basic question about setting up server
 

I have considered setting up a server. A major question I have however is what type of computer system do you need to make a decent server? I don't want one of these crap servers that only lets you have 4 zones open at a time. Between me and a friend we could probably get a pretty decent PC put together that would be solely for running the server. Just wondering what the recommended specs would be, what the best OS would be, etc. I have win2k, windowsxp, and 95/98 to choose from. Also wondering if my router is going to cause any problems with connecting. I don't have the firewall enabled on it, but I have noticed with other programs not being able to send files to other users due to it.

Well I have a router, and I have TONS of problems with it. I just directly link my computer to my modem to run a server. I also have never got my server to work when running through a router either. So I would just try to make a server directly linked to your modem for now.

This could be a big problem then. I have no way to really do that. I have my computer and another computer in another room both shareing this connection. Devoteing my whole cable connection to a eq server just isn't a option for me. Only way I will be able to do it is if I can share it with the router. My plans would be to build another computer all together to run this. My friend has offered to help out. I would probably use the Motherboard/processor I got now in it, then upgrade my main computer.

Does the video card make much of a difference in running a server?

So is it pretty much impossible to run a eqemu server through a router?

Video card doesn't make a difference for a server. It's not impossible to run a server through a router. It would just take a lot of time. I called my router's customer service, and they couldn't get it work right. It's all about port forwarding. If you get the ports forwarded correctly, then it's possible. :)

A router has to have certain ports before letting people into a server.....


so best is to fix your router so that people can visit & play on your server....

Read the Server Guide. It will show you how to run a server behind a NAT router. I do it. I run the server on my laptop, and multibox with my desktop, and people outside my local network can access it.

Basically, do this: Go to no-ip.com or someplace that will let you register a free domain name. In your loginserver.ini, set your server address to this domain name (not an IP number).

In your OS hosts file of each computer on your local network that you want to use for EQ, set the domain name to resolve to the internal IP address of the server.

In your boot5zones, use this format for each instance of zone:
<internal IP of zone server> <port> <localhost>

BTW, you can have as many instances of zone.exe as your machine can support. You can start 20 zones at once if you want.

But what I'd like to know is how make the zones stay up all the time (i.e. not "sleep"). I already know how to make them persistent.

hmm thanks for the suggestions all. I guess before I invest anything into this I will set up a test server and try and figure out how to get it to go around my router. I tried running a eqemu server a LONG time ago, but this was like over a year ago when the emu didn't hardly work right to begin with. Also since then I have gotten a different router. I had some generic no name before, now I got a linksys.

I have looked around the site and not found anything useful on actually getting this to work with a router. I went to noip.com and registered, but have no idea what I am supposed to do with it. Its wanting to know what host I want for one thing, I guess it would be something to do with a re-direct? And what IP address would I give it, my computers IP address with the router, or the main IP address?

What guides I do find on here seem to be out of date, or have broken links, etc. They also seem to be really vague in many area's, guess they are aimed at the college graduates or something. The guide that comes with the server files don't say nothing about routers either. All this talk about what ports need to be opened pretty much has me lost as well.

A Walk-thru showing how to do this with the ip redirect would be helpful for sure.

You missed the EQ Emu Server Guidebook, the fifth topic from the top in the tutorials and how-tos section.

Do you understand what no-ip does? You give your public IP that your ISP assigned to you. If this IP changes, update it with no-ip or d/l the app that does it for you.

With which part do you need more help? Note, though, that if you have a different router than I (I have an SMC), you'll have to figure out your machine-specific issues OYO.

I have a router and people can connect to my server fine and Im not using DMZ. Contact me on AIM (TheBigSim03) sometime next week when Im home and Ill tell you exactly how my router is set up.

Well with everything, I have no idea what numbers to put into the ini files with eqemu, I don't know what options to select at the no-ip site. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable with computers, but when it comes to routers and networking I get myself lost really quick. I have a D-Link Router. As far as opening up certain ports or whatever I need to edit within my router, I can figure out how to do it, once I know what needs to be done.

Get a US-Robotics /nod.

in boot5zones.bat, replace "." with a zonename

so instead ofuse

TYVM, that'd be what I needed.