How to run your own NetHack server

> > Is it possible for me to run my own NH server, that people could telnet
> > into, play on, and have a central high-score list?
> Yes, if you have a static IP address, or some service to allow for a
> dynamic IP address and your ISP doesn't block the port(s) you want to
> use.

That I have.

> I presume that you're thinking of doing this on a unix/linux/BSD/OSX
> type of machine. You could probably do it on a Windows server but I
> personally wouldn't.

I have a Windows server running, but have a configures Cygwin setup
running SpamAssassin on the Windows server.

Would this work?

> It's worth googling dgamelaunch and using that if you can. Also, don't
> have nethack running as root, use something sensible like the user
> games.

dgamelaunch, found it, read the readme, and it looks doable .. Question
is, i've found contradicting threads on whether NH will run on Cygwin
or not, so before I start messing around, can someone confirm that NH
in itself is able to run on Cygwin?


Peter
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On 4 Jul 2006 11:53:47 -0700, "Peter Reinhold" <peter DeleteThis @reinhold.dk>
Gave us:

>> > Is it possible for me to run my own NH server, that people could telnet
>> > into, play on, and have a central high-score list?
>> Yes, if you have a static IP address, or some service to allow for a
>> dynamic IP address and your ISP doesn't block the port(s) you want to
>> use.
>
>That I have.
>
>> I presume that you're thinking of doing this on a unix/linux/BSD/OSX
>> type of machine. You could probably do it on a Windows server but I
>> personally wouldn't.
>
>I have a Windows server running, but have a configures Cygwin setup
>running SpamAssassin on the Windows server.
>
>Would this work?
>
>> It's worth googling dgamelaunch and using that if you can. Also, don't
>> have nethack running as root, use something sensible like the user
>> games.
>
>dgamelaunch, found it, read the readme, and it looks doable .. Question
>is, i've found contradicting threads on whether NH will run on Cygwin
>or not, so before I start messing around, can someone confirm that NH
>in itself is able to run on Cygwin?
>

Just boot up a Knoppix disc, and set up a swap file. No OS install
required, and only a small part of your hard drive is used for the
swap file. Set up NetHack Server, and Viola! You are done!
Now, every time you boot the Knoppix disc up and point to your setup,
it starts the server.
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

Peter Reinhold wrote:

> Is it possible for me to run my own NH server, that people could telnet
> into, play on, and have a central high-score list?
>
> I have searched far and wide, and haven't been able to find any real
> information about it, can anyone help?

Pasi Kallinen, who posts here sometimes, helps maintain the alt.org
Nethack server. He might be a useful source of info. Hey Pasi, you
listening? (blowing magic whistle)

It might also be instructive to see if there's any information on the
server that alt.org uses on that site.

- John H.
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Renanr wrote:
> Roy L. Fuchs <roylfuchs DeleteThis @urfargingicehole.org> writes:
>
> > Just boot up a Knoppix disc, and set up a swap file. No OS install
> > required, and only a small part of your hard drive is used for the
> > swap file. Set up NetHack Server, and Viola! You are done!
> > Now, every time you boot the Knoppix disc up and point to your setup,
> > it starts the server.
>
> I think you could also get VMware (create/install a VM with the trial version,
> then use VMware Player, which is free) and run a Linux virtual machine on
> it. It would be tricky to do the "port forwaring" (i.e. redirect
> incoming connections on port 23 to the virtual machine), however.

It is fairly simple to run *any* bootable linux disc in a virtual
machine under qemu, as reported in this slashdot article from March
2005:

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/03/16/0210216.shtml

Port forwarding should not be hard. Worst comes to worst, use DeleGate
under Windows to forward port 23.
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

Roy L. Fuchs <roylfuchs DeleteThis @urfargingicehole.org> writes:

> Just boot up a Knoppix disc, and set up a swap file. No OS install
> required, and only a small part of your hard drive is used for the
> swap file. Set up NetHack Server, and Viola! You are done!
> Now, every time you boot the Knoppix disc up and point to your setup,
> it starts the server.

I think you could also get VMware (create/install a VM with the trial version,
then use VMware Player, which is free) and run a Linux virtual machine on
it. It would be tricky to do the "port forwaring" (i.e. redirect
incoming connections on port 23 to the virtual machine), however.


--
Thanks, Renan(r) - Canoas/RS - LRU #390969

"3rd law of computing:
Anything that can go wrong, will. Bus error (core dumped)"
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

"rpresser" <rpresser RemoveThis @gmail.com> writes:

> It is fairly simple to run *any* bootable linux disc in a virtual
> machine under qemu, as reported in this slashdot article from March
> 2005:

I didn't think about Qemu, mainly because I am a VMware user.

> http://slashdot.org/articles/05/03/16/0210216.shtml
>
> Port forwarding should not be hard. Worst comes to worst, use DeleGate
> under Windows to forward port 23.

And if you use a router, I think you can do it directly on the router.


--
Thanks, Renan(r) - Canoas/RS - LRU #390969

"3rd law of computing:
Anything that can go wrong, will. Bus error (core dumped)"
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

Renanr wrote:
> "rpresser" <rpresser.RemoveThis@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > It is fairly simple to run *any* bootable linux disc in a virtual
> > machine under qemu, as reported in this slashdot article from March
> > 2005:
>
> I didn't think about Qemu, mainly because I am a VMware user.

The joy of the Qemu setup, besides being FOSS, is that all it needs is
the ISO -- no virtual machine hard drive file need be created. Not that
I'm dissing VMware -- I'm sure it excels in other areas where Qemu
falls short -- I just don't use it myself.

> > http://slashdot.org/articles/05/03/16/0210216.shtml
> >
> > Port forwarding should not be hard. Worst comes to worst, use DeleGate
> > under Windows to forward port 23.
>
> And if you use a router, I think you can do it directly on the router.

Yeah, probably. It depends how Qemu represents the virtual machine; I
can't remember. If it grabs another IP from DHCP and pretends the VM is
really on the LAN, then yeah, the router config is all that's required.
If not, then Qemu pretends that there's a network segment *between* the
Windows PC and the VM, and acts like the windows PC is a router itself,
in which case you'll have to forward *twice*.
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

"rpresser" <rpresser.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> writes:

> The joy of the Qemu setup, besides being FOSS, is that all it needs is
> the ISO -- no virtual machine hard drive file need be created. Not that
> I'm dissing VMware -- I'm sure it excels in other areas where Qemu
> falls short -- I just don't use it myself.

VMware can also run an ISO, just create a VM and then remove the hard
disk item. Then, you can reuse this VM whenever you want, just change
the ISO.

I use it a lot for testing Live-CD's.

> Yeah, probably. It depends how Qemu represents the virtual machine; I
> can't remember. If it grabs another IP from DHCP and pretends the VM is
> really on the LAN, then yeah, the router config is all that's
> required.
>
> If not, then Qemu pretends that there's a network segment *between* the
> Windows PC and the VM, and acts like the windows PC is a router itself,
> in which case you'll have to forward *twice*.

I will have to check.


--
Thanks, Renan(r) - Canoas/RS - LRU #390969

"3rd law of computing:
Anything that can go wrong, will. Bus error (core dumped)"
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

> Is it possible for me to run my own NH server, that people could telnet
> into, play on, and have a central high-score list?

So far I think that the solution that would work best for me is a
VMWare setup (seeing that QEmu is alpha software on Windows), and then
some sort of Linux setup.

Can anyone recommend a (preferably small) distribution that could be up
and running with minimal tweaking?

Its been a long time since i've last fiddled with installing and
running Linux, and would prefer not to have to spend hours upon hours
to actually get it working, when all I need is NetHack and
dgamelauncher, and thats about it.

I found this, http://www.crash-override.net/nethacklinux.html .. Could
this be made to work with dgamelaunch?
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John H. wrote:

> Pasi Kallinen, who posts here sometimes, helps maintain the alt.org
> Nethack server. He might be a useful source of info. Hey Pasi, you
> listening? (blowing magic whistle)
>
> It might also be instructive to see if there's any information on the
> server that alt.org uses on that site.

Hiya.

Also sometimes Drew Streib, the other guy from alt.org sticks his head
in RGRN, but he's a lot lazier than Pasi as far as upkeep of nethack
goes.

Hey, that's me!

As for the questions on this thread:

* I've never really played with dgamelaunch code outside of the alt.org
server. The pretty packaging and makefile work was done by joshk and
jilles (and I think I'm forgetting someone else) from #nethack on
freenode. As for portability to other platforms, it is probably
possible, as I've heard that joshk made it work on BSD at some point.
I'd venture that to run on cygwin though might be a minor port worthy
of someone who is at least lightly familiar with making things work on
cygwin.

* dgamelaunch actually runs as root initially, but sheds privs in the
first couple of lines of code. It is necessary to do this because to
chroot() in Linux you need to have root privs. I always run nethack in
its own chroot environment. Since no input is processed before the
(very) quick chroot and priv shed, there's no real danger here. The
code is of course open for verification. On my own machine I just
launch dgamelaunch from xinetd on a particular IP/port.

* dgamelaunch hasn't really had a maintainer in a couple of years. I'm
happy for anyone that has good ideas (and there are many) and wants to
turn those into some improvements to the code. I'll probably even run
them on alt.org if they're generally useful.

-drew
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

On 10 Jul 2006 03:48:57 -0700, "Peter Reinhold" <peter DeleteThis @reinhold.dk>
Gave us:

>Can anyone recommend a (preferably small) distribution that could be up
>and running with minimal tweaking?

Knoppix. Customize your own live CD or DVD, and cut out all the
fluff yourself.

Actually, there is a bare bone version out for MAME that would
likely work well.
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

On 10 Jul 2006 03:48:57 -0700, "Peter Reinhold" <peter RemoveThis @reinhold.dk>
Gave us:

>Can anyone recommend a (preferably small) distribution that could be up
>and running with minimal tweaking?

A simple google for "small distros" has 1.3 Million hits.
 >> Stay informed about: How to run your own NetHack server 

Roy L. Fuchs <roylfuchs DeleteThis @urfargingicehole.org> wrote in
news:p916b2lb6tqeamhrn856p9u2hhc4cl2puv@4ax.com:

> On 10 Jul 2006 03:48:57 -0700, "Peter Reinhold" <peter DeleteThis @reinhold.dk>
> Gave us:
>
>>Can anyone recommend a (preferably small) distribution that could be
>>up and running with minimal tweaking?
>
> A simple google for "small distros" has 1.3 Million hits.
>

Not the best way - lots of junk search "finds" show up with that,
Microsoft, yahoo, etc. I guess it's like junk mail - can't kill it. But
I guess that was your point eh? *man* but there's a *lot" of companies
producing linux distributions eh?

--
(setq (chuck nil) car(chuck) )
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