Steam Community Group Features & Demo Update Out

[Mana 3,867]

Steam Community group features info:

Ok, we're getting ready to ship the first round of the group features we've been working on this week.

There is a new cvar called sv_steamgroup, which takes the Steam group number (which is now visible on the group's administrative page). The server will still be part of matchmaking, but users that are in that group will be able to browse directly to it from the main menu. Also, if this value is set, there will be a button near the message of the day that allows users to go directly to that group's page. This allows them to join that group if they like, and then be able to browse back to it in the future.

There is another convar in there called sv_steamgroup_exclusive, which isn't completely implemented yet. The goal if it will be to make a server only joinable by users within that group, but there are some edge cases where matchmaking could still potentially put users on there. People are welcome to play around with it for now, and we should have it fully implemented in the next few days or so.

Hopefully this addresses some of the concerns server admins have brought up.

Erik

Update changelog

A required update for the Left 4 Dead Demo has been released. Please run hldspdatetool to receive the update. The specific changes include:

- Added the ability to tie game servers to Steam Community groups. Group administrators can now see the GroupID on the group's administrative page, which can be used as the value for sv_steamgroup. Users that are in that group will then be able to browse directly to them from the main menu

- Fixed setinfo exploit

- Fixed a crash when exiting the game

- Fixed a few cases where the game would crash when using ALT-TAB

- Fixed a problem that could cause texture corruption on some ATI video cards

- Fixed a bug that could cause infected horde to disappear

And we've added more documentation for dedicated servers in the file dedicatedserver_readme.txt

Jason

Left 4 Dead Dedicated server readme file:

General dedicated server changes for Left4Dead:

===============================================

* There is a new remote access feature which allows a server

administrator (or software tool) to create a persistent connection

to a running server, and to see its entire console output and send

it commands. This feature is enabled by using the "-netconport"

option when launching srcds. For instance, if a server is started

with "-netconport 9000", someone with access to port 9000 of the

server could type "telnet xxxx 9000" and view the console

output. This feature is disabled by default, and should only be used

when an appropriate firewall/tunnel is used to control access to

this port. Multiple clients can connect to the netconport of a

running server at the same time.

* If the netconsole is enabled, and the option "-netconpassword xxx"

is set, the network console will not execute commands received

through the netconport until the command "PASS xxx" is entered.

* Dedicated servers by default participate in matchmaking. Matchmaking

system allows players to get together in a lobby and then start a game

on a dedicated server together. To make your Left 4 Dead dedicated

server easily accessible to your community you would create a Steam group

and get its group id on Steam community group admin page (say "444").

Set "sv_steamgroup 444" to make all members of your Steam group have access

to the server from their main menu. You can also set "sv_steamgroup_exclusive 1"

which will require that at least one player from your Steam group has to join

the server before public people will be able to join via matchmaking.

Linux-specific dedicated server changes for Left4Dead

=====================================================

There have been many changes, enhancements, and optimizations with the

dedicated server for Linux:

* All of the code is now being compiled with gcc 4.3.0 and glibc 2.8-8

in order to take advantage of compiler fixes and optimization

enhancements. In order to run the l4d Linux dedicated server, you

will need a system which can run binaries built against this version

of glibc.

* As a performance enhancement, the dedicated server can now use the

hardware "RDTSC" timer instead of gettimeofday() for its internal

timing, on systems which support it ( such systems are identified by

having the "constant_tsc" flag set in /proc/cpuinfo ). When the code

detects that the system has this, it will execute a benchmark to

measure the actual rate of the hardware timer, and use this for all

timing. If this causes trouble on a system, you can set the

environment variable "RDTSC_FREQUENCY" to "disabled".

* The Linux dedicated server is now capable of running multiple

server instances as sub-processes off of one parent process. This

provides a memory savings (through sharing of read-only data), a

speedup when starting multiple servers, and also enhances server

stability by having the servers restart as new sub-processes after

each game is completed. This is controlled by the "-fork n" option.

For instance, you can run "srcds_run -fork 5" to start up 5 separate

server instances in this mode.

* When -fork mode is enabled, some options on the command line can be

parametrized based upon the server instance, by typing '##' on the

launching line. For instance, "-fork 10 -netconport 90##" would

cause the first server instance to use port 9001, the second to use

9002, etc.

* When running with -fork mode and a netconsole, the control/parent

process will also listen on a port and accept commands. For

instance, if you start the server with "-fork 10 -netconport 90##",

the parent will accept netconsole connections on port 9000, the

first child will accept netconsole connections on port 9001,

etc. You can see a list of commands accepted by the parent process

by connecting to it and typing "find". useful commands are:

status see status of all children.

shutdown cleanly shutdown the server when all games have finished.

broadcast <cmd> execute the console command 'cmd' on all active subprocesses.

Note that this netconsole also obeys the set -netconpassword. You

should always set a password unless you are otherwise protecting

access to your netconsole ports (for insatnce via a firewall/ssh

tunnel).

* The linux dedicated server supports a watchdog timer functionality,

which is enabled by default. The intent of this timer is to make

anything which hangs the server, either due to unknown bugs or

misconfiguration, cause an abort, so that the server may restart or

be debugged. In the case of a forked server, this will cause a new

subprocess to start to replace the crashed one. On a non-forked

server, this can be used in conjunction with an auto-restart script

in order to increase server availability. If you see your server

dying with SIGALRM (signal 14), it means that this has triggered

because of either a server frame taking longer than 5 seconds of

wall time, or a map load taking too long. If this code causes

trouble for you, it can be disabled via giving the "-nowatchdog"

option on the command line.