Server Help

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2004 2:36 pm Post subject: another biller question

well i just wanted to ask what does Flag do in PLOGIN ..?

Grelminar · Creator of Asss Joined: Feb 26 2003 Posts: 378 Offline

it's right in the spec, two lines below the description of PLOGIN:

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:11 am Post subject:

yes i know... but i just dont understand that in the that description

cause.... umm ur telling me flag 0 is normal login as in the account is created ? and 1 is new player? thats strange o_O i dont think thats what it means umm whats the difference between normal login/ create a new player

CypherJF · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:19 am Post subject:

lol.. believe me it works out alright.

_________________
Performance is often the art of cheating carefully. - James Gosling

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:24 am Post subject:

i know its just a flag its useless but i want to understand it maybe its for

name
email
age
work place thing on SSC biller servers

so i can add extra saving stuff

Grelminar · Creator of Asss Joined: Feb 26 2003 Posts: 378 Offline

The difference is that a "normal login" (i.e., flag == 0) will fail if the name doesn't exist, but a "create new player login" (i.e., flag == 1), will succeed (and have a side effect of creating a new player). You can't tell me that it's useless, or that I'm wrong about what it means, and you can't try to make it mean something else, because I wrote the spec, and it means exactly what I say it does, and nothing more.

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:21 am Post subject:

Grelminar that flag is SENT to the the Biller

the Biller doesnt send the flag back

so how the hell should the game server (asss) would know if the player is new or not ok let me read ur post again i could be wrong with something

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:25 am Post subject:

since i cant edit posts ill just say it here

in the biller protocol
g is game server
b is billing server

so...

game sends:
g->b: "PLOGIN:pid:flag:name:pw:ip:macid:contid"

the game server asks the biller to log this person in
for example

PLOGIN:1:No clue here:Pokemon 2001:mypassword:127.0.0.1:3423432:longs of hex stuff

how does the game server request if the player exist or not? I ran a packet logger and it didn't do nothing for the flag

Mine GO BOOM · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:20 am Post subject:

It works like this.

Client tries to log in with a new name, sends a packet just like normal.
Server forwards to billing with the that flag set to 0.
Billing responds back with a decline message (too lazy to look it up right now).
Server sends back to client the logon packet, but with the 'Unknown user' flag toggle.
Client sees that, and asks the user if they want to create a new name.
Client then sends the exact same packet as the first step, except the flag is set to 1 for a new user.
Server forwards.
Billing recieves, notices the 'new user' part, checks to make sure the name isn't in use. If sucessfully created, responds back like any normal client would get.
Server tells the user 'you are now logged in.'
Client becomes happy.

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:47 pm Post subject:

where does it send the flag back?

to log in u gotta pass this

"WANTREG:pid"
"POK:pid:rtext:name:squad:billerid:usage:firstused"

no flags anywhere there

Smong · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:54 pm Post subject:

PBAD:pid:newname:rtext

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:59 pm Post subject:

ohh so u gotta say that in the file

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:01 pm Post subject:

hey soo flag for PLOGIN is useless like i said
flag will always be 0

because the PBAD is called only if the name doesnt exist or something is wrong

Smong · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:01 pm Post subject:

Edit: The protocol works fine. I have written 2 billers that use this protocol and it all makes sense. Why don't you go away and try this out for yourself instead of being like Qndre.

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:05 pm Post subject:

I did make my own and it works good just listen....

Im thinking here why does the PLOGIN send a flag when its always going to be 0 its a useless part in the packet

PBAD is only called when names dont exist or password or something

but every character passes PLOGIN first!!

Smong · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:09 pm Post subject:

Here is what mgb said but with parts of the protocol added:

Client tries to log in with a new name, sends a packet just like normal.
Server forwards to billing with the that flag set to 0. g->b PLOGIN...0
Billing responds back with a decline message (too lazy to look it up right now). b->g PBAD...1
Server sends back to client the logon packet, but with the 'Unknown user' flag toggle.
Client sees that, and asks the user if they want to create a new name.
Client then sends the exact same packet as the first step, except the flag is set to 1 for a new user.
Server forwards. g->b PLOGIN...1
Billing recieves, notices the 'new user' part, checks to make sure the name isn't in use. If sucessfully created, responds back like any normal client would get. b -> g POK...
Server tells the user 'you are now logged in.'
Client becomes happy.

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:11 pm Post subject:

ok tell me when flag is 1 or something on PLOGIN and not 0 on BILLING server

there is no way the client (Continuum) will know if a player is new or not

Smong · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:18 pm Post subject:

If you try to login with a new name the server forwards your login to the biller (PLOGIN 0). The biller then fails to find an existing account with that name and sends this fact to the client (PBAD 1). The client then requests a new name (PLOGIN 1).

pokemon 2001 · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:40 pm Post subject:

2dragons · Novice Joined: Feb 17 2004 Posts: 95 Offline

In my opinion it is a bit of a hack around having defined reasons for not allowing a login.

Basically when a user logs in there are 3 options:

Login Suceeded
Login Failed (No account exists)
Login Failed (For some reason)

and each option's response string

POK
PBAD:0
PBAD:1

The only thing that little field does is tell the server if the login is bad because the name doesn't exist or if the login is bad for some other reason.

If you just take note of the SS biller protocol you'll see it defined PBAD responses while the TCP protocol allows you to write any reason for not allowing a connection.

Mine GO BOOM · Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:44 am Post subject:

Sometimes you'll need to inform the user as to why they were accepted. For the chat protocol, it maybe that the host doesn't want chat users to gain access, but will post an email or web address in which they can contact a person to apply for an expection.

As for having a username there, that is because the billing server is able to rename a user. This was originally done because logging in was not case sensitive, but in game, your username was always the same case as when you first created the username.

This has later been used to rename users to ^Banned when banned, and ^Name when running off a billing server proxy when the real one is down. That allows some hosts to force all chat clients to be different in someway than normal users in game, such as having a * at the end, if they wish.