some questions regarding servers and connections...

[2020]

not sure where this query goes

i have been experiencing wild ping fluctuations
which accounts for my terrible play
hehe
and so my isp have asked me to provide them with the following information

name of game
when i play
screenshots????
trace routes
and server

i can provide most of that
but i am not sure about how the servers connect up
i believe it connects to a central server to get the list of servers
and then when i enter a server
i just access them directly...
is this right?
in which case
what do i tell them?
i go to LOD AST ZMANS and TEAM CHALLENGE
does that mean i must ask for the individual server names from the admin
or can i enter some kind of code in the consol to trace the route...?


thanks for the help

[Jonathan]

Armagetron clients connect directly to the server. The master server is merely there to advertise servers and to tell clients how to connect directly.

Try "traceroute host" in the Terminal, or the Traceroute tab in Network Utility. To do that you first need to know the address of the server. I tend to use tcpdump if the relevant program doesn't let me know, but that's not very user-friendly. Hopefully someone knows a way that works better for relative novices. Wasn't the address printed in the client's console when connecting to a server? Scroll up (page up key) and see if it's there. It should look like 1.2.3.4:5 (four decimal numbers between 0 and 255 inclusive, separated by dots, followed by a colon and a 0..65535 port). 1.2.3.4 is what you want.

A real-world example of part of a traceroute, which shows quite clearly that some link in/near Australia was not working properly, as well as a very useful reply by a certain Dave Fancella.

I'm also wondering why they'd need screenshots.

[2020]

the server isn't listed in the game
at least not in the part written in the chat when connecting

i also downloaded tcpdump
and it is unintelligible
correction
i am unintelligent

hopefully the owners of the servers will contact me with their server locations...

[Jonathan]

Actually tcpdump comes with Mac OS X. Just do something like "sudo tcpdump -n" (you should be an admin to use sudo and give your password when asked) in Terminal.app and watch what other systems packets are traveling to/from. Relevant lines look like "time IP srcaddr.port > dstaddr.port: description" (main thing to look for is "srcaddr.port > dstaddr.port"). If one of srcaddr and dstaddr is the address you can see in your network configuration (likely to be 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x), you should note the other one. If you are only using the network for Armagetron and are actually playing (i.e. generating traffic) the most prevalent address is probably the one of the server. It's safe to close the window when tcpdump is still running.

I was just planning to see if I can find the addresses myself, but I don't see the servers you mentioned.

[Lackadaisical]

You can bookmark a server by pressing 'b' on the server list, then you can find the ip and port number if you go to network game -> server bookmarks-> edit bookmarks -> edit the server you want to find the ip and port of.
example:

Z-mans tournament server:

134.95.67.124:4535

[wrtlprnft]

easy way in our IRC channel: type #serverdetails -v <part of the server name>. It will give you something like this:

wrtlprnft: Crazy Tronners Wild Fortress (85.10.211.185:4534) running 0.2.8.2.1 unix dedicated, Description: “There's like all these weird maps, man.“, Players (6/14): Carlos Ray, CT|root, Police, SNAFU, [CT]TH£ KÏÐ6, ~

The bold part is what you need.

[2020]

thanks guys
job done

sorry jonathan
that was a little too much for me for now...

[Jonathan]

No problem. This also does the job, and in fact I mentioned that others would come with simpler solutions.