New server?

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

So I just bought an ibm dual quad xeon server with the intent to provide it as a resource to the community.

I will soon have unlimited 100/40 nbn at my house and was wondering who I could talk to (perhaps squall if he's got time) about hosting. If the first is a success.. my plan would be to purchase further servers (which I have access to at great prices) and potentially save the community a shit load of $$ in hosting fees.

With my quals from building comes rooms for q health for the last 7 years, they'd be stable, SPOF, and ups'd with redundancy measures, and have a 24/7 on site tech (me).

DTK has given heaps to all of us and I'd love the chance to give something back.

My time line for this plan has been accelerated after a few frustrating nights of 400-900 ms ping on the ggdm css server.

So if someone with the ability to have a serious chat could pm me that would be sick.

I'm based in Brisbane, and with Wombat servers being the only local game hosts (mind you their website barely loads) I think there's a space in this service area to be filled by someone who cares about what they're doing

[[DtK] [Jedi] Onesks]

What kind of server are you thinking about?

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

Tbh.. selfishly... it would be a css server. Maybe even a 'test' server of sorts for members map creations?... or I'm also interested in seeing if it's possible to replicate ttt for source... I like the idea, a lot... but still not sold on the go mechanics. Too run and gun for my personal appreciations of cs... but yeh I have ideas but am very open to suggestions!

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

Here she is in all her android edited glory. Sparklez and errythang.

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

Also after noticing recently it's been quite some time since any dtk competitive behaviour... perhaps a dedicated comp server? Or a weekly ranked server as opposed to all-time.. where players might not be so motivated to chase the leaders when the gap is so huge *cough*knightops*cough*. Haha.

Having a server no mater what the genre - even rotating on a weekly basis. With weekly leaders and an overall monthly champ who did the best in whatever 4 modes were up in the month.

But really in my eyes, ideally a space where members could team up and go head to head with each other. .. and maybe.. other aus casual communities.. like.... Um. .. 1man? ... or perhaps less drunk players from say pm:s and the likes?

[[DtK] [Jedi] Onesks]

I think another CSS server wouldn't hurt, we do have less CSS then CSGO servers atm. And will the comp server idea be on css or csgo?

[[DtK] [SA] imthenewguy]

It seems like a nice gesture but from memory Squally doesnt like hosting official servers on other peoples hardware. Lack of control as it would be with someone else.

You could host your own public server though, there are plenty of games out there that people would probs want to play if you build yourself a good player base.

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

It seems like a nice gesture but from memory Squally doesnt like hosting official servers on other peoples hardware. Lack of control as it would be with someone else.

You could host your own public server though, there are plenty of games out there that people would probs want to play if you build yourself a good player base.

Fair enough, cheers.

[[DtK] [Jedi] HawK]

Are you going to use your home internet to host? There are a few reasons as to why you wouldn't do it.
1) Bad routing. Routing to other residential connections ain't the best for everyone. Where as, if it's hosted at a datacenter of some kind, there will be minimal routing hops from the clients connection to the server. Depending what network the company is using.
2) Easy to DDOS. Not even a 100mbit upload connection, so a simple $2 DDOS attack will bring it down to it's knees and probably get a phone call from your ISP about GTFO.
3) Don't know why you got an actual server. They are made that way to take minimal space while slotted into racks. If you got it for cheap, then no problem, but more options with simple desktop hardware.

Not mean't to shit on your thread/idea, but I have done this before and it's not a solution I would recommend. Some idiot just DDOS your home internet and your shutout. Spend that 2 hour phone queue to your ISP to change IP and re-think your plans. I have 200/200mbit internet at home and I could easily just flood packets to your server. So those cheap network stressers for $2 that get over 10Gbps power would bring it down easy for those troll kid lulz.

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

Are you going to use your home internet to host? There are a few reasons as to why you wouldn't do it.
1) Bad routing. Routing to other residential connections ain't the best for everyone. Where as, if it's hosted at a datacenter of some kind, there will be minimal routing hops from the clients connection to the server. Depending what network the company is using.
2) Easy to DDOS. Not even a 100mbit upload connection, so a simple $2 DDOS attack will bring it down to it's knees and probably get a phone call from your ISP about GTFO.
3) Don't know why you got an actual server. They are made that way to take minimal space while slotted into racks. If you got it for cheap, then no problem, but more options with simple desktop hardware.

Not mean't to shit on your thread/idea, but I have done this before and it's not a solution I would recommend. Some idiot just DDOS your home internet and your shutout. Spend that 2 hour phone queue to your ISP to change IP and re-think your plans. I have 200/200mbit internet at home and I could easily just flood packets to your server. So those cheap network stressers for $2 that get over 10Gbps power would bring it down easy for those troll kid lulz.

Appreciate the concern but as I said I was the lead NE for a gov dept for 7 years... all these things are things I have considered and would have covered. I have a hardware deep packed firewall with dos protection so it's simple work to make it harder work than its worth to hit your server and trolls will move under other ppls bridges. Also a static IP with priority routing through any of the gov data centre's which I still have friends working in would make the connection to the hub 1000gps both ways then only 100/40 the short distance to my house and with most users still on copper to the house... well I'd be surprised if there was a noticeable difference.

Worst case if that happened to fail, I'd ask around for a data centre to slot it into and with my friends in the industry I'm sure it wouldn't be hard. The only advantage to having it at home is I can have it by my side for maintaining. As for your pc server idea. .. Um ... well for upgradable to that's about as good an idea as hosting the server on a laptop. Also I have just purchased a ibm 12ru under desk rack which will hold 5 servers and a enterprise quality ups (which is my end goal)

So to shut down the idea before it starts and flat out put me on the noob for my offer when really there's nothing to lose, is a little... well I can't pick an adjective so I'll let you choose.

What is the worse case scenario? Your right, I get ddos'd , can find a server room to host me, so I've spent a few hundred bucks and it didn't work out...

What has dtk lost in this situation?

All good. Humans are naturally wired to reject change and fear the unknown.

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

And when the ping on current css servers has literally been unplayable recently... how could looking for other avenues NOT be something to consider, especially when someone who is unemployed on sickness benefits, donates regularly, and (as far as I'm aware) has noone in the community who could say anything bad about me, is offering/has already footed the cash for another option to test, be dismissed?

Tbh. I'm a little baffled.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Muffbag]

So, what exactly would you be expecting in return for your privately hosted server(s) to be legally wearing the DTK branding?

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

So, what exactly would you be expecting in return for your privately hosted server(s) to be legally wearing the DTK branding?

Nothing in test phase. I thought I'd made that pretty clear in first post upon rereading perhaps not so much, and ultimately; if successful, a cheaper hosing option than the current situation.

So in short; I would simply be attempting to run a better, cheaper, more reliable service to the current one.. whether that means changing over to my final setup or just having more servers up for a fractional increase in costs is a discussion for much further down the road.

I'm not expecting dtk to transfer all their hosting to me on 2 months time, they'd have to be a little dumb to do anything of the sort, and being dumb hasn't got them this far... I'm sure that the council would put things in place over the process to ensure the protection of their brand, servers rep, and players.


Again all discussions to be had down the track and all options I'm open to discussing perhaps even on the phone or in person if there are any C or S members in Brisbane north area.

But at the end of the day as I also previously mentioned.. Wombat servers are my only potential comp in this state, so perhaps I'm better going all out and hosting a public data/game/ts server.

Just wanted to offer an in to my community comrades first, and didn't forsee such dismissal. Though in hindsight, it is the interwebs.. and at the end of the day only 1 or 2 ppl on here actually know me in person, so I appreciate you all can't be naive about these things.

But I will say 1 thing. I didn't join dtk years ago. Get in the top 200 on 3 servers. Donating as much as i could whenever i could, With at a guess over 500 hours on said servers, to somehow screw dtk - a community I'm open proud to be a part of - over, at my own financial expense.... really... it would just make no sense, yeah?

[[DtK] [C] Squall]

I feel if you had gone a different way about this, you wouldn't be feeling frustrated or baffled as you put it. Your gesture is much appreciated but it feels like you are putting us in a corner and then displaying disappointment when you are not receiving the responses you expected.

I would simply be attempting to run a better, cheaper, more reliable service to the current one

What we currently run is much better than the specs you mentioned and much more reliable than what you are suggesting (which is a lot of maybe's, might,would,etc).

ping on current css servers has literally been unplayable recently

Our servers recently have been under DDoS attack. No it does not mean we do not have DDoS protection. The datacenter where our servers are hosted at have premium DDOS protection. (Blacklotus,Staminus,NSFocus). Larger scale DDoS attacks cannot be fully mitigated. We run 15 servers currently, it's not that much. Big companies/sectors which run much more like banks,finance,telco, Sony Playstation Network, Xbox get affected by DDoS attacks, hell even the DNS root servers were attacked earlier this month causing query delays. Point is DDoS attacks will happen and depending on the size of the attack , there will be some impact on the servers. You assuming that just because the ping was high recently for a few days, we don't run a good setup or you have a better one is pretty much flat out putting us on the noob as you phrased it.


Even if we had the hardware and the network infrastructure at my home or at Stig's, we wouldn't host it at home to save on costs. A lot of things can go wrong at home. Datacenters on the other hand are specifically designed for hosting purposes and provide the necessary infrastructure. Why use a bank when you can just use a safe at home? Same logic applies. It does incur costs but we don't have any issues with that, if we did, we would have shut down a long time ago. With this setup, we have peace of mind.


I would definitely recommend setting up a server or two and experimenting. When I was a new member here, DtK didn't have a war server, I put one up and would only allow DtK members to play on it, DtK members started getting interested in pugging/wars and eventually DtK started it's own server and division.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Shadow]

When I was a new member here, DtK didn't have a war server, I put one up and would only allow DtK members to play on it

OMFG... so bloody cute

[[DtK] [V] SonicalKiss]

After readying this post, i can find pros and cons in both of the idea's

There is no server on this planet that is safe from being hacked into or DDoSS'd (correct me if i'm wrong) hosting from home has it's setups and it's setbacks mainly with High latancy.

i did attempt to host a older game server from home back when i was in the UK for Black Hawk Down, and even though i had protection against alot of attacks, all it takes is that one smart person to bypass a firewall (i don't think any firewall is impenatrable)(i mean the pentagon has one of the hardest firewalls in the world and somebody cracked that)

as Squall said datacentres are made for that kind of thing and vary rarely will they have peak times, where as home net i'm almost certain 70% of areas have peak times and trying to host for 30+ People is quite the irritation. i seen where you would be available 24/7 although you might be able to get phone calls at 3am in the morning about problems with the servers, i know as myself i would got mental if somebody called me at 3am about a server issue and with the high latency issue we are not the only servers that have been experiencing it to my knowledge i was even getting high ms on Competetive more then i usually do.

Sorry for bad Engligh.

P.S I beg please don't take this to heart, i believe that you might be trying to get the best ping there is going to be, and even if the server is lagging your still going to have one of the lowest pings cause of how close you are to the main server. and it might be unfair to others. which kind of give you the upper advantage on everything cause of the speed you get compared to others.

[[DtK] [V] SonicalKiss]

^^ knowledge from when i hosted my own BHD Server back in the UK

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

Fair call and thank you all I was looking for were responses that were simply based on "what might go wrong" and my only reason for mentioning the recent latency issues was to point out things are never perfect so "but it might not be perdect" is not really an appropriate response to someone who is trying to find out how they can help.

I will begin where you did with pug then, squall, that if was all I was looking for; where do I start this without stepping on toes (in my mind I could see legitimate frustration if I started a dtk only NON DTK server and was seen as taking members from official servers) so all I've ever been trying to do is find out the right way to go about this without pissing anyone off

Now I know where to start I will keep you updated as I go!

Cheers for taking the time to reply Squall I know you're a busy man, but it's saved any more circles in convo about this.

Cheers all, Dave


PS; anyone with suggestion for types of games to run on the server feel free to chime in or pm me, my intent is to create a different experience not just pinch players from existing servers with some variation of what ppl are already playing! And maybe even entice some of those who've taken a break in favor of other games back into the fold!!

Peace.

[[DtK] [M] Viktim]

After readying this post, i can find pros and cons in both of the idea's

There is no server on this planet that is safe from being hacked into or DDoSS'd (correct me if i'm wrong) hosting from home has it's setups and it's setbacks mainly with High latancy.

i did attempt to host a older game server from home back when i was in the UK for Black Hawk Down, and even though i had protection against alot of attacks, all it takes is that one smart person to bypass a firewall (i don't think any firewall is impenatrable)(i mean the pentagon has one of the hardest firewalls in the world and somebody cracked that)

as Squall said datacentres are made for that kind of thing and vary rarely will they have peak times, where as home net i'm almost certain 70% of areas have peak times and trying to host for 30+ People is quite the irritation. i seen where you would be available 24/7 although you might be able to get phone calls at 3am in the morning about problems with the servers, i know as myself i would got mental if somebody called me at 3am about a server issue and with the high latency issue we are not the only servers that have been experiencing it to my knowledge i was even getting high ms on Competetive more then i usually do.

Sorry for bad Engligh.

P.S I beg please don't take this to heart, i believe that you might be trying to get the best ping there is going to be, and even if the server is lagging your still going to have one of the lowest pings cause of how close you are to the main server. and it might be unfair to others. which kind of give you the upper advantage on everything cause of the speed you get compared to others.

Not taken to heart at all man and appreciate and under stand all these things, and in my plans the server would soley use my nbn connect and I would play from my adsl through the same routing any other player would use.

Also spent soooo many years on call for most of the 170 something comms rooms I built/upgraded/maintained for q health from email, San, data, 3rd party proprietary app servers to voip systems with 10000 ends, and emergency room paging systems with century old rf tech that they refuse to move on from that a 3 am call about my own server kinda excites me when I think about it... haha maybe that's a sign I have problems, but it's something I'm passionate about and I currently have the time and money to play it out, so why not yeh?

[[DtK] [Jedi] HawK]

Worst case if that happened to fail, I'd ask around for a data centre to slot it into and with my friends in the industry I'm sure it wouldn't be hard. The only advantage to having it at home is I can have it by my side for maintaining. As for your pc server idea. .. Um ... well for upgradable to that's about as good an idea as hosting the server on a laptop. Also I have just purchased a ibm 12ru under desk rack which will hold 5 servers and a enterprise quality ups (which is my end goal)

Well your first post didn't mention that you were going to be building up more servers for other stuff. It sounded like you just got home NBN and offering a dedicated server to DTK. You then mention cheaper solution to host through you, but those server specs already make your home internet (100/40) a bottleneck. Unless you are getting higher internet speeds at home later on, that server will be under used.
You mention now that you will be getting 5 servers later on for your own project and that you are offering 1 for DtK. That is fine, but I don't understand your point on upgradability to a laptop. You have dual xeon quad cores on a 100/40, other than getting gigabit internet at home, what is left to upgrade? more RAM? storage?
How many servers/services you want hosted on this box?
Were you going to do your own project stuff on it and offer DtK shared resources on it?

I have an i7 3770 (3.8ghz), 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD and 18TB RAID5 storage. I got this to replace my file server, but I did more in the specs because I wanted to host a few game servers for me and my mates, as well as hosting virtual systems (for learning at the time). Right now it hosts 5 game servers in total (CSGO, Killing Floor 2 and Minecraft), as well as FTP and HTTP services for game content. All game servers run perfect and perform better than streamline-servers, even when they are all populated.

Point is, hosting a few game servers can be done on desktop hardware just fine, but if you're going to think about expanding, replacing or upgrading, it's going to end up in a datacenter anyway, and it's unfair for us (DtK) to make you go out of your way to host, for something that started off as; "hey let me host a game server or two since I got NBN and probably won't be using all of this bandwidth".
As Squall said, you went the wrong way about offering a nice gesture. I did the same when I got my fiber internet, but pm'd Squall about hosting servers in NZ, since DtK is both AU and NZ community. He replied back with valid reasons and that was the end of it.

So to shut down the idea before it starts and flat out put me on the noob for my offer when really there's nothing to lose, is a little... well I can't pick an adjective so I'll let you choose.

I'm not saying you can't host anything. It's Squall's decision whether or not you can host for DtK or not. I'm just pointing out a few things you may encounter if you were to host publicly for DtK. There is always something to lose if represented under DtK.