaplugins.ini”, open it and find the following line in the file:

Code:

;********* LIST PLUGINS BELOW ***********

Add add the following lines to it so it looks like this:

Code:

;********* LIST PLUGINS BELOW ***********

Mani    addons/mani_admin_plugin/bin/mani_admin_plugin_mm

Now save the file to your server and Mani should load, only thing left is the configuration, I will explain that after doing Method 2.

Method 2: Loading as a stand-alone.
To load MAP as a stand-alone plug-in we need a .vdf in the addons folder to tell the server where MAP is located. You might have guessed it already, browse to the SRCDS\<modfolder>\addons\ folder find and execute the “CreateVDF.exe”.
You should see a little program now:


Simply press “Save VDF” and save it in your SRCDS\<modfolder>\addons folder, once saved you should find mani_admin_plugin.vdf in the directory above.
Note: If you can’t get it to work this way (Linux users for example) you can make mani_admin_plugin.vdf manually. To create the file manually open up a text document, add the lines shown below and save as “mani_admin_plugin.vdf” (For windows users, keep the quotes so it won’t add .txt at the end)

Code:

"Plugin"
{
    "file" "../cstrike/addons/mani_admin_plugin"
}

Now that all the files are in place we have to edit the server.cfg and add a line to make sure the MAP configuration will load on server startup. Go to your SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg folder and locate the “server.cfg”, If you don’t have this file, create a textfile and save as “server.cfg” (Same here, include the quotes if you are a windows user).
Open “server.cfg” and add the following line on a blank line somewhere in the file (wherever you like):

Code:

exec mani_server.cfg

Now save the file and Mani Admin Plugin should be loaded correctly!
To see if it works type “ma_say test” in the server console (or through RCon), if it works the command executes, if it comes up with “Unknown command” you’ve made an error during the install, go through the above steps again to make sure you did everything correct.

Configuring Mani Admin Plugin:
MAP has loads of features, in this tutorial I will explain the most used functions (Admins, Sounds, Voting, AFK kicking etc.). I will start off by explaining the admin system (Everybody wants to be admin right!).
1) Admin system
2) (Quake)Sounds
3) Voting
4) AFK and Ping kicker
5) Advertisements

1) Admin System:
How to add yourself and others as admins, one of the most important parts of MAP.
MAP reads all the admins from a file called “clients.txt”, this file is not present when you download MAP, you’ll have to make it yourself. Go to your SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\mani_admin_plugin\ directory and create a new text file called “clients.txt” and open it up. Now you can add yourself as an admin by adding your SteamID or your IP address. See below for examples. Basic clients.txt layout:

Code:

"clients.txt"
{
    "version"    "1"

    // This key group lists all your client players
    "players"
    {
        // This must be a unique client name
        "Admin_1"
        {
            // Client real name
            "name"    "Client_1"
            // Steam ID for client
            "steam"    "STEAM_0:0:0000"
            // These are personal access flags for a player
            "flags"
            {
                "Admin"    "grav pban A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y"
                "Admin"    "Z a b c d e f g i k l m o p q r s t v w x y z client admin"
                "Admin"    "spray"
            }
        }
    }
}

In the example above, basically all you need to do is replace “STEAM_0:0:0000” with your own SteamID and you admin. Another example below if you have two admins:

Code:

"clients.txt"
{
    "version"    "1"

    // This key group lists all your client players
    "players"
    {
        // This must be a unique client name
        "Admin_1"
        {
            // Client real name
            "name"    "Client_1"
            // Steam ID for client
            "steam"    "STEAM_0:0:0000"
            // These are personal access flags for a player
            "flags"
            {
                "Admin"    "grav pban A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y"
                "Admin"    "Z a b c d e f g i k l m o p q r s t v w x y z client admin"
                "Admin"    "spray"
            }
        }
        // This must be a unique client name
        "Admin_2"
        {
            // Client real name
            "name"    "Client_2"
            // IP address for client
            "ip"    "192.168.0.12"
            // These are personal access flags for a player
            "flags"
            {
                "Admin"    "grav pban A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y"
                "Admin"    "Z a b c d e f g i k l m o p q r s t v w x y z client admin"
                "Admin"    "spray"
            }
        }
    }
}

Just like said above, replace the SteamID with the ID of your admin, as you can see I also have an admin (Admin_2) that connects through the local network, he doesn’t have a SteamID so he will be authorized by IP address.

Now onto flags, flags set the rights an admin has; can he/she ban, kick and vote? All the available flags are explained nicely in the MAP documentation, the documentation can be found here:
Documentation Click Here
Simply click on the folder “Admin Management” in the pane on the left and the list will show.
If you’ve set everything the way you like, save the file and your admins are configured.

2) (Quake)Sounds:
Sounds are the most fun thing to have in a server some say, MAP has a set of sounds supplied with the plug-in package we downloaded, they are located at SRCDS\<modfolder>\sound\admin_plugin\ should you have any custom sounds, feel free to drop them in there.
To be able to play sounds in game there are some settings we need to have correct in the mani_server.cfg, which is located at SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\. Open it up and, since it’s pretty big, use the search function to find “Sounds”. It should get you to the configuration of the in-game sound system, if it doesn’t get you there simply search the CVars listed below. To enable sounds we get to the following CVar:
“mani_player_settings_sounds 1”, setting this to “1” will ensure everyone that joins the server has the ability to hear the sounds.
“mani_sounds_auto_download 1”, makes sure everyone downloads the sounds when they join the game.
“mani_sounds_filter_if_dead 0”, if set to “1” people that are alive won’t hear sounds played by people that are dead.
“mani_sounds_per_round 0”, The maximum amount of sounds a client can play per round, set to “0” for unlimited.
Save mani_server.cfg and the sounds are ready to be used in-game.

To add sounds to your server, you’ll have to put your sounds in the SRCDS\<modfolder>\sound\ directory; I put the following sounds in there:

Code:

SRCDS\<modfolder>\sound\admin_plugin\guy.wav
SRCDS\<modfolder>\sound\SRCDS\srcdsrocks.mp3
SRCDS\<modfolder>\sound\SRCDS\test.wav

Now go to SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\mani_admin_plugin\ and open “soundlist.txt”, you can see the already installed sounds there, to add your own sound add a new line to the text file with the information of your sound. An example below:

Code:

“Funny guy” admin_plugin/guy.wav
"SRCDS.com rocks" SRCDS/srcdsrocks.mp3
"My test sound" SRCDS/test.wav

Save soundlist.txt and your new sounds will be available in-game and will be downloaded to the players.

Now if you want people in the server to be able to play a sound by simply typing, for example, “donut”, you will have to add some commands to the server. Open up “soundlist.txt” (see location above), there’s a soundlist system in MAP that, as the name says, makes a soundlist on the server, it numbers all the sounds you’ve added in soundlist.txt to make them available to be played. The first sound that’s defined will be sound #1, the next will be #2and so on.


Now that we know the numbers we can start to add commands, this can be done in “commandlist.txt” located at SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\mani_admin_plugin\. Open it; there are some commands there already, to play the sounds a command will have to be added for every sound. This can be done by the ma_play CVar, below I’ve added some commands to play in the server from the screenshot above:

Code:

“suspect” C ma_play 1
“dontstand” C ma_play 2
“donut” C ma_play 3
“smell” C ma_play 4
“brains” C ma_play 5

You can add any sound you have like this, be sure to match the numbers. Save the file and the commands can be used in-game.
Onto quakesounds, they have to be downloaded separately from the MAP website http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com, they are below the package you downloaded at the very start of this tutorial.
Open up the package, it should contain the following files:


Extract them into SRCDS\<modfolder>\.
If asked to overwrite, click yes.
Next, open up your mani_server.cfg or server.cfg and add a line:

Code:

exec mani_quake_sounds.cfg

That will load the quake sounds settings.
Now go to your SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\ directory and open up mani_quake_sounds.cfg. There are quite some settings you can change in there of which the first one and the last two are most important.
“mani_quake_sounds 0”, set this to 1 to enable the quake sounds in-game.
“mani_player_settings_quake 1”, keep this at 1 to have all players here the quake sounds by default.
“mani_quake_auto_download 1”, keep this at 1 to make the sounds download to connecting players.
Save the file and your quakesounds are installed.

3) Voting:
To enable and set up voting in-game open up mani_server.cfg located in the SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\ directory and search for “Voting”. This will get you to the main settings for the voting system. There are a lot of settings to fine tune the voting system, I will explain the most important ones.
“mani_voting 1”, keep this to 1 to enable in-game voting, 0 to disable, this controls ALL voting processes.
“mani_vote_allow_user_vote_map 1”, keep this to 1 to let clients vote for changemap.
“mani_vote_allow_user_vote_map_extend 1”, allow users to vote for map extension.
“mani_vote_dont_show_if_alive 0”, alive players will need to type vote to access the menu if set to 1.
Be sure to save the file again and the settings are stored.
Mani has added great explanations to the settings, I think the rest speaks for itself.

4) AFK & Ping Kicker:
MAP has the ability to handle people that are AFK (Away From Keyboard) and people that have a certain amount of latency. I will start off with the AFK managing sytem, open up mani_server.cfg located at SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\ and search for “AFK”, it will take you directly to the AFK settings.
The AFK manager can kick a player off the server, move to the spectator team or move first, then kick.
The main setting is: “mani_afk_kicker 1”, this will enable or disable the whole system. The rest of the commands will fine tune the AFK manager, these are explained fine by Mani.

High ping/latency kicker is a handy tool that kicks a player when he or she has a ping higher than allowed. Open up mani_server.cfg located in the SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\ directory and search for “Ping Kick”, this will take you directly to the Ping Kicker settings. What you have to set:
“mani_high_ping_kick 1”, this will enable the ping kicker.
“mani_high_ping_kick_ping_limit 100”, this sets what the maximum ping allowed is, when someone pings above 100, kick.
Save mani_server.cfg to store the settings.

5) Advertisements:
MAP has the option to send a message into the server every “x” seconds, you can enable this function by opening up mani_server.cfg located in the SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\ directory. The advert system is the first block in the cfg. The following CVars will set the main advert options:
“mani_adverts 0”, this will enable the adverts.
“mani_time_between_adverts 120”, this will make an advertisement show up every 120 seconds (2 minutes).

Now that the adverts are turned on you can edit what advertisements you want, browse to SRCDS\<modfolder>\cfg\mani_admin_plugin\ and open “adverts.txt”.
There are some examples in this file, you can modify them as you like, be sure to put each advertisement on a new line. Adding {RED/GREEN/BLUE/WHITE} in front of an advert will make the advertisement show up in that color, you can also use {TICKRATE/NEXTMAP/CURRENTMAP} to be replaced by the server tickrate, next map on the server and the map currently running.
For a full list of usable commands:
List of commands and options Click Here
Save the file and the advertisements are set-up.

Get this tutorial in .doc: Mani Admin Plugin.doc
Get this tutorial in .docx: Mani Admin Plugin.docx
Get this tutorial in .pdf: Mani Admin Plugin.pdf

Questions, suggestions and discussions here:
http://forums.srcds.com/viewtopic/6599

Updated: 7 March 2008

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