Login

**KLS** · #1 03-19-2009, 04:00 AM

Okay as I've posted before the login server is looking to upgrade to a new host. Our first option would be to get an entirely new server for it. For this I can't foot the bill, sorry. To do this we would need community help. So I've put up a paypal account for collection of donations toward getting and maintaining a new server.

Edit: I've taken donation down for now until we decide what to do. Thanks everyone.

MarglarTZ · #2 03-19-2009, 11:09 AM

I am happy to see that something is finally being done about the issue, however..

it would be nice to see that there's been some research and thought put into this. I'd like to see what kind of server hardware you are going to buy, what hosting costs are going to look like and what total of donations you are going to need etc.

can't just throw money at something I have no info about.. sorry

csguy0 · #3 03-19-2009, 02:13 PM

I might have a spare HP G4 Series server sitting around I could donate. What are the requirements for the server? Please contact me at: csguy0@gmail.com

Aergad · #4 03-20-2009, 07:25 AM

For my first post, since joining( The site is down quite often and i cant access it very often)

I am new here, but I have been here long enough to see the LS Go down quite often along with the site. I have to agree, i dont feel comfortable giving money away without any kind of real information...

Such as:
1: Are we sure its a hardware issue and not a software issue bringing the LS Down so often? If it is software then a new server platform would do no good and we would be just throwing money down a bottomless pit.

2: what kind of a hardware upgrade would this be, for instance what is the LS running on now and what would it be running on...

3: Would the new server be dedicated ONLY to the LS?

4: What benefits would donators recieve for footing the bill for the server( I am assuming its not a one time kind of donation) Will we have access to the server? Hosting on it? Perhaps a precompiled version of the LS For us to use? The way I see it for the most part minilogin would solve our personal connection issues for our servers and players without us having to foot a bill for a new server...

5: How do we know our money will be going only to the server bill?

I just dont feel comfortable giving money to someone that I Really dont know to fix a problem i dont know buying a new server will solve, nor footing a bill even in part that I wont see any real change in doing so ( meaning We wont have access to the server WE are paying for other then the access we already have to the one we arent paying for) So on and so forth, It would be nice to see a more stable LS but asking us to pay for one then not giving us anything we dont already have... I dont know it sounds off to me.

Like I mentioned earlier perhaps releasing a precompiled LS for private use that works better then minilogin would be nice... something to negate the whole IP authentication with minilogin...

Redundancy would also be a concern, to Me it sounds like nothing is going to change so I dont know how comfortable I am with just pouring money into a bottomless pit here perhaps if we had more information and so forth?

Do not take me wrong, having seen more downtime with the LS then uptime since i joined I agree something must be done to correct this, I just dont know about throwing money at it and getting nothing minilogin and the current ls dont already give me without the expense

devn00b · #5 03-20-2009, 11:27 AM

Whats the backup plan for when the donations dry up?

We tried the donation thing back in the day. Donations wont keep the project going for long. Are you ready to foot the bill, if there arent enough donations? Also What about the other services? Website, IRC, Wikki, etc.

Andrew80k · #6 03-20-2009, 12:31 PM

Also, how much do you think you need to get started and how much to maintain it? I don't use the Login server but I would be happy to donate if the Website and Wiki are upgraded along with the LS.

slynnes · #7 03-20-2009, 03:21 PM

You have my backing (donation)..no questions asked! As abysskeq said....I have saved a TON over the last year not playing on live! The benefit of increased uptime on the LS will be HUGE! Thank you KLS.

Also...I have always been a troll on Peq boards and see the great work done there. I have played a ton on Trev's server...so when Trev says to trust KLS...I trust KLS!

image · #8 03-20-2009, 05:10 PM

I refuse to donate because abysskeq would benefit from my donation :P

**trevius** · #9 03-20-2009, 05:36 PM

NOTE: I deleted many of the posts in this thread as they were just starting a flame war and were being anti-productive. I don't like deleting posts, but it was getting out of hand and unneeded now.

Guys,

Please stop arguing in this thread. KLS is taking on alot of responsibility in taking over the Login Server and making sure it will have as much uptime as possible. It doesn't help to have people arguing about who should contribute or not, and why. She isn't normally a person of few words, but I am the exact opposite lol. I will try to keep you all informed with as much info as I know about the situation.

A little history (may not be exact) on KLS and the emulator:
About 2 years ago, EQEmu moved from some good solid hosting where it was up 99%+ of the time to some new hosting on a very week host server service. The new hosting immediately started causing extended downtime for days every month. Eventually, it started getting worse and worse until it go to the point it is at today where it is more like 90% downtime. The Login Server software is just fine, it is the hardware and the other stuff running on that server (these forums/website) that cause the problem with the current Login Server. Doodman, the current owner of the host had stopped developing for the project long ago, but had always planned to return to the project and fix the issues with the current Login Server and start coding for it again. Doodman stated that those plans aren't going to happen anymore, so he decided to pass the ownership of the Login Server to someone and he picked one of the most respected and trusted members of the currently active EQEmu team, KLS.

KLS has been developing for eqemu for a few years now. After some of the core developers like Fathernitwit, WildcardX and others left the project, KLS took over and almost single-handedly kept the updates coming to improve eqemu for about a year by herself. Since then, a few new members of the dev team have been added (myself included), and have started to help her out. It helps alot that we moved the updates to the new google SVN so we can add as many members as we want to the team, since the old system was very limited and had no room to add new developers. KLS remains what I would call the lead developer of the project and has done much to ensure that things keep rolling and getting better daily. She is also one of the few admins of these forums. She has put endless hours into this project and has been consistent about it. Since, she doesn't voice herself much or in-depth on these forums, many people here may not know who she is. While I don't want to speak too much for her, from what I have seen, she tends to just do her work and make her updates and not really do much discussing about them. She just gets her work done, which IMO is perfectly acceptable.

The Plans for new hosting for the Login Server:

I don't have specific stats on the new hosting that is being looked at, but I am confident that whatever it is will be more than what is required to handle the Login Server with the highest possible stability. If it gets moved to new hosting and there are still some issues, we will have active team members working to ensure that the problem gets resolved and they will keep working until we have something that is as stable as can be expected. So, while it wouldn't hurt to know the stats of the new hosting, the details don't really matter that much. What matters is that it will be corrected, and soon. I am sure once the new hosting is finalized, we will be able to get the new hosting stats. I also imagine that if the new hosting isn't sufficient, there will always be the option to move it again until they find one that is. That is the benefit of having active and competent team members who are responsible for the Login Server.

What I do know is that the Login Server will definitely not be staying on the hosting it is currently on. It will be moving to a new host with considerably better stats. The current one only has something like 512MBs of RAM, and other comparable stats which are just not enough to handle both the Login Server and the Forums. I am not exactly sure what is going to happen to the forums, but I am sure they will be moving as well. I don't know yet if they will be moving to the same server that the Login Server will be on, or if they will be moved to their own separate Web-Hosting service. Either way, the ownership of the forums basically comes with the ownership of the Login Server, so KLS will most likely be responsible for them as well. I also do not yet know for sure if the domain name will be moving, but I would almost certainly assume it will.

Whenever I find out more information, I will give updates as I hear them. Alot of this stuff is still being worked out to give the best possible solution to our problem. I think one of the reasons that the specifics hasn't been stated yet is because KLS is trying to gauge how much to expect the community to be helping out in this matter. If we all show a good response and she gets good funding for it, I imagine that it will open up better hosting options to her. Also, since this will be long-term hosting, we don't want to have to be asking for contributions every single month, so the more we can get contributed up-front, the better. It would be great to have a year's worth of hosting costs saved up to start off with. That will take a tremendous pressure off of KLS as she does not want to pay the bill out of her own pocket and I do not blame her in the least for that!

About Donating:

As for the donations discussion, either do it, or don't. There is no need to try to make people feel ashamed for not donating. Yes, it would help out greatly if people do, but this is considered a free project. If you feel that the project has given you enough enjoyment that it deserves some of your money and you have the money to help it out, then please feel free to do so. If you don't have the money, or don't trust the team enough to send a contribution, or just don't want to donate for any reason, then please do not don't. There is no reason to feel bad about not contributing. We will never pressure people into it. Heck, I don't have the money myself to really donate right now, and I don't plan to do so, lol. Though, I will likely send some of the money I get for my own personal Server's contributions towards it as long as my players are OK with that.

For people who do donate, we don't have any type of rewards planned out for them just yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't a possibility in the future. I think it would be great if we had some way to say thanks to the people who help keep this project running from day-to-day. Also, we aren't expecting people to donate every month. A one-time thing is just fine, but people can do whatever they like.

Feel free to ask any questions related to this new change. Myself or other people in-the-know will try to answer them as best as we can. I try to stay current with what is going on, but there is alot going on atm, so it hasn't been easy to keep up with everything. As I said, I will give updates as I hear them.

Please be nice to KLS. She is under alot of pressure right now I am sure. I only hope she knows that there are many people out there that have faith in her. She has alot to keep her busy for a while, but I think the smoke will clear pretty soon.

Thanks

MarglarTZ · #10 03-20-2009, 07:01 PM

please don't consider my questions to be disrespectful, I am simply stating I would like to see more details before donating.

I am more then happy to donate as I have played off and on for years on various servers and appreciate the eqemu project. I can feel assured about my donation (and how much I will donate) when more details are present, as mentioned above.

I think you can count on donations from a lot of folks if their confidence in the gameplan is there. you don't have to pull the trigger on buying anything, but just a general idea of what to expect hardware wise, cost wise, ease of transition etc

Rezbee · #11 03-20-2009, 07:47 PM

KLS what kind of server are you needing? I am a convientant part-owner or partner of 2 datacenters... 1 in LA, CA and 1 in NC.

The absolute lowest bandwidth we even give out is a dedicated 10mbps, and if its our server and all I can get us setup with less than 110 per month. We can even do 100mbps but err they're billing is a little odd on that... basically as long as we're averaging 10mbps on the 100mbps line we're good to go, I recommend the 10mbps throttled connection though.

We're doing everything from starter servers at 100 per month to custom Xeon with 4 cpus at 300 per month. Up to you guys but I know the datacenter is stable in both areas with 24/7 tech support staff.

Rezbee · #12 03-20-2009, 07:54 PM

BTW, thought I'd add, the datacenter in NC only does co-location and mirroring/dns services... they don't keep any hardware on site for dedicated servers. If you guys have your own rig, that would be the place to send it to.

**KLS** · #13 03-21-2009, 02:03 AM

Well, right now we have a decent amount of donations. Which is good of course. We've also gotten a few offers for people to host it. If we decide to go that route I'll end up giving it all back of course. Right now we're in a good place for the future though.

The server we'll need would host both forums and login ideally. It wouldn't need to be ultra powerful but would need to be a lot better than what we have which is pretty sad. Login is similar to chatserver with many connections in terms of power needed to power it. It's not a huge amount but you put it side by side with apache on our woefully underpowered box and you get what you see now.

mulvak · #14 03-21-2009, 03:46 AM

I'm new to the emu, but in the short time I've been around, the login server seems to be what's holding this back.

I've seen posts about opening up the source. Wondering why wouldn't the source be available?

I love a couple emu servers, TZ/VZ, SoA, and Shadow Haven being my personal favorites. Frankly though I want to enjoy myself in game and getting frustrated with the login server isn't part of that. Looking at some of the private servers now.

Sad that something this good is held back by something so simple.

Hell don't open the source. Email me the login server precompiled and I'll host it. I've got a couple idle servers and more than enough spare bandwidth. I guarantee if I got the software I'd have it up and running stable 24/7 within a couple hours max.

No need to donate, I'll do this on my dime.

**trevius** · #15 03-21-2009, 04:14 AM

Without the approval of the person who wrote the Login Server code, it would be illegal for the source to be opened. And, it has been said several times that they are clearly against it being opened and are no longer involved in the project. That is the simplest explanation of why the source will not be opened. There are other reasons why it would be a good or bad idea to open it, but without the approval of it's writer, there is no reason to even discuss it further.

If we ever get a an alternative to the Public Login Server, it will come from people who are currently working on completely new code for it. It sounds like a probability that they probably will release something that will allow people to run private servers without relying on the Public Login Server.

In most cases though, I think EQEmu servers would benefit in many ways by using the a stable Public LS over a private one. Having your server on a list of 30ish other servers means that thousands of people will likely see your server name and if it is good, they may give it a shot and play on it. If everyone was running private LS's, then they would have no choice but to advertise constantly for their server so people would even be aware it existed in the first place. They would have much less exposure to the current EQEmu community. And giving the many servers only pop up for a short time and then disappear, it would be nearly impossible to keep an accurate list of currently active private servers. At least with the public LS, it is easy enough for people to log into it and see exactly which servers are available, how popular they are, and maybe a little bit of info about what type of server they are. And, they can connect to any server on that list without having to change any configurations on their end, which is a big benefit to people who are technically challenged :P

I fully agree that it would be a good idea to have a private LS solution to have as an option for servers that wanted to use it, but I also firmly believe that without the Public LS, this community would split up and die very quickly. The only reason WoW emu servers are able to handle being private is because they literally have millions of potential players out there actively looking for decent WoW emulator servers. With EQEmu, you are talking about a small fraction of those players, more in the thousands range.

Once the stability of the LS is an issue of the past, I think this project will have the opportunity to grow considerably. With the addition of the new SVN and the amazingly frequent updates that come from the current dev team, I think more and more people will be finding that EQEmu is where they should make their new home