Freeciv.net web client needs new server!

[andreasr]

The Freeciv.net web client needs a new server. Perhaps YOU want to be the one who hosts the Freeciv web server,
if you have a spare server connected to the Internet somewhere.

The source code can be found here, and I can guide you through every step of the installation process:
https://github.com/andreasrosdal/freeciv-web (This is the code I used to host Freeciv.net games on, so it should just work)

There's also a branch here, which is updated to the lastest freeciv.org svn trunk: https://github.com/cazfi/freeciv-web (not tested with live players yet)

I stopped hosting Freeciv.net myself because it was quite a lot of work and the server I rented was expensive.
But perhaps someone else in this forum are interested, and have a spare server that they want to host online Freeciv games on.



This is what Freeciv.net looks like:

[Davide]

Hi Andreas, it's good to read you again after all this time. You did a great work at freeciv-web, my congratulations.
Of course I'm interested in the project, and I'll offer my servers for what they can provide on system resources.
I'm reading the documentation on github now and trying to set up a test configuration for freeciv-web. The target is the cazfi's latest effort revision.
There will be a dedicated linux user to run the software, whit a team of peer admins to monitor and take action on it; interested people can request an account.

The main problem however is resource consumption: the server hosting this forum is very fast on bandwidth, with no tangible limit on monthly traffic, but has only 128 MB ram and 90 seconds of 100% cpu usage. However, my other available server on internet (awful DNS freeciv-debian.ns0.it) has all the hardware needed (768 MB ram, fast unmetered cpu) but has only 60 kB/s network (low-latency). If this bandwidth cap is not a major problem (i.e. if it may slow down the game only at first load, when the browser downloads the applet and data, but then the game runs smooth) I can bridge the two servers together (HTML5 iframe), so that freeciv-web is reachable from the DNS civland.org, but then the actual software runs on freeciv-debian.ns0.it.

I'm on it now; thanks again Andreas.

[andreasr]

Hi Davide! Cool, I can't wait for you to get the game running on your server.
I suggest you try installing it on both servers, and see which it runs best on.
Perhaps you could try running the freeciv-web Resin web application on your server without bandwidth
limitations, and the rest on your server without cpu limitation. But try to install everything on both servers first,
and test which is best.

Good luck!

[Davide]

I'm taking the time to read Nginx documentation and configure it. For evening Nginx should be up and running fine and, perhaps, some more components, too!
I'm still focussed to setup freeciv-web entirely inside freeciv-debian.ns0.it, then the webserver stuff will go in civland.org.
It's great that thru Nginx it's possible to not affect this forum at all, as the two webservers (resin for freeciv-web, ligthy for forum) can be proxied and run on secondary ports.

Everybody can suggest a preferred URL from where Freeciv will be playable! Examples:

Code: Select all

play.civland.org, or
civland.org/play-online

Anyway, I'll be busy these days and have little time. The setup will progress nonetheless.

[Keysersoze]

I would like to see freeciv.net client connecting to regular standard stand-alone freeciv servers.
This way we would get together users of our community. It would be a great benefit for every side.

[Davide]

I would like to see freeciv.net client connecting to regular standard stand-alone freeciv servers.
This way we would get together users of our community. It would be a great benefit for every side.

The version of Freeciv used by freeciv-web seems to be 2.2.99-dev (cat ~/civweb/freeciv/version.in)... maybe we could extract a patch between the version of Freeciv used by freeciv-web and the 2.2.99 vanilla, then apply it to a newer version (2.4.0) ?

I think it is possible to list the freeciv-server(s) used by freeciv-web into the regular metaserver, but user's standalone clients filter out servers if these are too old (eg. 2.4.0 clients can't see 2.3.0 servers)

Edit:
Freeciv-web servers are incompatible with Freeciv.

[andreasr]

I would like to see freeciv.net client connecting to regular standard stand-alone freeciv servers.
This way we would get together users of our community. It would be a great benefit for every side.

Edit:
Freeciv-web servers are incompatible with Freeciv.

Yes, this is correct, Freeciv-web servers are incompatible with Freeciv. This isn't because we don't want them to interoperate, it is because it is much more difficult and complex to implement a network server for Freeciv which supports both HTTP web-client and the freeciv-desktop client at the same time. Thanks to the development to Freeciv-web done by cazfi on github, Freeciv-web and Freeciv run on a quite similar codebase. Once this development work is completed, the games can be compatible. However, based on my experience with Freeciv.net, most people play Freeciv in single-player mode, and then interoperability isn't really as important.


Andreas