20 KiB
Online networking games for STK
Hosting server
First of all, you can compile STK with -DSERVER_ONLY=ON which will produce a GUI-less STK binary optimized for size and memory usage, useful for situation like in VPS.
The dependencies for RHEL/CentOS 7 are installed with:
yum install wget; cd /tmp; wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/Packages/e/epel-release-7-11.noarch.rpm; rpm -Uvh epel-release*rpm
yum install gcc-c++ cmake openssl-devel libcurl-devel zlib-devel enet gcc-c++
Hosting WAN (public internet) server
You are required to have an stk online account first, go here for registration.
It is recommended you have a saved user in your computer to allow hosting multiple servers simultaneously with the same account, if you have a fresh STK installation, first run:
supertuxkart --init-user --login=your_registered_name --password=your_password
After that you should see Done saving user, leaving in terminal if it successfully logged in.
Than you can just run:
supertuxkart --server-config=your_config.xml --network-console
It will create that xml configuration file if not found in current directory, you can type quit in terminal, than you can edit that file for further configuration as required.
The current server configuration xml looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<server-config version="6" >
<!-- Name of server, encode in XML if you want to use unicode characters. -->
<server-name value="stk server" />
<!-- Port used in server, if you specify 0, it will use the server port specified in stk_config.xml or if random-server-port is enabled in user config, than any port. STK will auto change to random port if the port you specify failed to be bound. -->
<server-port value="0" />
<!-- Game mode in server, 0 is normal race (grand prix), 1 is time trial (grand prix), 3 is normal race, 4 time trial, 6 is soccer, 7 is free-for-all and 8 is capture the flag. Notice: grand prix server doesn't allow for players to join and wait for ongoing game. -->
<server-mode value="3" />
<!-- Difficulty in server, 0 is beginner, 1 is intermediate, 2 is expert and 3 is supertux (the most difficult). -->
<server-difficulty value="0" />
<!-- Number of grand prix tracks per game (If grand prix enabled). -->
<gp-track-count value="3" />
<!-- Use goal target in soccer. -->
<soccer-goal-target value="false" />
<!-- Enable wan server, which requires you to have an stk-addons account with a saved session. Check init-user command for details. -->
<wan-server value="true" />
<!-- Enable network console, which can do for example kickban. -->
<enable-console value="false" />
<!-- Maximum number of players on the server, setting it more than 8 will have performance degradation. -->
<server-max-players value="8" />
<!-- Password for private server, empty for a public server. -->
<private-server-password value="" />
<!-- Message of today shown in lobby, you can enter encoded XML words here or a file.txt and let STK load it. -->
<motd value="" />
<!-- If off this server will ignore chat message from all players. -->
<chat value="true" />
<!-- Allow players to vote track to play, if off server will pick next track to play randomly. -->
<track-voting value="true" />
<!-- Timeout in seconds for selecting karts and (or) voting tracks in server, you may want to use a lower value if you have track-voting off. -->
<voting-timeout value="30" />
<!-- Timeout in seconds for validation of clients in wan, currently stk will use the stk-addons server to share AES key between client and server. -->
<validation-timeout value="20" />
<!-- By default WAN server will always validate player and LAN will not, disable it to allow non-validated player in WAN. -->
<validating-player value="true" />
<!-- Disable it to turn off all stun related code in server, it allows saving server resource if your server is not behind a firewall. -->
<firewalled-server value="true" />
<!-- No server owner in lobby which can control the starting of game or kick any players. -->
<owner-less value="false" />
<!-- Time to wait before entering kart selection screen if satisfied min-start-game-players below for owner less or ranked server. -->
<start-game-counter value="60" />
<!-- Clients below this value will be rejected from joining this server. It's determined by number of official karts in client / number of official karts in server -->
<official-karts-threshold value="1" />
<!-- Clients below this value will be rejected from joining this server. It's determined by number of official tracks in client / number of official tracks in server, setting this value too high will prevent android players from joining this server, because STK android apk has some official tracks removed. -->
<official-tracks-threshold value="0.7" />
<!-- Only auto start kart selection when number of connected player is larger than or equals this value, for owner less or ranked server, after start-game-counter reaches 0. -->
<min-start-game-players value="2" />
<!-- Automatically end linear race game after 1st player finished for some time (currently his finished time * 0.25 + 15.0). -->
<auto-end value="false" />
<!-- Enable team choosing in lobby in team game (soccer and CTF). If owner-less is enabled and live-players is not enabled, than this option is always disabled. -->
<team-choosing value="true" />
<!-- If strict-players is on, no duplicated online id or split screen players are allowed, which can prevent someone using more than 1 network AI with this server. -->
<strict-players value="false" />
<!-- Server will submit ranking to stk addons server for linear race games, you require permission for that. validating-player, auto-end, strict-player and owner-less will be turned on. -->
<ranked value="false" />
<!-- If true, the server owner can config the difficulty and game mode in the GUI of lobby. This option cannot be used with owner-less or grand prix server, and will be automatically turned on if the server was created using the in-game GUI. The changed difficulty and game mode will not be saved in this config file. -->
<server-configurable value="false" />
<!-- If true, players can live join or spectate the in-progress game. Currently live joining is only available if the current game mode used in server is FFA, CTF or soccer, also no addon karts will be available for players to choose, and official-karts-threshold will be made 1.0. -->
<live-players value="true" />
<!-- Time in seconds when a flag is dropped a by player in CTF returning to its own base. -->
<flag-return-timeout value="20" />
<!-- Time in seconds to deactivate a flag when it's captured or returned to own base by players. -->
<flag-deactivated-time value="3" />
<!-- Hit limit of free for all, zero to disable hit limit. -->
<hit-limit value="20" />
<!-- Time limit of free for all in seconds, zero to disable time limit. -->
<time-limit-ffa value="360" />
<!-- Capture limit of CTF, zero to disable capture limit. -->
<capture-limit value="5" />
<!-- Time limit of CTF in seconds, zero to disable time limit. -->
<time-limit-ctf value="600" />
<!-- Value used by server to automatically estimate each game time. For races, it decides the lap of each race in network game, if more than 0.0f, the number of lap of each track vote in linear race will be determined by max(1.0f, auto-game-time-ratio * default lap of that track). For soccer if more than 0.0f, for time limit game it will be auto-game-time-ratio * soccer-time-limit in UserConfig, for goal limit game it will be auto-game-time-ratio * numgoals in UserConfig, -1 to disable for all. -->
<auto-game-time-ratio value="-1" />
<!-- Maximum ping allowed for a player (in ms), it's recommended to use default value if live-players is on. -->
<max-ping value="300" />
<!-- Tolerance of jitter in network allowed (in ms), it's recommended to use default value if live-players is on. -->
<jitter-tolerance value="100" />
<!-- Kick players whose ping is above max-ping. -->
<kick-high-ping-players value="false" />
<!-- Kick idle player which has no network activity to server for more than some seconds during game, unless he has finished the race. Negative value to disable, and this option will always be disabled for LAN server. -->
<kick-idle-player-seconds value="60" />
<!-- Set how many states the server will send per second, the higher this value, the more bandwidth requires, also each client will trigger more rewind, which clients with slow device may have problem playing this server, use the default value is recommended. -->
<state-frequency value="10" />
<!-- Use sql database for handling server stats and maintenance, STK needs to be compiled with sqlite3 supported. -->
<sql-management value="false" />
<!-- Database filename for sqlite to use, it can be shared for all servers created in this machine, and stk will create specific table for each server. You need to create the database yourself first, see NETWORKING.md for details -->
<database-file value="stkservers.db" />
<!-- Specified in millisecond for maximum time waiting in sqlite3_busy_handler. You may need a higher value if your database is shared by many servers or having a slow hard disk. -->
<database-timeout value="1000" />
<!-- Ip ban list table name, you need to create the table first, see NETWORKING.md for details, empty to disable. This table can be shared for all servers if you use the same name. -->
<ip-ban-table value="ip_ban" />
<!-- Online ID ban list table name, you need to create the table first, see NETWORKING.md for details, empty to disable. This table can be shared for all servers if you use the same name. -->
<online-id-ban-table value="online_id_ban" />
<!-- Player reports table name, which will be written when a player reports player in the network user dialog, you need to create the table first, see NETWORKING.md for details, empty to disable. This table can be shared for all servers if you use the same name. -->
<player-reports-table value="player_reports" />
<!-- Days to keep player reports, older than that will be auto cleared, 0 to keep them forever. -->
<player-reports-expired-days value="3" />
<!-- IP geolocation table, you only need this table if you want to geolocate IP from non-stk-addons connection, as all validated players connecting from stk-addons will provide the location info, you need to create the table first, see NETWORKING.md for details, empty to disable. This table can be shared for all servers if you use the same name. -->
<ip-geolocation-table value="ip_mapping" />
</server-config>
At the moment STK has a list of STUN servers for NAT penetration which allows players or servers behind a firewall or router to be able to connect to each other, but in case it doesn't work, you have to manually disable the firewall or port forward the port(s) used by the STK.
By default STK servers use port 2759. For example, in Ubuntu based distributions, run the following command to disable the firewall on that port:
sudo ufw allow 2759
You may also need to handle the server discovery port 2757 for connecting your WAN server in LAN / localhost.
Notice: You don't need to make any firewall or router configuration changes if you connect to the recommended servers (marked with ☆★STK★☆).
Hosting LAN (local internet) server
Everything is basically the same as WAN one, except you don't need an stk online account, just do:
supertuxkart --server-config=your_config.xml --lan-server=your_server_name --network-console
In LAN network it is required that the server and server discovery port is connectable by clients directly, no NAT penetration will be done in LAN.
After the first time configuration, you can just start the server with the command:
supertuxkart --server-config=your_config.xml, regardless of whether LAN or WAN server is chosen (of course you need to have a saved user for the WAN one), by default your server logging will be saved to the STK configuration directory with a name of your_config.log, given that the server configuration filename is your_config.xml.
You can find out that directory location here (See Where is the configuration stored?)
Testing server
There is a network AI tester in STK which can use AI on player controller for server hosting linear races game mode, which helps automating the testing for servers, to enable it use:
supertuxkart --connect-now=x.x.x.x:y --server-id=id --network-ai=n --auto-connect --no-graphics
x.x.x.x:y is your server ip address with its port, id is the id field of server-info in STK server xml list, omit it if you are testing LAN server, n is the number of AI you want to create.
You can see STK server xml list here.
You can remove --auto-connect if you have another client which can control the starting of games in server, or you can consider enable owner-less mode on server so the games on server can keep going. Remove --no-graphics if you want to see the AI racing. You can also run network AI tester in server-only build of STK.
With the network AI tester, it's easier to for example simulate high-loaded servers or bad (high ping with packet loss) network.
Tested on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, if you have 8 players connected to a server hosted on it, the usage of a single CPU core is ~60% and there are ~60MB of memory usage for game with heavy tracks like Cocoa Temple or Candela City on the server, you can use the above figures to consider number of STK servers hosting on a same computer.
For bad network simulation, we recommend network traffic control by linux kernel, see here for details.
You have the best gaming experience when choosing server having all players less than 100ms ping with no packet loss.
Server management (Since 1.1)
Currently STK uses sqlite (if building with sqlite3 on) for server management with the following functions at the moment:
- Server statistics
- IP / online ID ban list
- Player reports
- IP geolocation
You need to create a database in sqlite first, run sqlite3 stkservers.db in the folder where (all) your server_config.xml(s) located.
STK will automatically create a table named v(server database version)_(your_server_config_filename_without_.xml_extension)_stats in your database if not exists:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS (table name above)
(
host_id INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, -- Unique host id in STKHost of each connection session for a STKPeer
ip INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- IP decimal of host
port INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- Port of host
online_id INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- Online if of the host (0 for offline account)
username TEXT NOT NULL, -- First player name in the host (if the host has splitscreen player)
player_num INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- Number of player(s) from the host, more than 1 if it has splitscreen player
country_code TEXT NULL DEFAULT NULL, -- 2-letter country code of the host
version TEXT NOT NULL, -- SuperTuxKart version of the host (with OS info)
connected_time TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, -- Time when connected
disconnected_time TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, -- Time when disconnected (saved when disconnected)
ping INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 -- Ping of the host
) WITHOUT ROWID;
STK will also create the following default views from the stats table:
*_full_stats
Full stats with ip in human readable format and time played of each players in minutes.
*_current_players
Current players in server with ip in human readable format and time played of each players in minutes.
*_player_stats
All players with online id and username with their time played stats in this server since creation of this database.
If sqlite supports window functions (since 3.25), it will include last session player info (ip, country, ping...).
A empty table named v(server database version)_countries will also be created in your database if not exists:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS (table name above)
(
country_code TEXT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY UNIQUE, -- Unique 2-letter country code
country_flag TEXT NOT NULL, -- Unicode country flag representation of 2-letter country code
country_name TEXT NOT NULL -- Readable name of this country
) WITHOUT ROWID;
If you want to see flags and readable names of countries in the above views, you need to initialize v(server database version)_countries table, check this script.
For IP and online ID ban list, player reports or IP mapping, you need to create one yourself:
CREATE TABLE ip_ban
(
ip_start INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL UNIQUE, -- Starting of ip decimal for banning (inclusive)
ip_end INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL UNIQUE, -- Ending of ip decimal for banning (inclusive)
starting_time TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, -- Starting time of this banning entry to be effective
expired_days REAL NULL DEFAULT NULL, -- Days for this banning to be expired, use NULL for a permanent ban
reason TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', -- Banned reason shown in user stk menu, can be empty
description TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', -- Private description for server admin
trigger_count INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, -- Number of banning triggered by this ban entry
last_trigger TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT NULL -- Latest time this banning entry was triggered
);
CREATE TABLE online_id_ban
(
online_id INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL UNIQUE, -- Online id from STK addons database for banning
starting_time TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, -- Starting time of this banning entry to be effective
expired_days REAL NULL DEFAULT NULL, -- Days for this banning to be expired, use NULL for a permanent ban
reason TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', -- Banned reason shown in user stk menu, can be empty
description TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', -- Private description for server admin
trigger_count INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, -- Number of banning triggered by this ban entry
last_trigger TIMESTAMP NULL DEFAULT NULL -- Latest time this banning entry was triggered
);
CREATE TABLE player_reports
(
server_uid TEXT NOT NULL, -- Report from which server unique id (config filename)
reporter_ip INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- IP decimal of player who reports
reporter_online_id INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- Online id of player who reports, 0 for offline player
reporter_username TEXT NOT NULL, -- Player name who reports
reported_time TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, -- Time of reporting
info TEXT NOT NULL, -- Report info by reporter
reporting_ip INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- IP decimal of player being reported
reporting_online_id INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- Online id of player being reported, 0 for offline player
reporting_username TEXT NOT NULL -- Player name being reported
);
CREATE TABLE ip_mapping
(
ip_start INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY UNIQUE, -- IP decimal start
ip_end INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL UNIQUE, -- IP decimal end
latitude REAL NOT NULL, -- Latitude of this IP range
longitude REAL NOT NULL, -- Longitude of this IP range
country_code TEXT NOT NULL -- 2-letter country code
) WITHOUT ROWID;
For initialization of ip_mapping table, check this script.