L.C. Posted July 19, 2008 Report Posted July 19, 2008 (edited) You can find a maintained list of directory servers at http://www.subdir.net/. Comments: I just put this up, so it obviously doesn't look entirely finished because the backend scripting hasn't even been done but is underway. I would like to get the Status (Online/Offline), Zones and Players columns working some time. Currently playing around with the Directory Server's protocol and source code at the moment. ;o It took me almost all day to make that design and get to this publishing point (I think I spent around 8 hours on this puppy). Also if anyone who has the knowledge, experience and free-time to look over my code and CSS to try and fix that empty gap of space between the column headers and the first row of data, that would be excellent. Future Ideas:Display more specific geographic location information when moving mouse over continent name.Have the server e-mail someone when their directory server goes offline.Have a submenu for each online directory server with a list of zones, their IP and port, their descriptions and player count.Integrate an Admin section to Add, Remove, or Modify Directory Server entries.Create a form for people to use to submit their Directory Server information.Setup auto.subdir.net so that it would automatically select a directory server that is online, has good latency and that has as many zones and players possible. Completed Ideas:Create a set of dirX.subdir.net alias', where X is a number and would also trace back to the IP address of that directory server. (Completed on 7/20/2008) Another update has been applied. By the way, do you think I should change any of the colors on the graphs? How about the borders -- should I use the in-game radar border graphics (which would give me around 8x8 pixels more for graph sizes) or are they good as they are now? EDIT :: I might increase the width again by 100 pixels or something and add in one more column to indicate a dirX.subdir.net address. Edited July 20, 2008 by L.C.
Samapico Posted July 19, 2008 Report Posted July 19, 2008 I think this should be moved to General Development. Any objections?
CRe Posted July 19, 2008 Report Posted July 19, 2008 I think this should be moved to General Discussion. Any objections? It already is in General Discussion
Samapico Posted July 20, 2008 Report Posted July 20, 2008 Maybe he meant General Development?... yes I did
L.C. Posted July 20, 2008 Author Report Posted July 20, 2008 An update to subdir.net has been applied.
Hakaku Posted July 20, 2008 Report Posted July 20, 2008 Here are more specific geolocations of each directory server: 1. ESTONIA > HARJUMAA > TALLINN 2. UNITED STATES > MICHIGAN > EAST LANSING 3. UNITED STATES > TEXAS > DALLAS 4.5. UNITED STATES > WASHINGTON > SEATTLE 6. UNITED STATES > ILLINOIS > LOMBARD PS: it's looking better.
L.C. Posted July 20, 2008 Author Report Posted July 20, 2008 (edited) Hakaku, how might you suggestion I display the Location information? Originally I intended it to be just the continental name. Perhaps I could have a little Javascript or tooltip little window popup when you would move your mouse over the continent and it'd give a more specific location. EDIT :: I'll probably do something like that unless someone can suggest a better, nicer way of doing it. Edited July 20, 2008 by L.C.
Dav Posted July 21, 2008 Report Posted July 21, 2008 perhaps have it as a goole pams pin and a mini map in the window showing the information
Snrrrub Posted July 21, 2008 Report Posted July 21, 2008 It's great to see a website that lists the directory servers and their status. However, using the dir#.subdir.net aliases exclusively defeats the purpose of having multiple directory servers: there's now a single-point-of-failure on the DNS of subdir.net. I think it's also important to mention that the IP address *must not* be used directly by zones/players. While it's good to list that information about the host, if their IP address changes and someone happens to be using it directly, there's no transparent way to recover. Having said that, I'm glad to see some useful services coming up - they'll help maintain a reliable and fault-tolerant network and relieve users from dealing with implementation details. Good work, LC.
L.C. Posted July 21, 2008 Author Report Posted July 21, 2008 Don't know if it matters to mention this or not, but the dirX.subdir.net's are setup with a CNAME entry pointing to the URL of a directory server (ie. warpath.hlrse.net, not the IP address). I just like to have the convenience of remembering a simple prefix for specific directory servers rather than a large, hard-to-remember name. auto.subdir.net would be brilliant alongside !@#$%^&*igned CNAME alias' to directory servers.
Cancer+ Posted July 21, 2008 Report Posted July 21, 2008 I think this should be moved to General Development. Any objections? Agreed
Snrrrub Posted July 22, 2008 Report Posted July 22, 2008 CNAME records are certainly the right approach here but they don't solve the single-point-of-failure issue I mentioned. Using a dirX.ssdir.net is fine as long as there are at least two other (different) non-ssdir servers in your list. Suppose the ssdir.net DNS server goes down, the domain doesn't get renewed, or the ownership of the domain gets transferred. If, as a zone owner, you only publish to ssdir, you're not going to be listed on any directory server anymore (and someone else could come in and steal your zone's name). As a player, you won't get any zone updates. At that point, each player/zone owner who is only referring to subdir will have to add other directory servers. We might as well avoid the problem now by not relying on a single DNS source for directory information. -Snrrrub
L.C. Posted July 22, 2008 Author Report Posted July 22, 2008 Suppose the ssdir.net DNS server goes down, the domain doesn't get renewed, or the ownership of the domain gets transferred.I understand your concern and I think it's pretty acceptable to consider negative possibilities. However, I don't think subdir.net will be having any problems, as hlrse.net nor bluetoast.org have had any problems for quite a while. The disclaimer is common sense. If you like it and want to use subdir.net, you're using it at your own risk and responsibility, etc. If you don't agree with this Snrub, that's fine by me (and in addition, I do take into mind the suggestions and ideas). Would you like to help out Snrub?
Snrrrub Posted July 22, 2008 Report Posted July 22, 2008 I would love to help out in any way possible. That's precisely why I set up yet another directory server - because I feel it poses the greatest risk and that risk can be managed with very little effort. Redundancy is key when it comes to the directory servers. I don't recommend *against* using subdir. In fact, I think it's fantastic that we have an easy-to-remember website to refer to. I'm just cautioning people against using subdir (or any other single domain) exclusively. Use it, by all means - but make sure you have at least 2 other domains too. Again, I'm not saying that the site will go down - but if it does, at least we're prepared and it costs nothing. I feel that it's important that everyone has a clear idea of how they can prevent potential failures. It's a very "Smokey Bear" approach but I think it's effective. L.C., if you've got any suggestions on how to improve the system, let me know and I'll do my best to make it happen. Again, good work on the website and DNS records. :-) -Snrrrub
Snrrrub Posted July 23, 2008 Report Posted July 23, 2008 I forgot to mention, I'm running a home-grown directory server so if there's any information you'd like me to publish from my server (e.g. uptime), let me know and we'll figure out the details on how you can obtain that information. -Snrrrub
rootbear75 Posted July 23, 2008 Report Posted July 23, 2008 Idea: In order to have redundancy, is there a way that if LC's host becomes unavailable for any reason, that dirX.subdir.net points to another server? say a duplicate one on Snrrrub's server maybe? or just have a duplicate system on snrrrub's server, and have people put dirX.subdir.net,dirX. in their Directory Servers box... just a thought
L.C. Posted July 23, 2008 Author Report Posted July 23, 2008 (edited) Snrub could get subdir.com/org or something and it could be a mirror of subdir.net. That could be a form of redundancy...although subdir.net is has server clustering. EDIT :: Or I could get subdir.com/org and set its nameservers to whatever Snrub has (and that way he'd be able to run a mirror of subdir.net). Edited July 23, 2008 by L.C.
Snrrrub Posted July 23, 2008 Report Posted July 23, 2008 I've bought the subdir.org domain and I've set up all of the DNS records as well. You can use dirX.subdir.org in addition to the .net version - they're equivalent. I've mirrored part of the site using wget but there are some issues with wget not parsing CSS files for image references. Let's figure out a good way to mirror - can you do rsync? -Snrrrub
L.C. Posted July 23, 2008 Author Report Posted July 23, 2008 http://www.hlrse.net/Qwerty/overflowproblem.gif Snrub, I've private messaged you a ZIP of the whole site. I think all you have to do is unzip it to your public_html or wherever you have the public root located at.
rootbear75 Posted July 24, 2008 Report Posted July 24, 2008 so say if i auto.subdir.net,auto.subdir.org, it should be fine right? a forum of redundancy or would you still suggest hardcoding a site into your Zone Listing?
L.C. Posted July 24, 2008 Author Report Posted July 24, 2008 (edited) so say if i auto.subdir.net,auto.subdir.org, it should be fine right? a forum of redundancy or would you still suggest hardcoding a site into your Zone Listing?Both (if I understand the second question correctly.) The idea is to provide a convenient, universally compatible, fully serviced system for providing directory server listings, which would include zone listings with descriptions, etc. However, I don't want to go as far as providing graphs and things -- there's already a website for that that is professionally designed and in reconciliation with my quality standards. so say if i auto.subdir.net,auto.subdir.org, it should be fine right? a forum of redundancyIn case I misunderstood this, auto.subdir.* does not exist yet because it requires backend coding to be able to complete that kind of work. Edited July 24, 2008 by L.C.
rootbear75 Posted July 25, 2008 Report Posted July 25, 2008 I meant should I have it in my listings like this: Have both auto.subdir.net as the main server. Should that server fail/crash/code breakage, auto.subdir.org is there for redundancy.Should auto.subdir.org fail/crash/code bug/breakage, the hardcoded ssdir.playsubspace.com (or some other server is a final backup)because from what i understand, not ALL zones use EVERY directory server, so using your auto.subdir.net would get me every zone thats connected to a dir server.
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