Remote Networking Games

[Kowood]

Ever played The SIms, or Simcity, hell, most PC games have this....A cheat box that appears usually at the top of the screen and is about big enough for a short sentece. You enter your cheat code in their and hit enter and it affects the game however you prompted it to. Well, I've also heard these called "chat windows" and heard that they have something to do with a network. Does this mean ::squeals with joy:: that I can remotely network 2 games of The Sims? For example....Network myself with my friend 2 towns over WITHOUT a 20-mile long network cable, and be playing the same game.

[Cuddles]

Kowood,

My guess is.... YES!

How? No clue...

Digital Equipment Corp. ( DEC ), used to run "X-Windows" on there workstations, and they could run a "game", through the intra-net, displaying the views of each player on there respective workstations, I think the game was called X-Tank.

The problem is, just how, and what, needs to be set up to get this "network" talking to each other. You will, probably, need one of the systems to act as the "server" and the "client", and then other systems would "connect" to that server, and act as other clients, but, what elludes me, is, what network, intra-net or inter-net, and what form of communication, nfs, samba, nis, etc... It could be as easy as setting up "remote logins" for this to work, but, I havent any clues.

I have tried the game "KWin4", which has the "network" part built-in, but can not get the server to announce, broadcast its services, nor get a "client" to acknowledge the server exists, or connect. In short, you have a two player game, with only one player. I have not tried any other "networked" game other than this, and have guessed that "something" isnt working right, and put it on the "back burner" so to speak.

I have two computers, each running a version of Kanotix, and nfs, both capable of remote file access to the other, and a networked printer, running on one system as the "server", and the other seeing it as a networked printer ( client ). But, I cant seem to get a networked game to recognize that the "intra-net" can give a game another player other than locally on the system.

If anything, I am interested in seeing where this topic / thread goes, and if any responses yield resolutions, and thus, my pitiful addition of response will get me into the inclusion of future responses on your issue...

I, as well as, you, probably, are waiting for a "valid" response,
Ms. Cuddles

[angor]

Hi Ms Cuddles,

after reading (and liking) a lot of your postings it's nice to be able to answer to you for once

Start kwin4 on computer 1, go to Game->Network Configuration and click Start Network.
(Accept default port 7442)

Start kwin4 on computer 2, go to Game->Network select "Join a network game", enter the name
of computer 1 in "Host to connect to" and Start Network.

That's all it took on two of my stations, knoppix 3.6 + 3.7

Happy gam(e?)ing!

[Cuddles]

angor,

I was hoping this would have worked, but, needless to say, went through the steps, and nothing...

I tried the systems name, and even the IP address, and nothing...

Computer 1 gets the network config saying "You are MASTER", and the game reports the network is up... On the Computer 2, it doesnt recognize a network as being up. I even tried "network chat", from within KWin4, and send to all players, and nothing shows up from one computer to the other....

Alas, I still think something is missing in my network setup

( but thanks for trying )
Ms. Cuddles

[angor]

> Alas, I still think something is missing in my network setup

Ok, let's have a look...

First of all: can your two stations ping each other?

On computer1 (having started the game and initiated the network game):
root@annika:~# netstat -tanp|grep kwin4
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:7442 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 3968/kwin4

This shows that computer1 is really listening. Then on computer2, start the game and tell it to connect to computer1
root@whitebird:~# netstat -tanp|grep kwin4
tcp 0 0 192.168.0.4:1608 192.168.0.2:7442 ESTABLISHED14641/kwin4

And now on computer1:
root@annika:~# netstat -tanp|grep kwin4
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:7442 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 3968/kwin4
tcp 0 0 192.168.0.2:7442 192.168.0.4:1608 ESTABLISHED3968/kwin4

Of course your IP addresses, ports, and process ids will be different, but other than that, what does netstat tell you?

a) I hope the above won't get mangled too much by html-processing
b) In case it does, the character between "tanp" and "grep" is supposed to be a "pipe" aka "vertical bar"

[Cuddles]

I think I know why this isnt working... But, first, how I came up with this thought...

Followed the above steps, Computer#1 sets up and shows a tcp LISTEN...

Computer#2 attempts to join, but, doesnt show ESTABLISHED, but, rather a SYN_SENT - and after a few seconds, displays in KWin4 the network is not working...

Computer#1 never shows that Computer#2 is attempting a connection...

NOW, what I think is the problem...

I can ping C#1 to C#2, and vice-versa...

I have a firewall running on both computers, GuardDog - and I "think" its not permitting these two systems to communicate, other than "ping", nfs processes, and printer sharing -=- what would I need to "enable" in both firewalls, locally, to allow the connections? ( this is my only resoning why I cant get the game to network together )

Ms. Cuddles

[angor]

I think you're right, this smells of firewall...

If you can do that in your environment, try again with both firewalls switched off (temporarily, of course).

If that works, consider the following rules for iptables (command line, I don't know GuardDog)

Computer1:
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -s <ip.of.comp.2> --dport 7442 -j ACCEPT

Computer2:
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -s <ip.of.comp.1> --sport 7442 -j ACCEPT

The entry for computer2 may not be necessary if the firewall there has a rule for "ESTABLISHED, RELATED",
which I think is likely. (Test with "iptables -nL")

[Cuddles]

angor,

you were right, it was the firewall... I hit up the irc chat, irc.freenode.org -=- #kanotix ( this is also where you can find the Knoppix irc chat at as well #knoppix ), and was able to ditch the Guarddog firewalls, and go directly to iptables rules direct...

The netowrk games work perfectly now I've run KWin4, KBattleship, and a few other "network" games...

Thanks for all the help, I never would have continued, if it didnt look like the light at the tunnel, was in sight

Ms. Cuddles