AA dedicated server for MIPS arch?

va1210 · Post by **va1210** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:42 pm

Does anyone have a MIPS version of the dedicated server? It would be really great to be able to install the AA server on a router running OpenWRT (http://openwrt.org/).

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:57 pm

If you've got one of those routers setup, I'm game to try to make a package.

va1210 · Post by **va1210** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 12:51 am

Lucifer wrote:If you've got one of those routers setup, I'm game to try to make a package.

Great stuff! Yeah, I've got one, so let me know if there's anything you need to know and I'll be glad to help out in any way possible.

Post by **Lucifer** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:01 am

I probably will only need you to test stuff.

Looks like I need to installer what amounts to a cross compiler and compile away. I'll see if I can static-link everything for dependencies sake.

Hmm, does Openwrt have support for shared libraries? Does it have SDL and libxml2 available? for z-man: how badly does the dedicated server need SDL? I know it needs libxml2 to parse the maps....

Also, does Openwrt already have a web browser? If so, where is the web root? I would be inclined to put my resource directory there if I could and have a default installation that serves up its own resources. In the long run, a web admin setup will be needed to make it "production-ready", but for now we can just get it running with a default config.

I have one of those particular linksys routers, but I wasn't aware of the Openwrt project. I thought linksys was still hording their code. But I don't have time (or a spare router) to thrash my router's firmware and then try to fix it.

Post by **dlh** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:09 am

Dedicated doesn't use SDL (check out rSDL.h)

Post by **Lucifer** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:13 am

nemostultae wrote:Dedicated doesn't use SDL (check out rSDL.h)

Not even for net?

Edit: I just opened nSocket.h and saw that it doesn't include any SDL stuff. That's good news.

va1210 · Post by **va1210** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:27 am

The main limitation of the WRT router is it's memory. The basic WRT54G only comes equpped with 4 Mbs of flash memory and 16 Mb RAM, with only ~2 Mb of free flash space after the openwrt firmware has been installed. There are ways of extending the memory (i.e. by adding an MMC card reader), but I suspect most WRTs don't have more than the default amount of memory available. How big do you suspect the final compiled binary package to be?

Regarding static/dynamic linking, the OpenWRT project comes equipped with a package management system called ipkg, meaning that software installed through ipkg can be neatly based on external libraries such as libxml2. For a list of currently available packages, check out http://tracker.openwrt.org/packages/. Unfortunately I don't yet know how to create ipkg packages, but I don't think it should be too difficult to learn.

Post by **Lucifer** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:48 am

Yeah, I read about the ipkg stuff. It doesn't look too hard to build a package, and the game is fairly well configurable. As long as you have an FHS-like hierarchy I should be able to get it in there probalby without any code changes.

The catch is going to be the space needed. Luckily, the dedicated server just needs its map, config files, and some room to store high scores and stuff. I'll check how big the score files are on my server to get an idea how much space is needed.

With a stripped binary, I don't think we'll have a big space problem, but there is the chance that we'll fill up that extra 2MB. Maybe I'll gzip the core setting files and see how hard it would be to unzip them at runtime. We'll see. First I'll try to get the package built, then we'll worry about the rest.

How much CPU power does the thing have? Is it big or little-endian? Does it support 32-bit float? (I think that's the biggest basic type we use, REAL is #defined in some header that should be available)

The compiled binary on my system is 1.2MB. I tried to strip it and it's still 1.2MB. Did I do something wrong? Heh. Of course, that says nothing of how big it'll be when compiled for mips.

Post by **Lucifer** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:50 am

Hmmm, there's a libxml2 package, but it's 2MB! Are you sure about your size numbers?

va1210 · Post by **va1210** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:47 am

Lucifer wrote:Hmmm, there's a libxml2 package, but it's 2MB! Are you sure about your size numbers?

Oh crap, that does seem to be the case.. I guess I'll have to resort to the ol' soldering iron and install that MMC reader if I want to get this to work.

Anyhow, the processor is 200 Mhz MIPS, but I'm not familiar with any of the other specs of the system. I checked /proc/cpuinfo and this is what I get:

system type : Broadcom BCM947XX
processor : 0
cpu model : BCM3302 V0.7
BogoMIPS : 239.20
wait instruction : no
microsecond timers : yes
tlb_entries : 32
extra interrupt vector : no
hardware watchpoint : no
VCED exceptions : not available
VCEI exceptions : not available

(Btw, I'm going away for the weekend, so I prob won't be checking in here until sunday)

Post by **Tank Program** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 1:24 pm

I have a friend whose really into this stuff on his router too... And overall, all this WRT router stuff with the linux & whatnot, is pretty cool.

Seeker · Post by **Seeker** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:56 am

Netgear also has a router that will run openWRT, and it has a usb port for external hard drives/ memory keys/ card readers built in. I was going to get one for my house as an upgrade from my present netgear router.

Post by **Lucifer** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:03 am

Hey, thanks for reminding me. An aa package for a router is going to call for a lot more space. I checked it out and there's just no way around it.

I'm not really in a position to mod my router for it, and I've been a leeetle too busy to set up the cross compiler. Sorry.

And without modding my router, I have no place to test it.

(I seem to recall an emulator being available somewhere, though. Maybe, we'll see.)

hang3r · Post by **hang3r** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:33 am

Yeah would really love to get an AA dedicated server up and running on my D-Link 502T, processor Architecture is MIPS aswell.

If you get something compiled, give me a shout please.

MemTotal: 14424 kB
MemFree: 3644 kB <----

cpu model : MIPS 4KEc V4.8
BogoMIPS : 149.91 <----

wait instruction : no
microsecond timers : yes
extra interrupt vector : yes
hardware watchpoint : yes
VCED exceptions : not available
VCEI exceptions : not available

EDIT:

getting it onto the sucker is easy, wget's there waiting for me

Post by **Tank Program** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:20 am

I'm not sure if that's going to be enough power for the server...